Lizard Rock, Belrose: Teal MP calls for 450-home subdivision on Aboriginal-owned land to be dumped in favour of national park

Despite a housing crisis gripping the state, a Teal MP is urging planners to dump calls for a 450-home Sydney subdivision on Aboriginal-owned land in favour of an ‘Indigenous national park’.

Plans for a controversial 450-home subdivision on Aboriginal-owned bushland on the northern beaches should be scrapped for an Indigenous national park, according to a Teal MP.

Mackellar federal MP Sophie Scamps has hit out at plans by the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council, despite a mounting housing crisis gripping the state.

Dr Scamps has argued the proposal by the land’s owners, the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council (MLALC), was “not created with the community’s needs in mind”.

The land council wants to redevelop the 71-hectares of bush for private homes so it can generate hundreds of millions of dollars to help support programs for ­Aboriginal people, including providing social and affordable housing across Sydney.

The large rock, painted to look like the head of a lizard on Morgan Rd, Belrose. But the proposed development is called Patyegarang — in honour of an Aboriginal woman thought to have been the first original inhabitant to teach an Aboriginal language to early Sydney colonists. (AAP Image / Julian Andrews)

It said the proposal would protect ancient Aboriginal sites, with 19.8ha of the development kept as conservation areas and plans for an Aboriginal cultural community centre.

In her submission to NSW Planning, Dr Scamps called for a national park to be owned by Aboriginal people so income could be generated, suggesting that the state government should buy the land, or agree to a long-term lease.

A view over the Lizard Rock land holding. Picture: Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council

“This would be a win-win situation,” Dr Scamps said. “The MLALC would secure a financial gain in addition to the long term jobs that are created for indigenous people within the national park while the local community will benefit from additional valuable open space and recreational and cultural spaces.”

Dr Scamps said while more homes, particularly affordable housing, were needed on the northern beaches, “locating it at Lizard Rock, away from services and transport and in a bushfire zone, goes against all good planning principles”.

Independent federal MP for Mackellar, Sophie Scamps, has called on the NSW Government to “step in"and make the Lizard Rock land a national park — rather than a housing subdivision — to be owned and controlled by First Nations people. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Northern Beaches Council called on authorities to reject the plan because of the “extreme risk” from bushfires.

It also feared the project would have a devastating effect on the environment and that the proposed new homes were surplus to the council’s housing targets.

Mayor Sue Heins said the council wholeheartedly supported the intent of the Aboriginal land rights Act.

“After all, this land always was and always will be Aboriginal land, but we simply cannot condone this particular proposal due to the extreme risks and impacts it presents,” Cr Heins said.

Nathan Moran from the Metropolitan Aboriginal Land Council, at the site of the proposed new housing development at Belrose, says the site was once used as farmland. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“This is not NIMBYism, this is about protecting our precious environment and protecting lives.”

MLALC chief executive, Nathan Moran, said that it would use the opportunity to use land, he called the “Morgan Road lands” to achieve self-determination as well as generate economic benefits.

“This land was previously farmland, agricultural land and housed an extraction quarry at some stage.”