Rodney Stevens
The Woombah Woods Caravan Park is proposing a 55-site manufactured home expansion with a Development Application DA on public exhibition for what will be known as the Horisen Lifestyle Community.
The DA with Clarence Valley Council for Lot 61, 54 Iluka Road Woombah on behalf of client William Hu proposes a three staged expansion from the existing 60 long term sites to 115 long term manufactured home sites.
A property developer, Mr Hu attracted controversy in 2019 after he purchased the park and legally felled up to 30 large trees due to an existing DA from the 1980’s.
To achieve this the Statement of Environmental Effects (SEE) proposes amending two existing Development Approvals from 2020 and 2021.
The current layout of the park reflects the 2017 approval with a total of 64 sites containing 37 cabins, including 2 cabins on site 59, a duplex on site 60, and 3 cabins on site 82.
The rest of the sites are short-term caravan and camp sites.
On 21 December 2020, Council issued consent to convert the caravan park into manufactured home estates for Stage 1 with 59 sites which covers the footprint of 2017 approval plus 15 sites in the west (DA2020/0474).
Then on 25 November 2021, Council issued consent for further Stage 2 (38 sites) and Stage 3 (19 sites) (DA2021/0184).
The site numbers of Stage 1 were reduced to 58.
The Park is located on the southern side of Iluka Road close to its intersections with both the old and new Pacific Highways.
Currently the park has 24 long term single cabin sites, four short term sites each with two cabins, two short term single cabin sites, one short term triplex site, 22 short term powered sites, six short term camping sites and one vacant caretaker’s site.
The park features a shop, office, camp kitchen, mini tennis court, pool and recreation space, amenities block, four space carparking including a non-compliant disabled space, maintenance shed and onsite wastewater management system with treatment plant and disposal areas.
The developer proposes to amend the two consents DA 2020/0474 and DA 2021/0184 to alter the original approval so Stage 1 will contain 60 long term sites, Stage 2 will have 38 long term sites and Stage 3 will include a community building and 17 long term sites.
This will transform the caravan and camping park into a 115-site manufactured home estate, which the developer says will provide affordable long-term housing with facilities and management to create a quality lifestyle.
The SEE states the loss of short-term visitor sites can be accommodated by the nearby Bimbimbi Riverside Caravan Park and Browns Rocks Caravan Park, plus the 3 Parks in Iluka.
The 60 sites on Stage 1 will then be delivered in 5 substages 1-1 to 1-5 and the developer is requesting council split the cost of the DA into five parts, reflective of the number of sites in each substage.
This would see the total developer costs of $1,770,540 and council’s contribution to that of $17,705.40 split five ways as the substages are realised.
In 2022, the Woombah Woods Caravan Park advertised a two-bedroom, two-bathroom home with lockup garage on social media for $350,000.
Council welcomes submissions from members of the community and industry stakeholders as this helps with informed and transparent decision making.
Please be aware submissions are not confidential and are considered public documents.
To make a submission visit https://www.clarence.nsw.gov.au/Building-and-planning/Advertised-DAs/MOD20230064-54-Iluka-Road-Woombah and click the make a submission button before 4pm on August 7.