Elders battling to preserve sacred sites in Northern NSW
Indigenous elders in northern NSW are battling to stop a proposal to develop a six-storey private housing development near cultural heritage sites after an assessment report found a number of “highly significant Aboriginal Ceremony and Dreaming sites” within the proposed area.
Uo to 250 residential properties and 200 short-stay units are part of the proposal to build on 60 hectares of land on the foreshore precinct at Coffs Harbour.
Property and Development NSW says the development would create a thriving area that could contain shops, cafes, market and play areas, as well as the residential components.
The area of the proposed development in Coffs Harbour.
A desecration of land
But local traditional owners have told Guardian.com it would be a “desecration of the land.”
“This is land on which we have lived and roamed for thousands of years, it would be heartbreaking to see it developed,” Uncle Reginald Craig, from the Garlambirla Guuyu-girrwaa Elders Group, said.
Key areas of concern within the planned site include Ferguson’s Cottage and an area of land known to opals as ‘Happy Valley’.
The cottage became a refuge for Aboriginal people moved off missions in the 1960s and Happy Valley is said to have been a campsite Gumbaynggirr people for thousands of years.
Support of local council
The development has the support of local State MP Gurmesh Singh and the city council.
There are currently two Aboriginal land claims in the system and the Happy Valley site was part of a successful land claim by the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council in 2022.
Aunty Yvette Pacey, the former chairperson of the Coffs Harbour and District Local Aboriginal Land Council, told Guardian.com the consultation process was flawed.
“I have spent more than 12 years … trying to convince them of the importance of the site, that we need to have cultural spaces preserved, and no one is listening,” she said.
Property and Development NSW has said the plan makes consideration for the protection of several cultural sites, including the cottage and Happy Valley.
