Sailability lodge a DA for new building, jetty, pontoon and carpark on Wray Street

Sailability NSW Inc., Batemans Bay Branch are proposing a development of a new jetty and pontoon, a shed and extension and carparking area at Wray Street, North Batemans Bay. The site is located in Wray Street, North Batemans Bay, and is part of the Batemans Marine Park. The existing shed and derelict jetty were held under Licence No. 384430, which has been relinquished. The land is situated on a 30-metre foreshore reservation separating Wray Street from the Clyde River

The proposed shed is to provide storage of the branch’s dinghies and equipment, and the addition to the shed will provide a disabled toilet and a small kitchen for making tea and coffee on sailing days. The jetty and pontoon will provide convenient access to the water, particularly for wheelchair bound members. Sailing craft are Hansa dinghies, with a fibreglass hull and ballasted centreboards. There are two types, the Hansa 303 (3.03 m long) with a mainsail and jib, and the Hansa 2.3 which has a mainsail only. Both can take a crew of two or be sailed solo. As well as providing experience in sailing, some sailing training can be given to those who are interested. The proposed carparking allows for parking and disembarkation of buses and minibuses that bring sailors regularly from Ulladulla to Moruya, including students from Batemans Bay Typically, sailing days fall on three Mondays and one Sunday of each month during the sailing season, from October to April, with around 26 sailing days in a sailing season. Sailability Batemans Bay is a volunteer organisation, with around 40 volunteers who are rostered to rig, launch, sail and retrieve dinghies, while others crew the safety boat, organise and keep track of the visiting sailors, ensuring their safety and assisting carers move people with disabilities to and from the dinghies. At the end of a sailing day dinghies are de-rigged and returned to storage. A sailing day starts at 10:00 and ends at 15:00. There is a timber jetty that is derelict and beyond economic repair. The river bed is soft mud, although the beach area is sandy but narrow at the mean high-water mark (MHW Proposed Development Replacement of the existing shed of the same floor area on a concrete slab and raising of the roof to a maximum height of 4.5 m to allow vertical storage of dinghies on their transoms (back ends), maximizes the number of dinghies that can be stored. Roller door access is proposed to allow easy movement of dinghies into and out of the storage shed. The new shed is to have an addition of a single toilet suitable for disabled users, and a small kitchen. Services for the proposed development comprise electrical, water supply, sewer and stormwater, and have been designed to connect with existing trunk services. The proposed pontoon is to allow embarkation/disembarkation of three dinghies to facilitate the easy flow of disabled sailors; provision of C-crane mounts is proposed so sailors can be craned into and out of dinghies. The jetty is to be 2.0 m wide to allow dinghies on trolleys and persons in wheelchairs to be manoeuvred from shore to the water and return, with expanded aluminium mesh deck to minimise shading of sunlight to the sea grasses in the water below. The maximum gradient of the jetty, particularly ramps, is to be 1:14, consistent with Australian Standards for gradients suitable for wheelchairs, for all tides except severe tides (less than 10% of tides). The overall length of the jetty is proposed to be 61.5 m, the minimum length required to reach the drop-off in the river bed and provide a depth suitable for the 1 m draft of the dinghies. The jetty is to be moved from its present location approx. 1.4 m east so as not to interfere with mangroves to the west. Carparking, with a two-coat seal surface, is proposed for seven cars and two buses, with two trailer storage sheds, one to store two road trailers suitable for carrying dinghies and the other to store a safety boat on a trailer. Minimal concrete paths are proposed to facilitate movement of wheelchairs from transport to the jetty. Services for the proposed development comprise electrical, water supply, sewer and stormwater, and have been designed to connect with existing trunk services. In view of the almost complete absence of native vegetation there will be no environmental impacts from the proposal, assuming that the mangroves and seagrass in the estuary are not disturbed. The Development application DA679/17 is currently on public exhibition. Submissions close 13/05/2021