A large piece of escarpment land at Farmborough Heights would be subdivided for an 30-lot “community title” estate under plans on exhibition with Wollongong City Council.
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The 18.5 ha property is on Farmborough Rd near the Moss Vale to Unaderra train line.
Four well-wooded reserves would be created and dedicated to council as part of the proposal. These are the most heavily forested parts of the property, reducing the need to clear native trees for the houses.
The site is mapped as Illawarra Escarpment land, meaning development is only allowed if it minimises the impact on the natural features of the area, and takes steps to improve the escarpment environment.
Under the plan, more than 2 ha will be cleared of trees or managed as a firebreak, including more than 1 ha of a threatened ecological community known as Illawarra lowlands grassy woodland.
The firebreaks would be contained within private blocks in the community, further reducing the need for clearing E2 environmental-zoned areas.
But this is no hippie commune – the applicant, Hanlyn Pty Ltd, has only one shareholder.
Community titles are commonly used for high-end gated estates. A community title functions similarly to a strata title for a block of flats, but the boundaries extend beyond the buildings to include land.
A community title corporation would be set up to take care of maintenance for common areas, as well as administer the rules of the estate and settle conflicts that could arise over noise or parking.
The application has been lodged on behalf of a company called Hanlyn Pty Ltd, which was registered in Wollongong in 2011.
The 30 allotments would be large “rural-residential” blocks, ranging in size from 2000 to 6600 square metres, the application says.
Once completed the development would cause an additional 261 traffic movements per day, Hanlyn’s consultant estimates, but this could be absorbed without problem by the road network.
Rail noise could be an issue for some of the blocks, with acoustic study finding about five train movements a day, mostly between 10pm and 7am. It was considered only two blocks would need to pursue this problem further in the design stage of the application.
“Ecologically significant areas of native vegetation will be retained on the site and contained within the proposed public reserves,” the application says. “These areas will be managed in accordance with a vegetation management plan and associated funding to be provided by the developer.”
