A leafy reserve in Sydney’s east that has been secretly declared Aboriginal land will see “developers circling like sharks”, a radio broadcaster has warned.
An exclusive investigation by Daily Mail Australia this week found that despite locals in Little Bay using and maintaining the plot between their homes, it was quietly handed over without consultation.
One resident said it was a matter of the council ‘passing the parcel’, through the state government, to the new Aboriginal owners, who can now sell it to developers who could build 10 houses on the site.
Homes on the streets surrounding the reservation sell for about $4 million.
Residents who have used the land for decades are likely to be denied access, despite clearing and maintaining the site that was once a dump for car parts and infested with rats and snakes.
And their only hope now of overturning the decision is a costly battle in the NSW Supreme Court.
Denise Hope says if developers move in after Land Council members marched in and said ‘lock your gates’, she’s selling it after living on the reserve and caring for it for 40 years
Lesley and Colin Brown have tended and cleared the land (above) outside their back gate, mowing it and keeping it free of snakes, but fear they will now be excluded from the tranquil plot
Randwick City Council was the Crown land manager of the 3,495m² plot, but local residents said it had never done anything for the land that had been used as a rubbish dump.
They said they have spent thousands of unpaid hours maintaining the land and preventing red-bellied black snakes from using it as a passageway into the suburb.
When it came to the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council (ALC) making a claim on the land, the Office of Crown Lands consulted Randwick Council to determine whether the land was in use.
The Council, which did not consult any of the thirteen landowners who use the area for recreation, beehives and social gatherings, subsequently told Crown Lands that the land was free to take possession.
Residents told Daily Mail Australia they don’t believe Randwick even visited the country and simply left a mark on it without blinking.
The NSW Office of Crown Lands said, in accordance with the Aboriginal Land Rights Act, that ‘if the land is lawfully used, occupied or likely to be required for an essential public purpose, the land claim will be refused.
“(But) in this case, the review found no evidence of relevant tenure.”
The La Perouse ALC made the claim in 2016, and Crown Lands was told by the council that use of the plot was ‘almost exclusive to the private properties which provide gated access to the reserve’.
George Manolias has placed beehives on the land, which is mowed by neighbours, but Randwick Council nonetheless said it was not being used by anyone.
NSW law says if ‘the land is lawfully used, occupied or likely to be required for an essential public purpose, the land claim will be refused’, but the council claimed there was no use of the land
Any decision to award land to an Aboriginal Land Council can only be reversed by bringing in lawyers for a costly battle in the NSW Supreme Court.
Radio 2GB’s Ben Fordham said Daily Mail Australia’s exclusive story on the ‘little slice of heaven’ at Little Bay, which was declared the property of the La Perouse Aboriginal Land Council 19 days ago, will almost certainly have an outcome.
“They’ll try to repurpose it and then the developers will, well, they’ll circle around like sharks,” he said into the air.
The land – which is undeveloped and worth about $7 million – is the equivalent of ten average-sized residential blocks, although the plots on neighboring Grose Street are much larger.
The NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure told Daily Mail Australia that ‘the use by the general public could not be shown to be anything more than fictional’.
After consulting Randwick Council, it found that ‘there was no general access path or evidence of the land being used by the general public’.
Residents and Daily Mail Australia have asked Randwick Council if they were unaware of its current use. The Council has the power to rezone the land for development.
Neighbor Sharon Brogan (left) helped care for and clean up the land that was a rubbish dump infested with rats and poisonous snakes before residents did their part and cleared it through their entry gates (right)
A spokesperson for the planning department said parties “may seek judicial review of the decision in the High Court if they believe an error has been made.”
The ministry will assess whether a proposed sale of the land ‘balances the social, economic and environmental considerations of the site’.
However, residents would be forced to hire lawyers to challenge the decision in court, and were unaware until last month that the land claim had been filed seven years ago.
Locals were shocked when two men wearing Aboriginal Council T-shirts came to inspect the land on January 20.
While walking through the property, one of the men startled residents by saying the ‘land had been granted to the Aboriginal Land Council the day before’.
Most of the thirteen houses on Grose and Reservoir streets and Marconi Place have doors or gates leading onto the land, so residents do their part to maintain it and say ‘the council does nothing’.
As well as keeping ‘the snakes’ at bay, residents also cleared lantana, weeds and dumped car parts from the land more than a decade ago, with local Sharon Brogan saying: ‘It’s been good for our community and we’ve done good for it taken care of’.
George Manolias said he received permission from the council to keep two of his beehives on the reserve, and has been supplying honey to his neighbors for years.
While Mr Kamper’s electorate does not fall within the statutory area of the powerful La Perouse Land Council, some of Australia’s most expensive real estate does.
La Perouse ALC covers the local government areas of Woollahra, Waverley and Randwick, and parts of the City of Sydney, Sutherland and Bayside LGAs.
The NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act (ALRA) allows local Aboriginal land councils to claim Crown land owned by the NSW Government and have it transferred to them in full ownership.
La Perouse ALC CEO Chris Ingrey said the Grose Street site was zoned ‘recreational’ but residents fear it will be rezoned and sold to developers.
This is the case of another nearby plot 350 meters from Grose Street, which was donated to La Perouse ALC, rezoned and is now the subject of a $30 million development of a property with 83 apartments on a site of 1 .16 hectares.
Locals fought a losing battle to limit the scope of development on the Jennifer Street site, with Randwick Council spending almost $1 million in legal and consultancy fees to oppose it in the NSW Land & Environment Court.
A consortium of developers made an original expression of interest to the La Perouse Land Council in 1999 for the Jennifer Street space, and helped identify other parcels of real estate that the Land Council could lay claim to, agreeing that they would jointly to develop.
That did not happen and the development has since changed hands.
Lesley Brown, whose property borders the Grose Street lot, said the ALC men who inspected the Grose Street lot in January had discussed building “townhouses” on the land, but “the site is smaller than Jennifer Street and access is a problem. ‘.
Denise Hope, who has lived there since 1982, said that if the lot were sold to developers, she and her husband would sell it and move because “I couldn’t stomach the development.”
La Perouse Land Council says it ‘plays a key role in protecting and promoting the area’s cultural heritage’, but agrees there are several land grant applications underway.
One of the Grose Street residents said the grant was ‘a warning to all people across NSW: it could happen to you tomorrow’.
The NSW Planning Department said the continued access of “residents to the land will be a matter for La Perouse ALC as the new owner of the land”.
However, the ALC men who surveyed the land in January told residents to now ‘lock your gates’ and not treat it as an extended backyard.