Here at the Register we have seen over the years a procession of local politicians pull out grand visions for the future. From casinos on Pig Island to botanical gardens at the gateway to Nowra, CBD overhauls to multi-storey car parks to Chinese temples to link roads … the list goes on.
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We’ve seen plans dusted off, presented as exciting prospects, then put back in the drawer. We’ve seen new plans presented at great cost in council staff hours and consultancy fees. Egans Lane and Stewart Place come to mind. Then we see … nothing.
So one can understand our scepticism when summoned down to council HQ for a briefing on the draft Bomaderry sport and community precinct master plan.
Like many of the others, it looked great on paper. Finally, a basketball stadium that could accommodate a decent crowd, a proper athletics track and rejuvenated ovals.
But one thing stuck out from the rest. This master plan requires the resumption of four properties by council. That’s four family homes with families in them.
During the briefing it was suggested the families concerned had a “pretty positive” attitude to selling their homes to council, indeed a “pretty positive” relationship with council.
Two families, we were told, were happy to sell now; the other two happy to sell in the longer term.
That didn’t comes across in the media, suggested Shoalhaven Mayor Joanna Gash.
Well, no, it didn’t and it still doesn’t, despite council’s rosy depiction of the mood of affected families. When the master plan story was flagged on our Facebook page on Wednesday, one of the affected owners made it abundantly clear they were anything but happy.
One can understand why. These are not rich folk who can pull up stumps and move with ease. They have built modest homes over the years, hoping like the rest of us their properties will increase in value and secure their future. Now a dark shadow is cast over that for the sake of a master plan.
That plan will cost $60 million to build, money council does not have. It is all dependent on funding from three levels of government at a time when government spending is being reined in. So it may never happen.
But for the families over whom this shadow falls, the plan imposes a state of awful limbo in which the security of having a home has evaporated.