Developer who illegally cleared land to build $3 million mansion forced to replant native bush

A Sydney council has settled a years-long legal battle against landowners who illegally cleared an ecologically sensitive site to build a $3 million mansion, an agreement which a community group has slammed as “wholly inadequate”.

The Sutherland Shire Council won its bid against the owners of a 7.4-hectare lot in Barden Ridge after an agreement was reached with the endorsement of the NSW Planning Department.

The lot’s proprietor and director of property development group ACCS Family Holdings, Amir Abu Abara, will be forced to replant 38,700 native plants, including at least 600 trees, on the patch of land he illegally cleared around 2022 to make way for a six-bedroom mansion.

In addition to the restoration order, Abara has paid a $109,000 fine to the council, and the contractor that undertook the illegal clearing, Auswide Civil, is set to pay $55,000 in fines.

According to the development application, the mansion would’ve held a tenpin bowling alley, an indoor basketball court, a swimming pool with a floating “hammock island”, and a library.

Sutherland Council rejected the proposal – which also envisioned a gym with sauna, a movie theatre with a popcorn bar and a man cave – amid an investigation into the illegal clearing after neighbours reported the felling of hundreds of trees.

Sutherland Council Deputy Mayor Laura Cowell said the agreement amplified the council’s message that “we’re not prepared to see our beautiful environment trashed by those who don’t play by the rules”.

“Our natural surrounds are a huge part of what makes the Sutherland Shire special place to live,” Cowell said. “We’re very deeply committed to protecting our local environment and those that live here.”

However, community group Woronora River Community Association said it could take decades to restore the native bushland, and called the agreement a “slap on the wrist”.

“When you look at that land, the amount that has been cleared, the absolute environmental devastation that’s occurred, you have to ask whether restoration is actually possible, and if it is, it will take decades to do so,” a spokeswoman for the association said.

“The fine itself is wholly inadequate to begin with … this outcome is shameful. It is not a deterrent.”

Cowell said she understood the community wanted harsher penalties, but that launching legal action in the local court was all the council could do.

“Council has used all the legal instruments available to them to secure the result … getting those trees planted back into that property that’s being trashed,” she said.

Previous landowners submitted a DA in 2006 to clear part of the same part of the property’s bushland to subdivide the lot. The council rejected the proposal and maintains that no development will be allowed on the parcel of land.

Abara bought the property in 2019 and has committed to the restoration orders of the settlement. In a written apology filed in the local court, Abara said that he “was wrong” and “sincerely apologise[s] for the conduct of ACCS”.

The Herald could not reach Abara or Auswide Civil for comment.

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