What’s under the hood of the environmental certification that the Wallum Brunswick Heads greenfield development relies on for its environmental credentials?
Like many developments across the nation, developer Clarence Property’s Wallum urban estate has been certified as an ‘EnviroDevelopment’.
It is clearly marked on www.wallumbrunswick.com.au, and it has been awarded accreditation across all six of its categories – water, energy, waste, materials, community and ecosystems.
A leaf is awarded for each category that has passed the technical standards.
Paid-for accreditation
This paid-for accreditation is awarded by the Sustainability and Research division of the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA), based in Queensland.
UDIA describes EnviroDevelopment certification (www.envirodevelopment.com.au) as ‘a scientifically-based branding system designed to make it easier for purchasers to recognise and, thereby, select more environmentally sustainable homes and lifestyles’.
To be accredited with an EnviroDevelopment certification, developers need to, ‘demonstrate that an ecological net gain will be achieved for the project in relation to local native vegetation communities and fauna habitat resources.’
Yet throughout the Save Wallum campaign, ecologists, councillors, MPs and residents have raised issue with the claims that the development will produce an ecological net gain, and say instead that threatened ecological communities (TEC) are in danger.
Frog habitat claims
According to www.envirodevelopment.com.au/projects/wallum, ‘2.6ha of high-quality endangered wallum froglet habitat will be created as part of the early site works, which is monitored and protected during subdivision construction works to ensure success’.
Yet ecologist and Save Wallum campaigner, James Barrie, says, ‘The expectation that the threatened species of “Wallum” tolerate the contentious offset arrangements such as the machine-dug ponds (that are well known to fail for these rare acid frogs), poses a very real risk of local extinction of these species’.
‘There has been considerable outcry from several notable ecologists since, with detailed reports about why this is misleading, and does not constitute a ‘ecological net gain’ in practice by any standards.’
Stormwater design
The EnviroDevelopment website also claims of Wallum: ‘The site is also subject to an innovative stormwater design outcome which utilises the drainage characteristics of the existing sandy material on the site to treat stormwater without the need for extensive networks of underground concrete pipes and pits.’
Former Byron Shire Councillor, Duncan Dey, who is also a civil engineer specialising in flood hydrology and stormwater design told The Echo, ‘Clarence Property are relying on an “innovative” concept of recharge (my term for it). This is usually just to save money, but in this case, it is because the site is too flat to drain’.
‘The lack of hydraulic gradient is bizarrely even noted in the DA Consent Conditions of May 2023, just beneath Condition 11b).
‘The site simply doesn’t offer sufficient fall to drain correctly. Hydraulic gradients of less of one per cent are generally unacceptable. This project proposes a channel way flatter than that.
‘Several eminent local ecologists have developed outstanding knowledge of the Wallum site over recent decades’, says Mr Dey.
‘They have watched this development progress down the conveyor belt of NSW Planning, and found issues with most of the ecological reports.
‘The developer’s consultants omitted entire species, as well as coming up with proposals to recreate unique habitat to replace that which will be destroyed.
The Echo asked NSW Fair Trading if they ‘had any interest in ensuring the EnviroDevelopment certification is fit-for-purpose, or if not, can you please direct The Echo to who can?’
A NSW Fair Trading spokesperson replied, ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to track down and confirm a NSW agency who may be able to provide you with commentary on your request’.
ACF comment
When presented with the draft story, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) investigator, Martine Lappan, told The Echo, ‘It is difficult to assess the integrity of an accreditation system when the application documents property developers submit are not made publicly available’.
‘A grand claim about protecting the environment may serve as a marketing tool, but that doesn’t make it scientifically accurate or even something that can be held to account under the law’, Ms Lappan added.
CP replies
Clarence Property was offered an opportunity to comment on this story.
Its CEO, Simon Kennedy, replied, ‘there are numerous factual errors in the story provided, and we dispute the ecological assessments made by Save Wallum Inc through its ecological interpreter both publicly, and those recently made under oath at the NSW parliamentary inquiry into the environment’.
‘We have followed all required environmental and bio-diversity requirements under the statutory approvals given to us to proceed with this project that will provide much needed housing for the Byron Shire’.
This story was provided to UDIA in draft form for comment numerous times, but no comment was forthcoming.
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