Concerned residents are calling on Queanbeyan council to pick a route that doesn’t go through Fernleigh Park. Photo: Councillor Ross Macdonald.
Residents have raised the alarm about their fears that their council could put a new major road through their properties.
Dunns Creek Road is set to connect Tralee (or South Jerrabomberra) in NSW with Canberra. There is currently one access road, which relies on Tompsitt Drive.
But as Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) plans a second road, some residents are urging them to abandon options that pass through Fernleigh Park.
It follows an options paper into various routes the new road could take.
Longtime resident Colleen Krestensen told Region that the community believed a 2015 council decision selecting a preferred route away from their homes was final.
“There has never been a suggestion – when we brought or when we’ve built – that there would be a major road cutting through our properties,” she said.
But in a recently released options paper, the council has put forward eight alternatives – including three that run through their development.
“All alternative options had a common starting point at the western end due to the constraint of needing to tie in with the ACT Government’s preferred connection point, a new roundabout at Isabella Drive in the ACT,” the report states.
Ms Krestensen claimed that up to 31 families could lose either their homes or part of their properties if QPRC went ahead with a route through Fernleigh Park.
“For quite a few properties, the road will run just metres from the front or back door … That would compromise their properties, compromise their quality of life and definitely affect the value of their property.
“For those people, they’re losing a way of life, as well.”
Fellow resident Michelle Haine isn’t convinced the proposed routes will solve traffic congestion, calling for the council to consider other options.
“There are other options on the table that might be a better fit – like widening the existing road and getting rid of some bottlenecks.
“So far, the routes through Fernleigh Park only shave off a few minutes – it’s not going to make a huge difference.”
If QPRC went ahead with a route through their area, she raised the “pretty phenomenal” cost of building a new road and the possibility of an “echo” of traffic noise affecting nearby residents as other concerns.
Ms Haine said some of her neighbours were in the “heartbreaking” position of considering how their properties could be affected.
“We don’t want to see our neighbours put in harm’s way like that,” she said when asked about the impact of the proposal.
“It will impact all of us … Over the last couple of years [a nearby household] has been spending all their money renovating and improving their space.”
Ms Krestensen said residents felt on the hook for a “mistake” that meant another route, which the council had adopted as its preferred route in 2015, couldn’t be pursued.
A council spokesperson said the alternative routes needed to be considered after land along the proposed route was registered as a Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement site.
This occurred in 2017 and 2018, before council received $27 million in funding for road design and land acquisition.
But Ms Krestensen hit out at the suggestion that the new road’s route could impact the environment in her area instead.
“We’ve done our best to protect and actually regenerate the land … We have sugar gliders, we have pink-tailed lizards.
“Environmental considerations are important, but so are people and so are homes.”
The council spokesperson said that QPRC contacted landowners in the area before the options report was published.
“The Mayor and General Manager/Acting General Manager met with more than 30 individual property owners, and attended community meetings at Fernleigh Park, Tralee, Jerrabomberra, and Googong to discuss the options review,” they said.
“The Fernleigh Park meeting was attended by more than 120 people.”
You can give feedback on the options report through the Your Voice QPRC portal until 6 October.
Original Article published by Claire Sams on Region Canberra.
