Make no mistake, this is a real estate development

So Links Living head honcho Stephen Head is delighted the project at Maddens Plains, Illawarra Escarpment, has been approved. He looks forward to working with the community on the project. A project he says will create jobs for the post construction over 20 years. 20 years? Surrounded by a recognised pristine highly sensitive environmental area that will not be affected?

This is the first I heard of 20 years. All information originally was for 10 years and then apparently cut back to 4 years. Where did this 20 years come from?

Make no mistake, this is a real estate development. To sell individual living quarters to investors with permanent owners whether they live there full time or not. Links Living indicate that in their information.

Links Living say they are like a weekender. But a weekender is classified as a second home and you pay Council rates for that. I know because my family have a weekender, classified as a second home to which we pay rates to Shoalhaven City Council. It's in the real estate development of Dolphin Point, Burrill Lake. And no, we don't rent it out.

The Director General has stated in the approval: "It is also recommended that the number of days any person can occupy the tourist accommodation is capped to maintain the development’s integrity as a bona fide tourist development and not permanent residential accommodation”. But they are just words. Who is going to actually police this? The Keep Your Word Police?

There may be considerable employment in the local area but who says locals will get it. Mr Head doesn't.

So those involved in State Parliament, from the Planning Minister through to Links Living, you will be the ones who go into the history books for the start of the rape of the pristine, sensitive environment of the Illawarra Escarpment/ Woronora Plateau described by Sir David Attenborough as the Kadadu of New South Wales.

A place that should have been on the National Heritage List like the nearby Garrawarra State Conservation Area and the Royal National Park, second oldest declared park in the world. There is also the adjacent Dharawal Conservation and Nature Reserves. Let's forget about the adjacent O'Hares, Cataract, Woronora Catchment Areas and the magnificent Maddens Creek Falls as they are not obviously worth caring about.

Just as well I made video documentaries up on line for all the world to see on the area because now we'll know what it used to look like in 20 years time and beyond. The proven extreme weather conditions will also take their toll, so buyers beware.

Thank you so much for proving there is no heart in humanity when it comes to making the almighty buck.

Kudos to Wollongong City Council, other authorities including the vast number in the local community in trying to stop this development for all the right reasons.

 Alan Bond

VIDEO LINKS: http://www.revver.com/video/793594/objection-documentary/

http://www.revver.com/video/848448/objection-part-3-environmental-reality/

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