Presentations to Eurobodalla Council 27 May 2025 on the Draft Batemans Bay Masterplan
Stephanie Chiu Presentation
Djamaga yiribini njindiwan, good afternoon everyone. My name is Steph Chiu and I am here today to represent a community of concerned residents and custodians of Yuin Country here in the Eurobodalla Shire.
As a community facilitator and a practicing registered architect, I am privileged to partner with communities and governments in designing resilient ways to live together in relationship with this beautiful coast. In my 14 years of architectural practice I have collaborated with a wide variety of local governments, planners, and urban designers across diverse scales and contexts. Well designed master planning processes have great potential to bring communities together through the creation of a shared vision for the future and for future generations.
However, this particular draft leaves me very concerned. In my professional view, this document and exhibition process is disappointingly unprofessional, inconsistent, poorly written, and does not represent the Bay community.
The community deserves a genuine Masterplan through a participatory process that is reflective of them, collaborative and ultimately achieves design excellence in alignment with existing council Strategies and Plans. Having personally taken time over the past month to hear from my elders, neighbours, fellow designers and across the community broadly and it is clear that they would have loved to have shared their aspirations had they been given the chance.
Noting that yesterday was National Sorry Day, our local elders have consistently asked for greater transparency and voiced the necessity for Traditional Owners to be collaborated with throughout developments on their Country. They express the pain and disrespect caused to Country and community when their perspectives and knowledge have been disregarded.
Councillors, can we truthfully claim to be working together for a shared future with our Elders and community when their direct requests for collaboration are ignored?
In Council’s response to the Questions on Notice, Planning staff have stated that the ‘primary purpose’ and ‘key reason’ for the Masterplan was to attract and respond to ‘requests from developers to build above prescribed height limits’.
Councillors, whose interests does this purpose actually represent, and why do their interests take precedence over the residents of the Bay and the Traditional Custodians of Walbunja Country? This painfully honest ‘primary purpose’ has clearly not been developed to meet the primary needs and desires of the Bay community today or in 75 years time, as the Masterplan process had completed no engagement or collaboration with the community before rushing to public exhibition.
Also clear is Council’s original brief sent to consultants in 2023, now sitting in front of you. This document established a reasonable strategy and project objectives which are completely at odds with the priorities of the draft plan currently on exhibition. Some key differences include:
- The original timeline of 20-40 years. Today’s draft is for an unprecedented 75 years unheard of in any other urban masterplan in the world.
- The first objective in the project brief was “to provide affordable housing choices” – yet today’s draft has no action to ensure this. The proposed voluntary incentive is a pointless claim of false credit as this mechanism already exists under the State Housing policy.
- Additionally, the project was tasked “to manage the challenges of increased future flooding and coastal inundation events”. Instead, this draft proposes 75% of its proposed building height increases sitting within the Probable Maximum Flood area, and completely ignores any subsequent management or responsibility for such actions, except to claim that ‘flooding risks result in a need for taller buildings’ on p33.
- Due to many such discrepancies between the original brief and draft, the technical studies produced according to the original work provide no evidence for the outcomes or claims made in the more recent masterplan, including the necessity to ‘be tested through stakeholder and community input that will be run concurrently” to the consultant. Today’s draft shows no such input and even more worryingly a departure from recommendations to heights without grounded evidence on impact.
Councillors, Who truly benefits from this draft plan? It is not the residents, future generations or Country. Why and how did we veer so far from the original intent of the master plan process and brief?
So then, what systems and mechanisms need to be put in place such that this does not happen again to the potential detriment of residents and future generations?
Councillors, a Draft Masterplan can be an opportunity to collaborate together to invest in local culture and economies, building innovative and affordable homes for our communities, preparing for the future and designing and building disaster resilience specific to Walbunja Country. Why don’t we do that instead?
As a group of concerned residents of the Eurobodalla Shire volunteering our time and expertise to speak on behalf of the future generations potentially impacted by this Draft Masterplan, we request that Councillors:
- not adopt this document, and;
- reinvest our public resources and the $200K state government funding for the master plan into a collaborative and inclusive shared vision which truly represents the needs and desires of the Batemans Bay community.
bundjala-ya-ndjali-nj bhundoo-dha walbanga-dha buraadja-gul
Let-us-all-think-together with-bhundoo with-walbanga for-tomorrow
After achieving this critical first step, then we can draft and execute the plan, and not before.
Such a crucial document must align with foundational Council plans and policies, and fundamentally, a completed Eurobodalla Housing Strategy.
As it stands, the Draft Housing Strategy requires similar reworking and rigour to achieve this goal.
- In addition, we request: an independent review of the Draft Housing Strategy in relation to the Draft Masterplan, specifically addressing the common issues of unfinished, unclear, unprofessional and inconsistent planning which ignores the needs and desires of Eurobodalla Shire residents over the speculative interests of external developers.
The Draft Masterplan is an opportunity to fulfil the Vision outlined and adopted in our Community Strategic Plan: From our beaches to our bushlands, rivers and mountains… Our Eurobodalla is a place of inclusive communities embracing sustainable lifestyles. Our future balances our natural assets and thriving economy. Our community is resilient and (notably)collaborative, and this underpins all that we do.
We request that the Draft Masterplan process be redesigned to uphold this vision, supporting and creating a Bay which embodies our shared Values and vision for future generations.
Frank Ross presentation
ESC Meeting 27.5.25: Submission re Item 9 QON 25/001 Bateman’s Bay Masterplan
Thank you for the opportunity to make this submission in regard to Item 9 QON 25/001 Bateman’s Bay Masterplan for Council’s meeting on 27 May 2025. I am doing so on behalf of the Eurobodalla Greens.
Introduction
We fully support Council’s initiative in drafting a Masterplan for Bateman’s Bay’s development in consultation with the community. Based on the current draft and advice from Planning staff, we appreciate, in summary that at this stage, the Plan is designed to:
- Facilitate the sale of Council’s adjacent bloc of land at 2 Vesper Street, North of the Bay Pavilions and a large number of rezoned blocks along the foreshore to the East;
- Increase the population of the town centre and immediate environs by 8000 through zoning changes and amendment of building height levels to 80 metres; and
- Provide a basis for the flourishing tourism, social and economic amenity of the town centre and environs for the next 75 years.
Background
Council and media reports confirm that the Bay Pavilions, opened in April 2022, is an increasing financial burden on ratepayers – to around $5.6 million per year. Since 2023 Council has sought to offset some this cost by selling its adjacent 14000 cubic metres “Gateway” block of land (2 Vesper Street) through Sadil Quinlan Real Estate Agents.
As the Agents advised that Council’s LEP zone building height limits on this land appeared to be an impediment to possible sale of the Gateway bloc, in late 2023 the General Manager requested the Planning Branch develop a proposal to raise the height limits on the land to facilitate a possible high rise hotel/residential building on the site. As economic viability issues with the adjacent Bateman’s Bay commercial precinct were also becoming prominent, it was decided at the Executive level to extend this high rise proposal to the precinct – and then to extend it to Batehaven under the auspices of a Masterplan.
The key driver of the Masterplan has therefore been one of increasing building heights throughout Bateman’s Bay. On 5 May 2025, Council released the Masterplan Draft (with 6 attachments) for public comment. Due to its length of 367 pages and very abstract structure (eg, organised around 5 “Themes:… Flourishing; Morphology: Typology: Ecology: and Capacity”) and highly conceptual content, ratepayers could be forgiven for throwing in the towel. Despite these obstacles, the maps with diagrams tell the main story: Council is seeking to create high rise apartments and hotels through much of Bateman’s Bay.
The main proposal to drastically increase building heights in Bateman’s Bay has already provoked much community and media comment. The questions in Councillor Mayne’s Question on Notice at today’s meeting reflects a number of these concerns. I would also suggest they also reflect limitations in the scope, structure and content of the Masterplan,
Issues
It is standard practice for Strategic Development Plans to commence with a full description of the geographical, social and economic details of the place; and often includes an independent environmental assessment. This Plan focuses instead on its argument for high rise development. This creates a number of issues:
- the Plan does not provide any details of the geotechnical basis for high rise. Since the geotechnical condition of the ground on the proposed blocks for rezoning is critical to their saleability; and there is already substantial evidence that they mostly have a 20-30 metres depth of sand and mud – and therefore very high cost for any investment in high rise – this issue alone may render the Plan’s basis to be uneconomic. Drilling associated with the construction of the Bay Pavilions and the Bateman’s Bay Bridge is the primary evidence for the 20-30 metre depth of sand and mud above the bedrock. Council’s Planning officers acknowledge that there may be geotech issues but that it will be up to developers to establish the facts of depth to the bedrock after they buy their block, obtain a DA and do the drilling.
On this issue alone, the outcome could therefore be that the Shire is left with:
- a number of weed infested zombie blocks and empty buildings along the foreshore with high mesh fences which make Bateman’s Bay look a complete eyesore; and
- the Masterplan as a complete dead duck.
Given the issues with high rise on the foreshore, it would thus seem sensible that the Plan should propose other sites in the precinct for high rise development which are closer to bedrock and do not impede visual amenity of the Bay.
- According to Council’s own flood zone maps, most of Bateman’s Bay foreshore is vulnerable to flooding at times of storm surges and high tides. Climate change is exacerbating and increasing the incidents of heavy storms and rising sea levels. Most of the data regarding sea level rise Council relies on is already out of date. Since more recent climate change data indicates a geometric increase in sea levels within the next 30 years, the chances of increasing inundation are very high. This situation would require Council factoring in the need to build costly engineering works to protect these buildings for most of this time; plus considering other options for locating high rise as per item 1 above.
- In addition to the above lack of consistency with the Shire’s Climate Action Plan 2022-2032, there are many other related oversights. For example, in discussing the possible carbon footprint and social amenity of apartment blocks and hotels, it is clear that high rise ones pose much greater issues and costs in this area. The Plan should thus accordingly provide alternative combinations of low rise and medium density zoning heights.
- Optimising visual amenity. One of Bateman’s Bay greatest assets for tourists and residents is its visual amenity along the foreshore. There are many opportunities for improving this amenity along the lower areas between Orient Street and the shore by removing buildings over time as opportunities permit to create Plazas from the main shopping areas to the Shore.
- There is no mandatory requirement for a percentage of affordable social housing in proposed developments. This is a common requirement as part of the DA process by many Shire Councils with a lack of affordable housing. Since this issue is a key issue here, it thus should be mandatory.
- Lack of meaningful consultation with indigenous stakeholders. We are advised that this has been verbally done but there are no records about with whom; from where; about what issues; whether there were representatives of any indigenous organisations involved; and what was the agreed outcome. This consultation clearly needs to be properly done.
- The rapid and accelerating rate of economic, social and technological change in the times we live in make long term planning problematic. No other Shire in Australia has a Masterplan longer than 30 years, The Eurobodalla Shire’s draft Masterplan’s ambition to provide a development framework for 75 years is thus nonsensical – and should be reduced.
- The draft Masterplan has not considered the revolutions in telecommuting and transport (eg, electric cars) which makes Bateman’s Bay and the rest of the Shire a very attractive housing option for people formerly working in cities like Canberra and Sydney. Creating attractive housing and urban environments for telecommuters in Bateman’s Bay and the rest of the Shire should accordingly be part of the Plan.
- The draft Masterplan has not referenced any other Masterplans from other comparable Shires or municipalities in Australia. Some prime examples include Byron Bay, Harvey Bay (QLD) and Bayside Shire Council (VIC). Given they have done a lot of the hard work in developing models to meet the complex economic, social and environmental development issues in their coastal communities, our Shire’s Planning staff should research and reference these other Masterplans as part of their development of our Plan.
Conclusion
The draft Masterplan’s integrity has been compromised by it giving priority to high rise development without due process. Councillors were never given the opportunity by the previous General Manager to consider its terms of reference, proposed methodology and costings. The result is that we have been given an unrealistic real estate development scheme masquerading as a Masterplan.
Since Councillors have a responsibility to ensure due process and that ratepayers obtain a realistic Bateman’s Bay Masterplan which has integrity, they need to seriously consider their options. It is also clear that Planning staff have worked very hard in following the directions of the previous General Manager to deliver and promote this document. In this context, it is thus very difficult for them to independently review the current draft Masterplan with a view to addressing the above issues.
Given the above context and the complex issues involved, Councillors are therefore placed in a difficult situation. Pausing the process and obtaining the services of a professional consultant with expertise in local Government Planning to review and revise the Masterplan would seem to be the most viable option.
Recommendation
For the reasons outlined in the above Conclusion, it is recommended that Councillors:
- pause the current Masterplan process; and
- obtain the services of a professional consultant with expertise in local Government Planning to review and revise the Masterplan.
Yours sincerely,
Frank Ross
A Better Eurobodalla presentation Dr Brett Stevenson
Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to address Council regarding QON 25/001 Batemans Bay Masterplan.
I am presenting as Co-Convenor of A Better Eurobodalla (ABE), a community forum dedicated to having open and inclusive government in our region. ABE has applied the principles of good governance and technical expertise to the draft Batemans Bay Masterplan (“the Masterplan”) and has identified significant problems with both the draft document as well as the response to Councillor Mayne’s Questions on Notice.
The questions raised by Clr Mayne canvass critical issues, and the responses provided in the agenda paper are exceedingly meagre and uninformative. For example, it strains the bounds of credulity that a “3D Fly By Video” which accurately represents the permissible building height and bulk proposals included in the Masterplan could not be included “because of cost”. An accurate simulation video would cost no more than the inaccurate one provided, and avoid potential for misconception and misunderstanding.
One of Councillor Mayne’s questions was a request for Council to prepare a summary document encapsulating the set of assumptions (such as population growth rates, demographic characteristics etc) incorporated in the Masterplan. This would give the community a useful starting point to assess the utility and credibility of the document in delivering its stated objectives, such as affordable housing, etc. However, the agenda papers indicate that this request will be answered by a probity report, which seems a bizarre response to a relatively straightforward question.
One important supplementary question is why Council’s ownership of several of the blocks of land proposed for high rise development is not acknowledged as a potential conflict of interest or role in the draft Masterplan. Conflicts of interest or role are both significant governance issues under the NSW Local Government Act, which sets the rules under which all NSW LGAs must operate. This is a critical issue which needs to be included in the terms of reference for the probity report.
In the interests of transparency, the community needs to know the terms of reference for the probity report before it is commenced, and be assured that an unabridged version of the final report will be available to the community. If this does not occur, it will indicate that Council has learned nothing from its unnecessarily clandestine behaviour throughout the Batemans Bay Pavilions project, which has created an ongoing financial black hole for Eurobodalla ratepayers. The Eurobodalla community cannot afford for this Masterplan to spawn another white elephant, draining community resources and hindering alternative sustainable growth options for both Batemans Bay and the wider Eurobodalla Region.
I will now briefly consider the draft Masterplan. This document was foreshadowed in Council’s draft “Not an Affordable” Housing Strategy, whose significant shortcomings were identified in multiple presentations to Council on 24th November 2024, including one by ABE. The community has been told that the Masterplan is not just about height, but is also about affordable housing. However, this is not supported by a simple scan of the document – the term “affordable housing” occurs just 5 times in the 106 page document, while “height” occurs 158 times. In fact, the Masterplan recommends extensive height and zoning changes to the Eurobodalla LEP. Council has recently secured a $200,000 grant to implement these changes, claiming they will provide an additional 8,000 dwellings. No documentation to support these projected 8,000 additional dwellings (equivalent to 16,000 people) is included in the Masterplan.
The Masterplan exhibits similar problems to the draft Housing Strategy in that it fails to include any references to sources or supporting studies, such as the consultancy documents available on the Masterplan webpage. As a result, it is virtually impossible to validate or cross check any of the information presented in the Masterplan – it must be accepted on face value.
The NSW Government Integrated Planning & Reporting Framework provides the planning benchmark for all NSW LGAs, and is the basis for Council’s own delivery and work plans. In the Eurobodalla strategic planning context, the high level plan is the South East & Regional Tablelands Plan, whose timeline extends to 2042, which is then implemented through the Eurobodalla Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS), that extends out to 2040. It is notable that the first priority action listed in the Eurobodalla LSPS is to “develop an Affordable Housing Strategy”.
At odds with this strategic context, the Masterplan pays lip service to affordable housing and targets a population of 40,000 for Batemans Bay by 2100. However, the Masterplan does not define the area for this population target, and no explanation is provided for the exceptionally long 2100 timeline. Given that the supporting economic study utilises a 2042 time horizon for its analyses (consistent with both the Southeast Regional Plan and Council’s usual planning horizon), the following questions are relevant – What methodology and data was used to project so far out into the future? What confidence limits can be placed on this type of projection? Where else has this methodology been used?
The Masterplan is largely silent on the biophysical issues which need to be properly assessed before deciding to build 100 metre residential towers on a vulnerable coastal floodplain faced with the prospect of rising sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme events such as floods, storms, coastal erosion episodes and bushfires. In spite of this, the words “sea level” are mentioned only once in the document, with a passing reference to work being undertaken to define how construction of unspecified protective works will occur. This is not a credible response to such a major issue.
The Masterplan also fails to consider the geotechnical capability of the Bay’s underlying sediments and rocks to support massive structures up 100 metres high, and whether specialised construction methods would be required to make such proposals viable. There is no consideration of the consequent cost implications on the affordability of dwellings in these high rise buildings, nor what effects their vulnerable coastal location would have on their insurance eligibility and costs.
In addition, the Masterplan does not provide any substantive consideration of the infrastructure and servicing requirements for the large scale structures it proposes, including their technical and economic feasibility and who will bear the costs of providing these services.
In summary, this is not a masterplan – it is a masterclass in how NOT to do strategic planning. The document fails to adequately address multiple major systemic strategic issues which cannot be resolved by subsequent “site by site” development assessment processes.
The document should be deferred so it can be significantly reworked in close consultation with the community to properly integrate the multiple issues that need to be threaded together to bring it up to an acceptable standard.
Thank you,
Dr Brett Stevenson
Co-Convenor, A Better Eurobodalla
27/5/25
SHASA presentation - Kathryn Maxwell
Thank you for the opportunity to speak, on behalf of SHASA on the draft Batemans Bay Master Plan 2025. SHASA supports the issues raised in Änthony Mayne in a Question on Notice 25/001 Batemans Bay Masterplan.
SHASA has identified a number of significant concerns with the draft Master Plan. These include:
1. Process
The Process undertaken to develop the Master Plan.
- The ESC Housing Strategy should be finalised before draft master plans for townships are developed. The township and suburbs should be considered together as well as separately.
- We welcome the commitment of the planning team to exposing the draft for comment, and to making themselves available to discuss the proposal. However this cannot replace community involvement, engagement, consultation which does not seem to have had any part in developing the draft.
- The failure to consider the Council’s Coastal Management Plan or Climate Action Plan, in addition to any plan or policy including the ESC:
- Community Strategic Plan (CSP), Community Engagement Strategy, Batemans Bay Waterfront Master Plan and Activation Strategy,
- This draft has apparently been prepared in a vacuum of strategic planning. It does not acknowledge the master plan developed through extensive community consultation, prior to release of a draft, with the final released in 2015. SHASA acknowledges the time and energy commitment of Council and the community to the preparation of the 2015 plan and wishes to ensure that the decisions reached at that time are not ignored.
- Failure to consider climate impacts on the future of Batemans Bay
- Climate – the current situation on the Northern Beaches and mid North coast has many lessons for the Eurobodalla in the future. Over 10,000 houses flood damaged, significant infrastructural damage, billions of dollars in damage. We can expect the next seventy years to bring far more extreme climate events to Australia’s coast that will impact low lying property. Yesterday the prime minister said Australia was getting “far too much experience in dealing with extreme weather events”. “The science told us that there would be more frequent events and they would be more intense, and that is what we are seeing,” he said.
- The past weather is not a good indicator of future weather. Approving more, and more expensive, development on land that is now at increased risk of flooding does not seem to be good business. Therefore we should not be building more on the low lying areas, but planning a retreat of our essential infrastructure to higher ground.
- Over seventy years the major impacts of climate change in Batemans Bay will certainly include:
- Sea level rise (just look over the Bay to Surfside and Long Beach)
- Storm surges (just look over the Bay to Surfside and Long Beach)
- Bushfires
- Flooding
- Insurance risks. Many properties in these flood prone areas have had their insurance premiums skyrocket to unaffordable levels and in some cases cannot even get insurance. They are becoming stranded assets.
- The current draft master plan does not give sufficient weight to these valid, scientifically proven concerns for the future.
- Engineering requirements for construction on riverine and coastal sites
This will make building some of the proposed high rise apartment towers very expensive. Very expensive foundations required to build on swamps/low lying riverine areas.
The draft master plan does not mention the geotech as a challenge, consideration, risk in development. The risk of not being able to secure adequate insurance, or the likely increase in the cost of insurance, has not been considered in the draft plan.
- Quality of the build
We do not have builders that can build quality high rise apartments. Just look at the problems plaguing high rise apartments in Sydney.
- Aesthetics and appropriateness of heights
High rise apartments are out of character with the South Coast. No other similar local government areas with similar geography and population are planning high rise apartments. Where high rise development has been permitted, at the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast in Queensland, there is considerable community dissatisfaction with the impact the towers have had on the aesthetics of the area, traffic pressure, and community spirit.
- The draft plan is seeking to increase the height limit of future development to 100 metres. Our members have been unable to find any example of a coastal town similar to Batemans Bay where buildings of such height are proposed. The most similar plans, for Wide Bay, Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour, are not proposing heights above 6 storeys, and in most cases less.
- There is no evidence that high rise apartments will contribute positively to the community, or address the crisis of affordable housing in this area.
There is a 99m (30 storey) building in Newcastle, and they have a population of 348,000. In Port Macquarie we see a 10 storey (~30m) building for a population of 47,000.
The South and Far South coast has its own character and charm. It is unlikely to be improved through any ambition to reproduce the Gold Coast on the South Coast!!!
- Will not fix the problem of affordable housing
These high rise apartments, if they are constructed, will likely be targeting high income people from Canberra wanting a holiday apartment with views of the Bay. Today nearly four of every ten houses in the Eurobodalla are owned by people who do not live in the Eurobodalla. Many are empty most of the time.
More housing does not equal more affordability. In Anglicare’s 2025 Rental Affordability Snapshot, they reveal data “that calls into question the assumption that increasing supply alone will ease rental stress for low-income households. The data shows that even with more properties on the market, affordability rates (that’s the number of properties available to rent that cost less than one third of the renter’s weekly income) remained static or actually declined for most groups.”
The idea that private supply alone will improve affordability is not borne out by the evidence… Increasing supply is part of the solution, but only if the right supply is built.
If the Council wants to increase affordable housing, it must propose ways of providing the right supply.
- Insufficient green space and usable green space
Usable green space is vital to a livable and vibrant community. The Master Plan mentions the value of green space several times but apart from replacing the Perry Street carpark little or no new green space is created. Existing green spaces will be lost if development is allowed on existing RE1 and RE2 areas such as Mackay Park and the foreshore in front of Clyde Street.
- Crime and safety. This 106 page document only mentions crime once. “Introduce crime protection through environmental design principles” on page 52. This is despite Batemans Bay having extremely high rates of crime. It is ranked 100 out of 100 on the Red Crime Maps.
- Future population projections and where they come from.. A lot of people moved to the Bay, and other smaller rural and regional towns, during the pandemic. However, this demand appears to have peaked. In the last year the population of the Bay increased by 0.1%. The plan assumes a very significant increase in population but does not acknowledge the significant investment in public infrastructure that will be required.
Just as a side note, planning for a future that is focused 75 years in the future is a mug’s game. Think about the changes in Canberra’s plan in the 75 years since 1950. What was the Bay like in 1950? Could any plan that was developed then be of any use in guiding the community today?
- Council needs to be transparent about the reasons why this major transformation is needed.
Council has not been able to sell the former bowling club site despite signs saying a sale is under consideration. We understand that a developer may have lobbied Council to lift the height restriction for the town centre in order to build high rise apartments on the site.
The draft master plan is not explicit about what land is Council owned. What is the Council’s role in this. What would the benefit to the community be?
- We need a probity audit on the process for developing (what was originally an affordable) housing strategy. We were promised an affordable housing strategy but now it seems affordable has dropped off – will the next iteration take into account ALL feedback (from both consultations). Its hard to find the word affordable anywhere – none of Judith Stubbs recommendations were adopted but it was the substantial background paper.
After serious consideration, and discussion with the planning team and with multiple groups in the area, SHASA’s recommendation is that this draft be not be accepted, but that the Council revisit the Master Planning process, build on the work of Council and community over the last few decades, and undertake wide consultation with all key stakeholders, not just developers and businesses in Batemans Bay. We believe that a truly consultative process will come up with many options for development that will lead to a Batemans Bay that is unique, beautiful and welcoming while being clearly well attuned to its Country and its people.