BELLINGEN SHIRE – More than 100 local residents have embraced a new model for “forever affordable” homeownership, showing strong support at recent public information sessions hosted by the Waterfall Way Community Land Trust Ltd (WWCLT Ltd.) this month.
More than 100 residents attended a series of recent public information sessions hosted by the Waterfall Way Community Land Trust Ltd (WWCLT Ltd.) this month.
Held in Dorrigo, Urunga and Bellingen, the sessions were part of WWCLT Ltd’s wider campaign to introduce the Community Land Trust (CLT) model to the Bellingen Shire.
WWCLT Ltd describes the CLT as a community-led housing model designed to create ‘forever affordable’ homeownership for local people on local incomes who are currently priced out of the market.
Attendees across all three sessions showed strong support for the CLT model and its goal to deliver secure, shared homeownership that enables long-term residents and essential workers to stay and thrive in their communities.
Many took immediate action by completing a high-level Registration of Interest (ROI) form for future CLT housing or signing up as a Friend of the WWCLT Ltd — opportunities still open to all interested residents via the Housing Matters website: https://housingmatters.org.au
WWCLT Ltd. Project Lead, Kerry Pearse, said she was heartened by the strong community turnout and the level of local engagement.
“It’s incredibly encouraging to see residents not only back the Community Land Trust model but also step up to be part of it — whether by registering their interest in a home or spreading the word. This is a community-powered solution, and we’re just getting started,” Kerry said.
A standout feature of each session was the launch of the WWCLT’s powerful short film, which explores the deepening housing affordability crisis across the Shire. Featuring interviews with local residents, business owners, and community leaders, the film offered a moving look at the toll of the housing crisis and the hope the CLT model represents as a community-owned solution.
Now that the info sessions have wrapped up, WWCLT Ltd is continuing outreach efforts through ‘Kitchen Table Conversations’ in people’s homes and ‘Work Bench Conversations’ in local workplaces. If you’d like to host a session or learn more about how you, your organisation, or your neighbours can get involved, the team would love to hear from you.
To find out more or get involved, contact Rose West on 0494 331 821or clt@housingmatters.org.au
Now that the info sessions have wrapped up, WWCLT Ltd is continuing outreach efforts through ‘Kitchen Table Conversations’ in people’s homes and ‘Work Bench Conversations.’
This post by Waterfall Way Community Land Trust, and related newspaper article, bothfail to mention a very important inconvenient truth about their Affordable Housing proposal – the fact that the chosen site for their first Demonstration Project, Lot 1 Ferry Street Urunga, is entirely and totally unsuitable for any type of housing. This fact is the very reason it has remained “an unused piece of Council land” for so many decades.
Not only that, but Lot 1 is an important and much-loved asset to all residents living nearby, being an original piece of Urunga bushland, fortuitously surviving developement, and long used by locals and passers-by as a little de-facto bush park. It contains over 50 trees of many varieties, some being towering 100 year-old eucalypts, multi-branched habitat trees with magnificent canopy, which, together with smaller under-storey species, create a little eco-system, home and refuge for many small native animals and birds. A koala has passed through here, as do wallabies. Children play here, dogs are walked here, people stroll in from the footpath to be among the trees; some even hug them!
To propose destruction of all this for housing is inconcievable; that this destruction is being proposed by a local community group from Bellingen, a Shire which prides itself on it’s environmental and social justice values, is even more inconcievable.
The delightful character of this part of Urunga, created principally by the presence of the trees on Lot 1, is a large part of the reason many people have bought houses and invested their lives in this area.
It is manifestly unfair to expect a small part of the community to accept such a severe blow to their quality of life for the sake of an untried and problematic proposal of a group who will suffer no such disruption to their lives or lifestyle.
Houses can be built in many places, but little pockets of easily accessible suburban bushland like this are irreplaceable, and will become more precious into the future as Urunga is built out with more and more houses.
No matter what the merits of the Land Trust scheme may be, it does not justify this level of environmental and social disruption.
There are many more reasons against this proposal, but I’ll stop here.
WWCLT must find a more appropriate site for their project.
Yours Sincerely, Peter Dingle
This post by Waterfall Way Community Land Trust, and related newspaper article, both fail to mention a very important inconvenient truth about their Affordable Housing proposal – the fact that the chosen site for their First Demonstration Project, Lot 1 Ferry Street Urunga, is entirely and totally unsuitable for any type of housing. This fact is the very reason it has remained “an unused piece of Council land” for so many decades.
Not only that, but lot 1 is an important and much-loved asset to all residents living nearby, being an original piece of Urunga bushland fortuitously surviving developement, and long used by locals and passers-by as a little de-facto bush park. It contains over fifty trees of many varieties, including nineteen heaithy eucalypts, some being towering 100-year old multi-branched habitat trees with magnificent canopy, which, together with smaller under-storey species, create a little eco-system, home and refuge for many small native animals and birds. A koala has passed through here, as do wallabies. Children play here, dogs are walked here, people stroll in from the footpath to be among the trees; some even hug them!
To propose destruction of all this for housing is inconceivable; that this destruction is being proposed by a local community group from Bellingen, a Shire which is proud of it’s environmental and social values, is even more inconcievable. It is arrogant and high-handed in the extreme of WWCLT to presume they have the right to impose this project on the residents of Urunga, many of whom have chosen to buy houses in this vicinity, and invest their life there, in large part because of the delightful character the trees on Lot 1 give to this area.
It is manifestly unfair that these residents should be expected to accept a severe blow to the quality of their life for the sake of a problematic proposal by a group who will suffer no such blow to their lives or lifestyle.
Houses can be built in many places, but easily accessible suburban bush spaces like Lot 1 will become increasingly precious as Urunga’s housing numbers increase, and are irreplaceable.
Affordable housing is a vexing problem, but it doesn’t justify this level of environmental and social disruption.
WWCLT need to find a more appropriate site.
Yours Respectfully, Peter Dingle