The Devil in the Details
If you follow the "news" on commercial radio stations and the South Coast Register, you could be excused for believing that Culburra is a vibrant town on the verge of a housing and infrastructure boom thanks to the visionary Halloran Trust developer, Sealark.
That's the thrust of Sealark's announcement and friendly headlines like "West Culburra development clears a major hurdle to provide hundreds of homes".
Would that it were so simple.
On May 26, Sealark received Commonwealth Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) approval for the West Culburra subdivision as a “controlled action” under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC).
I'll chew on that mouthful later.
But celebrating that "Dozens of affordable homes are among about 400 new properties" is premature speculation for three reasons:
- Sealark is primarily in the business of selling empty lots of land, not building houses.
- Sealark plans to release 30-40 housing blocks at each of seven stages, with extras released in the first offering.
- Sealark's forested site contains threatened species populations and is close to the region's commercial oyster grounds - two realities that Shoalhaven Council and the State will still need to reconcile with the Local Environment Plan.
Time will tell how the proposed West Culburra houses, shops, business opportunities, sporting fields, reserves, and infrastructure actually materialise.
It certainly won't happen in a hurry.
Never mind the State's urgent housing targets that are the justification for widespread, hastily-approved development zoning on environmentally-sensitive land at West Culburra and Callala Bay - and throughout NSW .
Developers love to blame the government for being slow to rezone undeveloped land. But developers delay house construction by hoarding large tracts of land in a bid to shore up prices. By controlling the supply of available lots, they increase or maintain high prices to achieve higher returns on investment.
Economist and (ironically) University of Sydney Henry Halloran Research Trust alum, Dr Cameron Murray, asserts that developers are gaming the planning control system by limiting supply levels and delaying construction.
“They all pretty much do the same thing. They’ve found their recipe book, and they’ve all learnt over time that that’s how you make the money,” Dr Murray, told The New Daily.
“Just because you allow people to supply new dwellings on their land doesn’t mean they will do it immediately – or ever.”
Culburra's existing township is literally drowning under overwhelmed infrastructure such as blocked drains and crumbling roads. Shoalhaven Council is either too broke or too inefficient to focus on improving and infilling the already extensive town despite its popularity as a beach and lake-side tourist destination.
Shopping for shiny new things is more fun than polishing the family jewels.
Councils appear to take bold action on housing by clearing obstacles in the path of developers who make grand but often baseless claims about helping to solve the "housing crisis" - even congratulating themselves on alleviating ballooning rents and the lack of social housing.
Property developers can play a crucial role in creating cohesive communities, comfortable homes and secure local economies that some of us are fortunate to live in right now.
But land banking or delayed release is just one of the stories hidden behind glossy manipulations of the message to win public favour.
Given the impact of climate change, the depletion of biodiversity and economic policies ensuring home ownership remains a fantasy for most young people, it's sensible and essential to scrutinise the extremely profitable companies that define the way we live - and the way we consume real estate.
When the paid media fails to do that, the job goes to community activists.
Is Sealark's West Culburra site ripe for building homes, including affordable ones?
Sealark does have Development Application (DA) approval for initial site preparation works. But the company has not yet lodged a DA for a residential subdivision.
Sealark is, apparently, not actually building houses at all but selling empty lots. The same applies to the "10% affordable housing" earmarked. Sealark is merely providing empty lots for free to an, as yet, unnamed community housing provider.
Some say that's generous. Some regard it as a bare minimum.
A developer with a difference
Sealark is owned by a registered charity, The Halloran Trust, which has invested over $100 million into its development arm, Sealark Pty Ltd.
According to the THT financial reports, it gave $250,000 in grants in 2024 and 2023. It also remunerated its four trustees $750,000 and $680,000 during those periods.
According to the company website:
"The Halloran Trust is a not-for-profit organisation that exists to provide financial support derived from Sealark’s property development services to charitable beneficiaries, including in the Shoalhaven region."
Despite Halloran's 100 year "legacy" in property development, The Halloran Trust (THT) charity was only registered in 2022 with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC).
Local community groups enjoying sponsorship from Halloran are Culburra Public School, Culburra Surf Life Saving Club and Shoalhaven Marine Rescue.
The Jervis Bay Maritime Museum, which houses the business archive of Henry F. Halloran & Co., is a major beneficiary of The Halloran Trust along with Sydney private school, The Scots College, specifically a "rewilding" project on part of the private farm, Bannockburn.
Local businesses sponsor sport and volunteer groups all the time and communities naturally appreciate and depend on that support.
But it is The Halloran Trust's charitable status that many have questioned given its dominant activity is land speculation and development of threatened habitat.
Community consultation, not so much
Sealark's Managing Director Matt Philpott and Halloran trustees have refused to meet with influential local planning and environment lobby group, Callala Matters, because of the group's association with Spark Shoalhaven (specifically, me).
That same unwillingness to engage cultural and environmental concerns was shown to Jerrinja Local Aboriginal Land Council (JLALC) and Culburra Residents and Ratepayers Action Group (CRRAG) during years of difficult volunteer-led campaigning for sustainable and sensitive development.
I, along with Jerrinja LALC and a member of CRRAG, was presented in December 2024 with a lengthy cease and desist letter warning that further unfavourable public criticism of Sealark's developments in Culburra and Callala could trigger defamation action.
In February Jerrinja LALC made a public statement saying "We will not be bullied into silence."
"No matter how much the structures, systems, resources and networks might seem stacked against us, we have both a cultural obligation and a positive duty to continue."
Rocky First Nations relations
Jerrinja LALC's fraught relationship with Sealark and The Halloran Trust is about many aspects of the developer's activity in Culburra and in Callala where Sealark forested land is home to several threatened and endangered species including the Greater Glider.
But a particularly emotive argument is over more than 19,000 Aboriginal artefacts discovered on Sealark's East Crescent site, leading to demands for a moratorium on development and the return of artefacts to their original location. Shoalhaven City Council supported these calls, recommending the revocation of the Aboriginal Heritage Impact Permit granted to Sealark.
In a deputation to Shoalhaven Council, Jerrinja LALC CEO, Alfred Wellington spoke of the "ongoing trauma inflicted on us as people, to have our cultural connection dismissed as if it is an inconvenience to a development footprint".
"Developers like Sealark do not respect our value system because it clashes with theirs. Their value system is about wealth accumulation, and needless profit. There is a statutory obligation to consult with us, but there is no statutory obligation to actually respect what we have to say," Wellington said.
These developments symbolise the accelerated degeneration of ecosystems and species such as quolls, gliders and our, at one time ago, totem the koala.
"How you would react, in any other context than a possible development site, to an archaeological find of between 5000 – 10000 years old, of almost 19000 artefacts to date with potentially 50,000 predicted ....Would you not protect it?
"This is cultural vandalism and it has to stop."
So, what is West Culburra's "controlled action" approval?
Kate Gowland, the DCCEEW Branch Head of Environment Assessments (NSW, ACT) decided on May 26 that, despite the "significant" impact of Sealark's proposed West Culburra development on nationally threatened species and ecological communities, the development can proceed with conditions.
Those conditions mainly limit clearing of forest habitat of the Yellow-bellied Glider, Gang-gang Cockatoo and Grey-headed Flying fox to an area up to 46 ha.
Conditions demand the retirement of ecosystem credits from Sealark's neighbouring biobank sites. Those biobanked areas, some of which were deemed unsuitable for development, cast a skeptical shadow over the effectiveness and integrity of biodiversity offset schemes as compensation for the destruction of sensitive environments .
The approval stipulates that a qualified ecologist must inspect before clearing and that animals found must be relocated using "non-invasive methods". Fencing must be safe for fauna to move through and cannot include barbed wire.
The EPBC conditions state that the development requires ministerial-approved environmental management plans from an ecologist for construction, vegetation and feral cat control to ensure outcomes "avoid unapproved harm".
Where does this leave Shoalhaven's iconic coastal villages?
Nobody is more invested in improving and protecting their hometowns than the volunteer guardians who live there and want the next generation to enjoy these places at least as much as they do.
But we face more of the same relentless argument, tension, uncertainty and feelings of betrayal by government departments who spend big on community consultation but are small on action.
Every other stakeholder is making money either in generous public salaries or enormous private profit. Community activists earn nothing and are driven by responsibility to nature and future.
We are branded as 'nimbys' when the vast majority of the time we are asking for something entirely reasonable: that developers - and their friends in government and media - collaborate with communities from the beginning to create sustainable solutions to inevitable growth.
We have the knowledge and technology to do better.
But power doesn't need courage to change. If the system is working for you, why even tinker with it let alone tear it down.
It's the ultimate arrogance of landowners to fulfil obligatory "consultation" after zoning is locked in, fences are erected, DAs are approved and bulldozers are idling.
And it's the wilful betrayal of governments to survey public opinion, then ignore it.
Imagine the time, heartache, legal wrangling, political posturing and, especially, money that could be saved if developers used their super-powers for good, instead of to grind little people into the very soil they feel so entitled to dig up.
When governments are not watching, communities have no choice but to question and even obstruct developers.
In Australian law, 'property' as in land ownership, does not refer to a thing itself, but to a bundle of rights that a person has in relation to that land.
Those rights to use, transfer and exclude others from a property are not absolute.
Those in "possession" of land are legally obliged to comply with planning laws and adhere to environmental regulations surrounding water, habitat and biodiversity.
Throughout modern history countless political leaders, lawyers and activists have written about the meaning of land ownership and its shaping of modern society.
French philospher Jean-Jacques Rousseau critiqued the origins of private property as the root of social inequality and the concentration of power in a few privileged hands. He also identified the danger of public ignorance and apathy.
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.”
— Discourse on the Origin of Inequality (1755)
So, we protest, write letters, speak at inquiries and stare at the hollows of old trees recording proof of life where others assume only emptiness and decay.
What we are really asking: Is Australia a democracy or an aristocracy?
(The author, Cat Holloway, is the editor of Spark Shoalhaven and participates in Callala Matters campaigns to "Protect Nature and Nurture Community" through sustainable development.)
