Before it has even fired a shot in anger, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) has destroyed the value of thousands of homes in the Port Stephens area through revised noise exposure boundaries imposed last week by local government following secret negotiations with the Department of Defence.
The result in recent weeks has been a Plane Truth movement, driven by the Medowie Progress Association and a local councillor Geoff Dingle.
The Williamtown RAAF base and the nearby Salt Ash Air Weapons Range near Newcastle will be major centres of activity for the JSF when Australia takes delivery of up to 100 of currently troubled aircraft from 2018.
It has been officially acknowledged for the past four years that the JSF will be blisteringly noisy, beyond the acoustic intensity associated with the RAAF’s FA 18 Hornets and Super Hornets.
However, this isn’t a story about the capabilities of the JSF but the injustice of arbitrary decisions that destroy the value of private property.
The Port Stephens Council and the Department of Defence have been accused of conspiring to keep those who would be severely compromised by the noise issues out of the loop until consultation is irrelevant.
Public meetings have also queried the peculiar exclusion of a new “flagship” residential development at Kings Hill near Williamtown from the severely affected zones in the new noise exposure maps published by the Port Stephens Council,
It wouldn’t matter what future fighter choice Defence made. This is being argued by Plane Truth supporters as being about Defence and local government indifference to working with the community, in an area where Defence generates a significant proportion of direct and indirect economic activity, and de facto, sees itself as the inviolable authority on planning issues impacting on its plans for Williamtown and the weapons range.
The declaration of new noise zones based an ANEF 20 or above noise energy exposure contour has wiped out the current and future value of thousands of properties in the Port Stephens area, according to Plane Truth and Geoff Dingle.
At above these levels these homes are predicted to become uninhabitable beyond 2020-2025 without costly insulation or modification, and with no outdoor amenity. The publication of the new noise zones shrinks the valuations of existing homes, with serious consequences for the lenders and owners who are party to existing mortgages, destroys resale values and renders unoccupied land unsuitable for if not prohibited from, subdivision for new homes.
Dingle, and others, have suggested that part of the problem of the new noise energy exposure maps could be solved by extending the existing 8200 feet long Williamtown runway by a further 8000 feet eastwards, which could favourably shift the predicated levels away from many of the properties now affected.
Although not mentioned in the current debate, Williamtown also faces the further issue of strong growth in airliner activity from the civilian section of the facility, which includes the Newcastle Airport terminal area.
One of the many ironies of the Sydney airport crisis is that Newcastle and the lower Hunter doesn’t have any clear alternative to its future airport needs other than Sydney, while the delusion persists at a state government level that Newcastle is the solution, via a very fast train, to Sydney’s problems.
Surely this is a bit of an overreaction? It’s not like the planes will be flying very often.
If at all, if we believe everything we read.
@ABARKER:
Perhaps a basic understanding of ANEF 20 is in order. Follow the link. Read. Understand. Avoid being so silly.
This issue is a serious problem for those who are currently affected, let alone 5 or 10 years down the track, when the situation develops further.
Ben, you have it spot on. This issue has bubbled away for at least two decades, if not three. It has become a classic study of how NOT to manage town and land planning and community consultations. There’s a long way to go yet, but litigation has already commenced and the local council has been landed with a heap of problems which it can do nothing about but which it did not create.
One major issue is the fact that Newcastle City Council and Port Stephens Council jointly own and operate the airport, on land which is owned and managed by the RAAF, even to the point of putting up with occasional “no fly” days, which even Canberra appears not to endure on its RAAF operated facility.
Newcastle, Australia’s 6th most populous city, deserves much better by way of an airport.
Discussion of a very fast train connecting Sydney to Williamtown airport is just that. We will all be dead and buried long before any sort of train line crosses the Hunter within Cooee of Newcastle, fast or not. This is the brother of the non-existent rail line which was promised to Courtould’s (sp?) fabric factories near Raymond Terrace circa 1948, when they agreed to convert a munitions factory into a manufacturing plant, post WWII. Announcement: The train to Williamtown is now 62 years late and is not expected for a further 50 years. Passengers wishing to travel to Williamtown Airport are advised to prepare for a very long wait.
Courtauld Australia Ltd
Sorry John, being that I’m at work and all, I don’t have time to go reading up on all of the data. It seems like you’re pretty interested though, so, maybe you can crack it in a nutshell for me.
As for avoiding being so silly, unfortunately it’s a prerequisite in this place.
Don’t worry, it may never turn up and make any noise anyway, it is the perfect diversion of money away from health and needed services and puts it into the US who have a big money hole for projects like this.