1.2 acre vacant land for sale on 1640 acres on mid-north coast NSW.
The cheapest way to own your own home is join a land sharing cooperative.

Total price $35,000. Phone Marcus on 0408-697189 or email oneearthmedia-go at yahoo dot com dot au

Please contact us for copies of the last few newsletters, and the full Rules & By-Laws, which members must agree to before purchasing.

1. The objects of the cooperative shall be:

(a) To acquire land for the purpose of providing low cost rural residential housing for members.
(b) To promote the development of a community of artists, musicians, artisans and craftspeople.
(c) To promote the production and disposal of agricultural products of members and other persons.
(d) To promote the principles and methods of permaculture in agriculture and horticulture.
(e) To promote and encourage a community where members and their families can become self sufficient.
(f) To provide a setting where rural re-settlement in hamlets and village clusters can evolve.
(g) To promote and encourage rural employment in socially and environmentally useful work.
(h) To preserve and protect flora and fauna on land acquired for such purpose.

 Share in established land sharing co-operative for sale.

Goolawah land sharing cooperative is located on 1640 acres (664 ha) of land approx 12 kilometers south of the famous longboard break at Crescent Head and 16 kms north of the excellent shopping and health facilities at Port Macquarie, on the mid-north coast of NSW.

Goolawah Cooperative Ltd was registered with NSW Office of Fair Trading in 1999 and purchased the land with the intention of establishing a community soon after.

About 200 acres of Goolawah Co-op is cleared ex-cattle farm which is the home sites for the 80 members, and the remanding 1400 acres is mainly SEPP 14 wetlands or natural bush.  There is a significant holding of SEPP44 Koala Habitat on the land. (SEPP is State Environment Planning Policies, and the SEPP 15 guidelines, which is the Rural Land-Sharing Communities is discussed on bottom right of this webpage - it was co-written by Bob Carr)

Each shareholding is allocated 1.2 acres (.5 ha) of land for their home site.  The home site for sale is 4kms as the crow (or 4wd) flies from Delicate Nobbys Beach, just south of Crescent Head.  It adjoins Limeburners Nature Reserve.

The home site is a gentle slope with good top soil over a clay base for the top third of the acre, then sandy loam for the bottom 2/3 of the site. Avocadoes grow well, with one five year old tree about ten feet tall, and others coming up.

The site also has some citrus (valencia orange, lime and lemon trees), three fig and pecan and apple tree all two years old. An organic vegie garden has been established on the site for four years.

Included in price are two caravans - one 22' x 9' wide (a lounge is included) which serves as the lounge room and bedroom/washroom. Another 16' van is well appointed as the dining room and kitchen.

Building materials include approx. 30 bush poles which can be used to build a roof or in the main house. Also a glass feature door (value $600), two large solar hot water panels and other materials including some tin and fencing.

A 1000 litre water tank, Honda/Onga firefighter water pump with ag fittings to pump from one of the nearby dams or the bore, and Yamaha/Rover mower. Price includes a share in a bore and dams.  The telephone line is connected to the vans.

The local council has started work on tarring the road to our gate and it looks like that will be completed by Christmas. Many thousands of dollars have been spent on acquiring DA approval and the co-ordinator reported at the May 2008 community meeting (held monthly) that she expects the DA to be approved soon.

Total price $35,000 as is where is. Phone Marcus on 0408-697189 or email oneearthmedia-go at yahoo dot com dot au
Please note that there is a fully refundable joining fee to become a member of the co-op, and that levies have been set at $300 per annum per adult member.

The last share sold in Goolawah Cooperative (as far as I am aware) was two years ago for $35000.  I truly this home goes to a good family or someone that enjoys the surfing, fishing and relaxed country lifestyle.  The wild wallabies eat out of you hand here

8th May 2008

DA Report

To be Tabled at the April General Meeting 5/ 4 /08

Hello All,

Since the last GM Tony Reis has stepped down as DA coordinator. I (Kirsty Steer) have taken on this role in the interim. I am happy to continue in this role if community support is behind me to do so.

I’m sending my apologies for not attending today as my son is swimming in Sydney today at the high school state swimming carnival in Homebush.

In February a meeting was held at the council chambers with a number of our members attending to represent Goolawah. A letter came from the council detailing what we need to do to complete the DA application and a copy of the minutes of the meeting. Given advice from a number of qualified sources we are viewing this in a very positive way. Council is ready to complete the DA and is hoping to have this done this year.

A further letter was received from the council outlining their concern about the Potters house being an unapproved dwelling built on Cockatoo Ridge. After phone and e-mail correspondence it seems council is quite willing to accept the building as having the status of being “uninhabitable” with a few more internal photos to show that it doesn’t have a kitchen or bathroom fitted. External photos have already been sent and the Town planner has said they show clearly that the building is not currently serviced by power or plumbing.

A number of our members have shown their willingness to be part of the DA process and also an ex-Kempsey Town planner (Tony Blue) has currently offered his assistance for free when we need further direction or contacts. This is a generous offer as sometimes just having the right engineer or contractor on a part of the proposal can go a long way to smoothing the process of paperwork.

Where to next?

1 The final photos of the potters house will be taken this weekend and submitted to the Town planner on Tuesday.

2 I am meeting with Tony Blue (consultant) this week to show him the surveys of Illa Langi Lane and get his opinion on where to go next in regard to planning a council approved road. He has already shed some light on how to proceed in a land dedication to council being done by the front neighbour if needed that would be much less cumbersome than first anticipated.

3 The next step is to look at the visual impact and site allocations and ascertaining which format (digital or paper based)the council requires. A number of members have already been reviewing this over the past few weeks.

Thank you for the support and willingness to help that has been shown to me over the past month that since I have been involved in this process. I would like to know that I have the communities support to proceed in this role as DA coordinator and look forward to seeing this achieved by the end of the Year.

Until next time
Regards

Kirsty Steer

Development Application (DA)
DA CO-ORDINATORS REPORT, APRIL 2008

DA Report: ( By Kirsty Steer)
I met with Kempsey councils Planner and Consultant on 29 April 08
Council outlined what they needed to receive to complete our DA
They were keen to set a completion date and were willing to make some allowances as long as what they viewed as the most important documents were covered.
They would like our submissions to be completed in 2-3weeks. It is now 5 days since getting that time frame and we are feverishly working away at it, looking like we will be able to meet their request.
This is an excellent opportunity to get this DA through. The two council representatives were very helpful in detailing to me exactly what they wanted and what it would look like. I took lots of notes and read them back before leaving the meeting so that I had clarification from both participants that I was leaving the meeting with the right interpretation of what they wanted.
The main documents needed are: Visual impact statement, information regarding composting toilets & grey water systems, rubbish disposal and some internal mapping variations. Some of these things have been submitted in whole or part before but by giving them again now in one collated document in the new format they require seems the best course of action rather than initiating a new debate over old documentation.
The Potters house is officially “deemed uninhabitable” which means it is no longer of concern to them. (We now have this confirmed in writing).
It is not clear how long council takes once our submissions are in but they will be moving forward to the next step, hopefully by mid to late May.
This is an exciting time for Goolawah and it is great to see how people are pulling together to get things done.

See her letter at the bottom of this webpage

Sydney Rental Crisis Continues - REINSW

Rental crisis predicted to worsen - ABC

Rental Crisis in Sydney

Housing affordability to worsen - SMH

Affordable Housing
What is it and why does it matter? - Sydney Univeristy - PDF file

Photo shows entire Goolawah Co-operative - 1640 acres is shown with black boundary.  Site for sale is near the bottom SE corner.

Click photo to see immediate surrounding of the homesite as they were in 2005.  The immediate neighbours have nine children aged between 1 and 16 years old.

2006 photo shows home site's boundary before the vans were relocated on it.