The report was compiled by the TEC’s Fran Kelly. Fran travelled the NSW Coast last year checking out sites of interest and talking with community groups about local developments. In the Clarence valley she met with people from the CEC, Clarence Valley Conservation Coalition, Valleywatch and Yamba-Angourie-Wooleweyah Community Association. She was told about issues like the West Yamba floodplain residential proposal, clearing of koala habitat in Woombah for subdivision, and the Micalo island prawn farm. Elsewhere she was given countless more stories about bad development, proposed or approved. There’s the SALT development at South Kingscliff along 1.2 kilometres of beachfront – a 330 apartment hotel and 216 absolute beachfront houses, all on 750,000 cubic metres of fill to be pumped from the Tweed River. There’s the 400 lot estate at South West Rocks. It was cleared and burnt after approval was given for a Tea Tree plantation. Then the consent was changed to allow residential development. There’s the Mirador Estate at Merimbula, with 600 beachfront lots replacing old growth coastal forest.

The report presents a long list of big and small proposals which, when looked at together, spell ecosystem damage and social inequity. What emerges most strongly is the absence of cumulative impact assessment in NSW. No-one is taking stock of the sum of all those little council and state government decisions – 50 lots here, 20 hectares of coastal heath cleared there, a wetland gone, 10 hectares filled, a kilometre of beach gone private. It all matters.

In addition to the lack of big-picture planning, the report blames weak local and state planning instruments, inadequate public participation, tokenistic EISs and lack of action against illegal clearing. Developments are poorly located and designed, and no-one expects any better. The consequences are many. They include loss of wildlife habitat, polluted urban run-off, siltation, acid sulphate soil disturbance and increased flooding. The coast is becoming colonised by the rich, instead of being a place we can all enjoy from time to time. The housing development boom does not create long-term jobs.

After painting such a shocking picture – and it truly is shocking - the TEC suggests some solutions. Like the best ideas, they are all common sense. Hopefully, this report gets noticed by local and state governments and they take up the recommendations. Here are some:

• develop catchment or regional coastal planning strategies which integrate natural resource management and planning
• develop a state-wide coastal blueprint which sets some mandatory rules for all councils to follow
• reform councils to remove vested interests and conflicts of interest
• produce annual ‘State of Development’ reports to show cumulative effects of planning decisions
• connect habitat links between public lands
• adopt Healthy Rivers Commission recommendations
• protect all coastal native vegetation