Residents dig in on Bullamalita Road quarry

A development application for the quarry, some 35km southeast of Goulburn and 10km up Bullamilita Road has been with the council for two years. Councillors deferred the DA in December, 2015 pending finalisation of a Voluntary Planning Agreement (VPA) about the road’s upgrade.

The applicant’s plan to extract 10,000 cubic metres from the quarry annually hauled by an average two trucks daily has involved two rounds of public consultation. But still residents aren’t happy.

“We haven’t had our questions answered and we feel we haven’t been heard,” property owner Jeanelle Slater told The Post.

Mrs Slater and husband Jason live some 800 metres away from the proposed quarry. While they argue the gravel road is not equipped to handle large trucks even with the promised upgrade, they question the quarry’s permissability. They also fear its impact on lifestyle and amenity through potential noise and dust.

“Some areas of the road are already single lane width and the council is not proposing to do anything. What happens if you meet a truck there?” Mrs Slater said.

“...The Ardmore Park quarry (at Bungonia) doesn’t use the road because they say it’s unsuitable, so how can it be suitable for this one?

“...We’ve been largely kept in the dark. We’ve asked questions but there’s been no acknowledgement of them.”

The council’s strategic planner met with residents on Thursday.  

The Slaters’ neighbour, Bernie Dryden said the road’s construction, with table drains for water runoff, meant that cars meeting oncoming trucks had no choice but to pull off, or risk being “skittled” by a 42-tonne mass.

“To say there will be no amenity impacts is a fantasy,” he said.

The VPA commits the applicant, Kristen Florance, to placing 1400 tonnes of gravel for road repair, grading of the unsealed section and vegetation clearing before starting operations. She will pay the council $18,000 annually in section 94 contributions, double the required amount.

Asked by Cr Denzil Sturgiss at the June 20 meeting whether this would be enough, operations director Matt O’Rourke said he’d been involved in developing the VPA conditions.

“I think that will be okay but ultimately Bullamalita Road will form part of our maintenance program after the initial work,” he said.

Mr O’Rourke meant that the quarry’s roadwork would be supplementary to the council’s.

General manager Warwick Bennett assured councillors that all section 94 fees collected would be put toward the thoroughfare.

Under the same agreement the council will widen up to 1.5km of the road to seven metres at “predetermined locations” in the first 9km from the Windellama Road intersection. It will also improve visibility on three curves. Bullamalita Road is sealed for the first 5km but is gravel thereafter.

Landholders said the council had hardly touched the road in years. They question why it’s committing to the work now. They’re also confused as to why the VPA was drawn up before councillors decided the project. Councillors would consider an assessment report at the July 18 meeting, a spokesman confirmed.

But Ms Florance’s planning consultant Robert Mowle told The Post there were question marks about applying section 94 contributions under the Environmental, Planning and Assessment Act and it was easier to do it through a VPA.

Luke Myers, a representative for Ms Florance, also said there was no correlation between the council’s and the quarry’s roadwork; both would be done regardless of the quarry’s approval. 

Mrs Slater also questioned whether the council had a conflict of interest in assessing the DA when it could be a quarry customer. But Ms Wakefield said the council was not a customer.

“If we were to be in the future, it would have to go through our normal procurement requirements,” she said.

Mr Myers also told The Post there had been absolutely zero discussion” about supplying the council and it was “not on the quarry’s radar.”

But residents say they don’t want the quarry at all. Mrs Slater said the plans ignored the council’s development control plan, stating that no residence should be within 1000 metres of an extractive industry in the RU2 (rural lifestyle) zone. The LEP set this at 500m but 1000m if blasting was involved.

“There are six homes within that distance and one is 330m away,” she said.

“The DA doesn’t show distances to boundaries. We’ve asked the council repeatedly for them over two years and we haven’t been shown them.”

In response, Mr Mowle said the applicant had applied to vary the separation distance from homes.

“We think that is justified,” he said.

“The quarry is in a valley and is heavily timbered around it. The noise assessment has also concluded there would be no impact on residences.”

It’s not the way retired couple Don and Barbara Riley see things. Their home is 350m from the planned quarry.

“We’ve been ignored. Our residence is not even acknowledged (on the plan),” Mrs Riley said.

“They say they won’t operate the quarry when a westerly wind is blowing but the prevailing wind here is from the west. They will still have to fulfill their contracts but who polices its operation?”

Mrs Riley said she could hear machinery working on the property this week.

However Mr Mowle pointed out the extraction volume had been halved in response to residents’ concerns and the operation only involved two trucks daily. He argued the roadwork would benefit the area.

“The Florances live on the property and they don’t want a negative impact on themselves or anyone else,” he said.