Not in my backyard: A history of objection and disruption in the Northern Territory
Territory developers are used to the ‘not in my backyard’ sign coming out soon after a proposal is flagged. Here are some of the NT’s biggest nimby moments.
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Territory developers are used to the ‘not in my backyard’ sign coming out soon after a proposal is flagged. Here are some of the NT’s biggest nimby moments.
Nightcliff Foreshore Cafe
When he was Planning Minister in a previous Labor Government, now Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis supported development of a cafe at Nightcliff foreshore.
In conversation with reporters once during discussions about the cafe, he reflected candidly on the challenges of getting projects done.
“Some people here don’t have much vision,” he said.
“They don’t even want to build a cafe to help people enjoy this wonderful place.”
Eventually the builders compromised the project’s size and design in a bid to finesse it past the Development Consent Authority.
That achieved, it turned out the cafe’s location beside Nightcliff Swimming Pool was immeasurably popular, and within a couple of years the owners lodged applications for an expansion.
No doubt, among the hundreds who regularly sip lattes at one of Darwin’s finest locations, a handful of those will silently reflect on how they opposed the cafe’s construction in the first place.
The Stuart Spire
To many, John McDouall Stuart’s 19th century journey up Australia’s guts was one of the country’s most inspiring expeditions.
It took him three goes before he finally reached the Timor Sea, battling bites and beasties that would have terrified most men.
But when plans emerged in the early 2000s to erect a monument for Stuart at the Darwin Esplanade, the Nimbys were having none of Stuart’s extraordinary achievement.
Designed by local artist Ro Koch Laurie, the plan was to build a 12m spire, a fountain, tiles, Aboriginal murals with sand featured from different Territory regions.
Intended as a visual representation of the Stuart Highway, arguments centred around whether or not the Esplanade - a 1km grass stretch along the coast with virtually zero ocean views - should be preserved from development.
The Development Consent Authority eventually killed the project after unprecedented public discussion.
Some years later a child’s playground was developed near to where the Stuart Spire was to be erected.
It was built with barely a ripple of protest.
Vesteys Beach helicopter flights
Darwin local John Roodenrys was granted a permit in 2009 by council to trial helicopter tours out of Vesteys Beach.
That was when all hell broke loose.
Fannie Bay residents and particularly those on East Point Rd lost their minds, mounting a months long campaign to have the trial stopped.
Then Lord Mayor Graeme Sawyer copped the brunt of the criticism, despite his reasonable explanation that the trial would be an opportunity to see whether the flights, which would operate for 12-weeks during Dry season days, would be disruptive.
Sound trial data indicated that any noise from the chopper taking off from Vesteys would be mitigated by traffic noise from the adjacent road.
Council eventually capitulated, much to the annoyance of the Lord Mayor, who said protesters were relying on false information.
For his part, Roodenrys’s comments after the plan was scrapped perfectly sum-up the pathway to development approval in Darwin.
“It’s certainly very difficult when you try and do something outside the square, which aviation and helicopters certainly are,” he said.
“I know they’re very emotive and they extract responses from people that otherwise would probably be much more placid or level headed.”
Elysium Green - Blake Street, Gardens
This battle began when the previous CLP Government approved a rezoning from community purpose to high-density residential of the Blake Street block adjoining Channel 9’s old studio.
What followed has been a decade-long battle between a committed residents action group and developer Makrylos over the rights and wrongs of his 101-apartment development.
Numerous NTCAT and Supreme Court judgments have delayed the project and added plenty of confusion to the development plan.
Things have been quiet since August when the Supreme Court dismissed an NTCAT ruling that had stopped the project, with the developers vowing at that time they would persist.
But 10 years since the project was first proposed, other developers are watching with interest to see whether developer or objectors win out.
Bundilla Beach Cyclone Tracy sculpture
The secret to beating Nimbys is to stick to your guns, and the big ones were certainly out against City of Darwin’s Bundilla Beach Cyclone Tracy sculpture.
Even during an election campaign the then chief minister Eva Lawler and CLP leader Lia Finocchiaro, were able to unite in their opposition to this unloved project.
Unbowed, Council continued with its plans to revive an abandoned part of the Darwin coastline at Bundilla Beach, making the case that the unusual structure was its contribution to the Cyclone Tracy recollection.
Humorously described as the fallopian tubes, the sculpture is a kinetic representation of the Tracy storm that if its critics had its way, would never have been built.
City of Darwin Civic Centre
As it attempts to innovate and value-add our capital, City of Darwin has been at the forefront of nimby resistance efforts.
Currently, a proposal to build a new $150m civic centre adjacent to its existing chambers is in nimby sights, with the 21-storey structure accused of being visible by some of its neighbours.
A petition opposing the development described it as “unnecessary and detrimental” despite City of Darwin and the developer believing their project is neither.
A couple of years ago City of Darwin’s plan to trial something as unintrusive as an RV park at Bundilla Beach near the Ski Club was scrapped.
Similar to the Vesteys Beach chopper joy-ride plan that got shelved some years earlier, it had strong local Nimby opposition, including from half-term Territory Labor MLA Brent Potter.
Unlike his government, at least Council was trying to boost the economy.
It was an unfriendly gesture by the Fannie Bay locals that pointed to Darwin as unwelcoming to visitors.
It also ignored the fact that back when the Territory was cool and less regulated, visitors used to camp there.
Nightcliff Island
It was little more than a decade ago that developers Halikos proposed building Nightcliff Island in Darwin Harbour as a so-called “island residential concept”.
In 2014 the CLP Government granted Halikos a five-year 98-hectare crown lease to explore the feasibility of building the island, about 200m off shore
The Environment Centre NT naturally went ballistic, throwing all manner of shade over a project that was very much in its formative stages.
Amateur fishers also jumped into protest mode, despite having all of NT Harbour and most of the NT coastline from which to angle.
Not helped by the fact the CLP Government was in disarray, then Nightcliff MLA Natasha Fyles also ran a strong campaign against the project.
Eventually the project sank, quite literally without trace, when test drilling failed to identify any rock on which to anchor the island. Regardless, Labor would have killed it stone-dead when they won the 2016 election.
Lee Point development
A former military base - including at one stage a missile battery - Lee Point was designated as a future suburb in a 1970s Darwin Town Plan and then signed into existence by former Solomon MP Natasha Griggs in 2014.
The area is littered with concrete foundations and is a site of military heritage because of a unique Konfrontasi-era anti-aircraft installation.
But despite a history of usage, a growing city’s need for new housing and the fact it adjoined other residential suburbs like Muirhead and Lyons, Nimbys began their campaign to save Lee Point.
The origins of the opposition to the 800-home Defence Force development remain unclear, but the arrival of the Gouldian finch forced federal Labor’s Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to freeze the project pending a review.
After a redesign the cultural heritage mob moved in, claiming an Indigenous sacredness to the site.
On a wave of emotion, Larrakia Nation’s Jerome Cubillo even called for the project to be scrapped and shifted despite it meeting every planning approval required.
Old Man Rock, about 4km offshore from Lee Point, was the closest Indigenous sacred site they could find, and while their attempts to force a permanent stop to the development is ongoing, the disruption they caused has had a lasting impact.
When errant land clearing by the Development Housing Authority forced another freeze on work last year, the project was on life support. Work is yet to resume and the DHA won’t talk publicly about its plans.
Watch this space.
Arafura Harbour
Plans by legendary Darwin developers Even Lynne and Hans Vos to build a $4bn mariner between Fannie Bay and Coconut Grove certainly energised the Nightcliff mob.
The proposal included a marina more than 10 times the size of Cullen Bay from East Point’s Lake Alexander to Darwin Turf Club and across to Kulaluk behind Dick Ward Drive.
Stuart Blanch, who headed the NT Environment Centre back then, took a predictable anti-development stance, suggesting the developers were trying to turn Ludmilla into the Gold Coast.
He probably had a point when he highlighted the development’s proximity to Ludmilla sewage farm, but Opposition by the Labor Party eventually scuppered the development.
It’s difficult to get projects up in the Territory without bipartisan political support.
Muckaty Station nuclear storage facility
Despite Australia being one of the world’s largest uranium producers and a user of the element, there’s a view we shouldn’t be responsible for storing our own radioactive waste. Better that we dump it in France.
TO’s from the Ngapa clan at the Territory’s Muckaty Station held no such fears, negotiating with the NLC to offer a four sqkm plot of land to be considered for such a facility.
It later emerged TOs were actually divided with some supporting and others opposing the facility, sparking a federal court challenge that eventually led to the NLC withdrawing its application, but national protests were looming should it have continued.
More than a decade later, Australia still has no radioactive waste facility.
Gas in general
The delusional belief that our lights and air-conditioners will stay on without gas, wilful activists have done everything they can to stop the Barossa offshore and Beetaloo onshore gas developments.
Court challenges, protests, stage invasions - you name it, they have done it - without identifying alternate energy sources that won’t shut down Australia’s economy.
The Environmental Defenders Office - and its local puppy-dog the ECNT - have been thick on the ground in protesting these two nation-building developments.
This time last year the Federal Court excoriated the EDO and greens involved in providing culturally false heritage information to Tiwi Islanders to persuade them to oppose the project.
Notwithstanding both projects now appear to be on legally safe ground, this hasn’t stopped a last minute crack by perennial Nimbys Lock The Gate against the Beetaloo.
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Originally published as Not in my backyard: A history of objection and disruption in the Northern Territory
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