Developer Takes Swing At Council Over Resort Plan

Illawarra Mercury

Wednesday October 22, 2008

By MARIO CHRISTODOULOU

A DEVELOPMENT company has criticised Wollongong City Council for its failure to support a controversial golf resort proposal in Darkes Forest.

Developer Links Living is hoping to build a nine-hole golf course attached to a 100-room hotel, 100 serviced apartments and 180 short-stay accommodation villas.

But the proposal has been unpopular with the council which in July described it as "excessive".

Links Living Managing Director Stephen Head said the council should never have allowed golf resorts to be built under the site's 1984 zoning if it didn't want to see golf resorts proposed.

"I was slightly confused because it was the council itself that zoned it for a golf resort ... now the inference is that they are not happy and they don't want a golf resort," he said.

It's not the first time the council has butted heads with the developer over the proposal. In 2006, an embarrassing and acrimonious email exchange between the developer and the council revealed that the development was hitting substantial hurdles.

The issue almost boiled over into a court case, which was abandoned by Links Living after the project was taken out of the council's hands by the Department of Planning.

Last month, Links Living re-submitted a scaled-back concept plan with a 25 per cent reduction in the proposal's footprint.

Mr Head said this was due to concerns about a rare species of grass on the site.

Estimated to cost $186 million and spread over 56ha, the development is one of the largest proposed in the northern Illawarra.

The history of the site dates to the 1980s when a Japanese investor, Harunori Takahashi, bought the Illawarra Country Club, which still sits on the site.

Links Living believes the project will generate 851 jobs during the construction phase and 431 jobs afterwards.

The developer has so far failed to convince residents of neighbouring suburbs of the proposal's merit.

Convener of the Northern Illawarra neighbourhood group Pauline Lacelles-Smith said she could not see the golf resort being a "viable proposal".

Links Living's re-submission comes amid growing concern in planning circles that golf course proposals are Trojan horses for residential developments - a claim Mr Head staunchly denies regarding his proposal.

© 2008 Illawarra Mercury

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