I am encouraged to learn the company behind the proposed manufactured housing estate in Kendall, Camden Heads Lifestyle Villages, has called a public meeting to outline more amendments to the original application. The company now seeks to have a manufactured home estate comprising 198 sites, down from the 280 site proposed to council in 2017. While the reduction in number is good news I still have substantial concerns.

The company was invited but did not attend Kendall’s public meeting in October 2017. Their request to hold another public meeting next week will give our community the chance to hear from Camden Heads Lifestyle Villages directly, and for Kendall to be involved in the community consultation, which was lacking last year and which council strongly advised as vital for such a large scale development considering ‘Kendall’s unique character’. 

We all know Kendall is a community of very active and involved young families. Demographically over 60 per cent of residents are young families. Kendall residents are extremely community minded and naturally they are keen to safeguard and protect the village lifestyle they enjoy. My sense is most of the Kendall community is not opposed to development, however as was clearly expressed at the meeting in October, residents do want development that is compatible with the village in all aspects. A development which would provide affordable housing for young families would be the ideal. 

The Land and Environment Court speaks of compatibility as embracing a ‘compatibility with infrastructure, amenities and the general character of a place’. With this view in mind, this latest development proposal of 198 sites still fails in all compatibility aspects. Simply reducing the number by 30 per cent or more does nothing to change this situation. 

This latest proposal of 198 manufacture home sites remains incompatible with the local infrastructure (roads, sewerage, drainage etc). It remains incompatible with the available amenities. Kendall does not have the amenities (doctors, dentists, pharmacy etc) required for a massive influx of senior residents, which will double the number of dwellings and the population of the village.  Considering the development’s compatibility with the village character of Kendall, it fails miserably. Anyone sighting a similar development now at Lake Cathie will see what I mean. It would be offensive to the community character of Kendall to have an large estate development which is isolated and clustered behind high security fencing.

In my opinion Manufactured Housing Estates(MHE) are a bad idea. They do nothing for affordable housing. A strata unit is a much better retirement investment, in which the strata residents owns the land and do not pay an ongoing site fee, they have full security of tenure, and their annual costs would be about half of what it costs to occupy a site at a MHE. 

MHE developments have been successfully blocked and resisted by councils and residents in many other towns. For an almost identical successful opposition to this type of development, I refer you to TMT Davco P/L v Cessnock City Council, 30th March 2016, available on the Land and Environment Court website. 

I urge the residents of Kendall to stand up and resist this proposal by attending the meeting on Thursday, May 17 from 4.30pm at the Kendall Services Club.