Sign off for Huntly development

OVER four hundred new homes will be built off Sawmill Road in Huntly following an agreement between developer Wel.Co, the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation and the City of Greater Bendigo.

Six months of negotiations were conducted for the residential community, named Harlowe, as part of the Recognition and Settlement Agreement which states developers must get consent from Traditional Owners before beginning their work on Crown land.

Aboriginal Corporation chair Trent Nelson said the deal would create employment opportunities for Dja Dja Wurrung people and contribute to their self-determination through financial compensation for a community support program which provides funding for education, healthy living, job training and more.

“It creates a wealth of opportunity for our people and our community,” he said.

“We have an enterprise called Djandak and they have a lot of Djaara employed under that to do landscape civil works so hopefully… this will create opportunity for them to be contracted to work in this new development.

“This is a really good way of setting a precedent on how [the corporation] works with developers across central Victoria, especially within the City of Greater Bendigo.

“It creates, for us, acknowledgement as First Peoples of this Country in central Victoria that we can sit down and negotiate on how our Country is managed and created for new developments.

“It’s really important for us to be a part of those conversations and to be respected as well.”

Founder and managing director of Wel.Co, Andrew Welsh, said the residential community was designed for first and second home buyers and would include four hectares of parks and walking tracks.

“Within the growth framework in Bendigo, we identified this area as one that was really going to be appealing because of the affordability nature,” he said.

“The natural lay of the land really lent itself to being a desirable location for those looking to stay within Bendigo or move to Bendigo as a lifestyle change that we’re seeing across the state at the moment.”

Mr Welsh said he’d learnt about the history of the land during negotiations and how it can be incorporated into landscape design.

“We know with Djaara, giving back to the land and rehabilitating that land is something that’s really important and we’re going to be doing that through our landscaping employment opportunities as part of this negotiation,” he said.

Construction of a sales office is now underway on site and will open by the end of January next year, with stage one works on the development to follow one to two months later.