The stretch of land was once a property developer’s dream. Set against the Great Otway National Park and running up to the Great Ocean Road, the site is nestled amid one of the most sought-after holiday regions in Victoria.
For decades the community fought off various development proposals on this Aireys Inlet property of about 30 hectares. Residential housing, a caravan park and sporting field are among the uses mooted for the site over the years.
But last month, the property’s future took an unlikely turn that brought relief and hope to many locals.
Non-profit environment group BioDiversity Legacy has now taken over a 99-year lease on the land and will work with the community to return it to a natural state.
Rather than building houses, there are plans to reinstate a natural floodplain in the hope of improving water health in the Painkalac Creek and soil quality in the Painkalac Valley.
The community hopes that revegetating the site will also attract native birds and animals. The land restoration will be known as the Painkalac Project, led by local groups and residents.
Painkalac Project president Mick Loughnan and wife Jacinta Halloran own a smaller neighbouring property where a similar restoration project was undertaken. In just seven years, Loughnan said, his site had been transformed through work from environment experts and volunteers.
Loughnan said it had been a joy to watch native plants and animals thriving on his property, which is about 4.5 hectares.
He said restoring the neighbouring property would enable small colonies of vulnerable species to connect and extend their genetic diversity.
“This will be the biggest part of the jigsaw,” Loughnan said.
Recently, camera traps on his property recorded the presence of the white-footed dunnart, a small carnivorous marsupial that is listed as vulnerable in Victoria.
Dozens of bird species have also been recorded on Loughnan’s land, along with the swamp antechinus, a threatened small marsupial about the size of a mouse.
He said developers had been eyeing off the Painkalac Project site since the 1960s, but local people were determined to fend them off.
“The community has been fighting to keep that valley available for restoration,” Loughnan said. “After a 60-year battle, this is it.”
Loughnan said reinstating wetlands might also help protect properties downstream from flooding by capturing water before it flows into the creek.
“At the moment the stormwater drains direct water into the creek,” he said. “When you establish wetlands you allow the water to go somewhere else.”
Loughnan said a plan for the site would be presented to the Surf Coast Shire next week. But because the project does not require land rezoning or major construction works, he did not expect any significant impediments to council support.
Former Melbourne lord mayor Lecki Ord and Ian Godfrey, both members of the Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Society for the Protection of Flora and Fauna and the Aireys Inlet and District Association, provided funding for the lease and rehabilitation of the land.
Ord said rejuvenating Loughnan’s property showed what could be done at the neighbouring site.
“My passion is repairing the land,” she said.
Ord said it could take years to provide public access to the land through walking trails, but she was looking forward to the land being placed in community hands.
She declined to reveal how much funding she and Godfrey donated with the project still in its early stages.
Surf Coast Shire Mayor Libby Stapleton said the Painkalac Project resulted from decades of effort from groups and community members.
“This work complements council’s efforts in the neighbouring reserve we manage,” Stapleton said.
The lease takeover by BioDiversity Legacy means the land is removed from the property market and cannot be sold or developed.
In 1999, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled out a proposal to build dozens of houses on the land. It was most recently being used for horse agistment.
Barbara Wilson, an associate professor in ecology at Deakin University, has been researching the Painkalac Valley since the 1990s and said floodplains in the area were cleared for agriculture more than 100 years ago.
Wilson lives in Aireys Inlet and said both the Painkalac Project and the restoration of Loughnan’s land had buoyed people’s spirits.
“It’s given everyone a great lift,” she said.
Wilson said the Painkalac Project would extend the natural habitat from the Great Otway National Park to the coast just beyond the Great Ocean Road, which would help to ameliorate fragmentation of the landscape.
Painkalac Project supporters point to Loughnan’s property as an example of how land can be rehabilitated with both expert and community support.
“It shows you how long it can take, but it’s worth it,” Wilson said.
In an article for the Anglesea and Aireys Inlet Society’s quarterly publication, the group’s former president, Sally White, said the property was a meeting place for Wadawurrung and Gadubanud peoples.
From the middle of the 19th century, she wrote, the area was used for grazing land for more than 100 years. A plan for a caravan park was considered in 1965, which triggered the creation of a local association, and the group opposed private development and plans for a sports ground.
White said the new arrangement would reinstate and preserve that slice of the natural environment for generations.
“The Painkalac Valley is the largest and most significant estuarine wetland along the Great Ocean Road,” she said.
BioDiversity Legacy project officer Jyoti Kala hoped the property might eventually provide habitat for the critically endangered orange-bellied parrot among other species.
Kala said the lease acquisition had been secured after two years of work and negotiations.
“Now this land is protected and outside the private market, it can be managed by the community,” she said.
Kala hoped the project could provide a model for how other communities might protect environmentally important land.
“This will be a showcase project for the region under community management,” she said.
Now the community can realise their own dream and develop that land with a green visions, just as nature intended.
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Benjamin Preiss is The Age’s regional editor. He was previously state rounds reporter and has also covered education for The Age.Connect via X or email.