…“to co-ordinate a community of persons living and working co-operatively on common property in a total creation environment of discovering, learning and perfecting modes of living, works of art, forms of communication, methods of awareness and skills of cultivation, craft and construction and sharing responsibility for the quality of all life”…
Tuntable Housing over 45 years
In the Western world, the post WW2 generation grew up in peace & plenty despite a strong social undercurrent of conservatism, the USA-USSR Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation. Then, in 1964, the USA became directly involved in Vietnam and military draft began of young men, who did not yet even have the right to vote. Australia followed suit. Concurrently, many Australian young people also followed the example of American hippies in a back-to-the-land movement, experimenting with new and old building styles, as well as with marijuana, LSD and a host of new ideas for living and being. At the end of 1972, the Whitlam government was elected, ending Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War and abolishing conscription.
1973 Aquarius Festival
In the atmosphere of change and hope that followed this, in May 1973 the Australian Union of Students held the Aquarius festival at the quaint rural village of Nimbin, which was then very run-down following the collapse of the dairy & banana industries and the cutting out of saw logs.
The festival was an exposition of many of the new ideas attracting young people. There was a strong attraction for many to the ways of the pioneers and our grandparents, and a simpler, more sustainable, lifestyle.
New ideas about communal living and new building styles also abounded. These included everything from domes to grass huts and many more weird and wonderful structures.
Col James from Sydney Uni was an influential mainstream pioneer architect and supporter of new and radical buildings who provided inspiration to young architecture students – and we all had the wonderful inspiration provided by American publications ‘The Whole Earth Catalogue’ and ‘Shelter’.
New Communities
At the end of the festival Richard Neville chaired a workshop on starting ‘new communities’.
At the urging of Basil Hayter the baker, Tuntable Falls had already been inspected as a potential place to form a community. A verbal option for $98,000, valid til September and witnessed by Basil, was given by the owner Sam McKay to Terry McGee, who then told others.
A meeting was organized on the hill overlooking the valley, where it was agreed that a co-operative be registered and that shares cost the famous $200 (equivalent to a current value of approx $2,000).
Many future members were at that meeting including Gary Moore, Harry “Trucker” Anning and Paul Josef who led a musical group to tour universities to recruit more members. Other people went to work to save their $200 and Terry went to the Sydney Registrar of Co-operatives to start an application. The Registrar’s office was amused, saying they’d heard stories about new ‘co-operatives’ and been ‘wondering when someone would come in”.
As Terry worked on the Co-op’s model Rules, including writing the “The Objects” quoted above, the Registrar recommended Vivienne Abrahams as a pro bono solicitor. Vivienne was a Quaker & peace activist (who happened to live next to Terry’s grandmother) and she agreed to help. There was soon a Formation Meeting in Sydney at the Bay Street studio of Bush Video, who had filmed the festival. Terry, Michael Jacob, Tom Zubrisky, Vivienne, Vernon Treweeke & Rina Ioannou were there.
However the Registrar said he would not approve a co-op unless he had a strong indication that Terania Shire Council would approve its development. So an application was made to the council and, with extra help from Basil, Sam & John Axtens, it was approved ‘in principle’ during August or September 73.
The Health Inspector, Wal Duckering, was crucial in assuring the Council that any housing issues could be dealt with, and was later part of the discussions that led to the ‘50 yard setback from a creek’ rule. He also supported the hamlet and SROB concepts: Special Residency Occupancy Buildings, or ‘exploded houses’, which enabled separate small bedrooms to be built around a shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.
The Council approval made it seem a bit more real and Sam McKay came under pressure to break the (verbal) contract, which was about to expire. With Basil’s honest broker support at another meeting, with Terry, Sam agreed to issue a formal contract but now wanted $104,000 (with more time to pay) and to keep his house and 50 acres until he died. Getting the contract in writing may have also been a Registrar requirement. At any rate, Vivienne tabled the proposed approval document at the Co-Op’s October meeting, which agreed to Sam’s new terms for the contract.
Before the Co-operative was registered on October 19th, we had received some $20,000 in $200s, but by the end of the October meeting weekend held over $50,000. Shares kept coming in, but there was still a shortfall. Vivienne said she had a lender to cover the balance, without disclosing who it was, and in early December 1973 deeds were transferred and Co-ordination Co-operative Ltd took possession of the property (excluding Sam’s house and 50 acres), just a few weeks before one of the biggest wet seasons (1974) on record. Consultation with Terania Shire was mainly via Wally Duckering, who was of course mainly interested in health & building, since planning approval ‘in principle’ had been given — good way to allow an experiment. Then the concept of hamlets was developed, in part so we & Wal could explain what was going on, because Wal was also very concerned about us protecting the environment from over use.
People moved onto the land in December 1973, with dozens squashed into the White House (now preschool) and other existing farm buildings, as well as tents & caravans. From the start there were some who envisaged completely communal housing and others who wanted to build their own houses. The slogan to “build a dome a day” was severely compromised by the big wet of ’74, when the domes leaked badly and only two or three were built. We did have an ambitious methane digester approved by council and the whopping holes for it, near the present school gardens, was a major work project each day until dear Norm, the engineer, died of snake bite. There was little social welfare available at this time; no unemployment dole was available and many people did seasonal work picking fruit or cotton.
The hamlet concept was promoted to ease overcrowding and maximise use of resources, as well as to maintain standards for communal toilet and graywater facilities. Nearly all the members of hamlets ate together every night for the first few years, but gradually over the next 5 or 6 years the communal kitchens were used less and less, partly because it was so much easier to eat in one’s own house once we started breeding and there were sleeping children to carry home. It was seen though as an aberration when Mandie and Dave built the first ‘proper’ private dwelling house, although many had built their own small shelters – everything from ‘the hovel’ in Pixie’s Valley built by Paul Paitson, to the black plastic pegged to the lantana that was Sally Moore’s first shelter. Neil Williams was popular with the girls because he had a double mattress in an old water tank! Sue Bingham remembers notifying a meeting in August ’74 of her intention to move her tent from the centre gardens to next to the big rock above the end of the South End Road. The flagraise system developed in following years.
One of the different mindsets in the early days was there was more of a feeling of belonging to the whole valley, it being common for people to move around a bit. The north end was also slightly separate due to it being under Sam’s jurisdiction. Permission had to be sought from Sam to move onto his fifty acres that included all the hamlets accessed through the north end gate plus Mala Piki. In 1978 CoCo also purchased the neighbouring Bosels & Davies properties, another 700 acres, bringing our homelands to 1700 acres. Since then we have also purchased Walkers and Waterpark and we now caretake 1800 acres (728 hectares).
Terania Shire was amalgamated into Lismore City Council in 1977 and in the next years fuller hamlet development application plans were submitted to council, with help from Sonia as alderman and Alan Prowd as draughtsman.
One of the big events to impact our collective psyche was the big police raid (some 40 officers) at dawn on 12-08-1976, after which, in the Supreme Court of NSW, the legality of the police search warrant (being against an entire property & community) was successfully challenged by our barristers, Kep Enderby and Dean Letcher. Sonia Atkinson and Terry McGee liaised with Kep and Dean on behalf of the Co-op.
Sonia and Terry were also there as Lismore City Council aldermen on 27th October 1981 when Lismore City Council amended our development consent to allow a total population of 545 (decision 81/3169). This number did not stipulate a number of sites as such, however the number was set within the SROB context and 545 seemed like it would last for decades which indeed it has. Under cl.6.8(3)(e) of LCC’s 2012 LEP, the population of each MO residence is now deemed to be 4, thus indicating a maximum allocation of 136 house sites. (Potentially contradicting this number is the letter received from Minister Eric Bedford in March 1980, which indicates the maximum allowable to be one person per hectare).
The Department of Environment and Planning drew up the big fourfold maps that we needed for our development approval, based on our hamlet plan and including the new lands of Bosels and Davies. DEP supplied 2 copies for our DA, one went to Council and the other stayed with us (the faded version in the office files). Dave Gittus and Ian Dixon had previously drawn up a land sites map for the East side of the property and Ian still has an original of that.
Plans were allowable for private dwellings as well as SROBs. Wattle Creek, Heaven, Lantana Island, Malapiki, Echo, the Dairy Gardens and the Upper Davies hamlets were developed under the SROB model, while some individuals, couples and families preferred to flagraise for private houses. A diplomatic relationship developed between the Co-op and Council, requiring that plans be submitted and a site number allocated for all building works. Council then approved buildings but rarely actually inspected either sites or buildings.
Rules were also adopted from the very early days of the Co-op to prevent chaotic development prejudicing the environment and community values e.g. no building on the commons or within 50 yards of a creek or in the forest, a requirement to flagraise a desired site and get approval at a subsequent meeting before building, reasonable vetoes by existing neighbours allowed, use of earth coloured materials, underground power, noise controls.
In between the police raid in 1976 and the 1979 SEPP15 (under Neville Wran’s State Labor government) there had been intensive lobbying by the Home Builders’ Association. The Terania Creek protest also pushed the Labor government of NSW to ensure no ‘revenge demolitions’ occurred.
The Home Builders Association was very active (especially Peter Hamilton, from Bodhi Farm, with input and assistance from Dave Gittus and Dave Lambert from the Co-op Board) and held discussions and inspections of local communities with the minister for Planning and Environment, Paul Landa. This led to the SEPP15 legislation enabling MOs across all NSW. A revolutionary move at the time, it fully legitimised 23 communities in the North Coast, (including Tuntable’s new west side development) and enabled the development of others. Prior to this, Tuntable (and possibly Robb Rd, Nmbngee, Bodhi Farm, and Paradise Valley) was the only legal multiple occupancy in NSW. Low-Cost Country Home-Building, published in 1981, was a useful publication which included templates for building approval applications as well as technical specifications for different structures and is still relevant today.
After these developments the property was settled relatively sedately as settlers took up sites under the rules. Building applications were made and approved and although the finished product did not necessarily follow the initial plan, a dearth of Council inspections meant no serious issues ensued. Most houses were well-built, or even overbuilt, and modest in size.
In the same period of time, community facilities were also being developed. By 1978 there were no more residents in the original farmhouse, the White House, and in September 1979 it was opened as the White House Pre-School, due largely to the expert mentoring of Sonia Atkinson and the efforts of Caroline LeCouteur, Megan James, Katie Cawcutt and Bruce English, as well as fundraising and building by other parents. The success of the Pre-School led to the building of the Primary School by a team of parents led by Charlie Ohle. The school opened in 1981, 6 weeks after building began. The School and Co-op later also funded a craftroom, kitchen and another classroom built by parents. All these buildings were constructed using Co-op or accumulated school funds. More recently, Govt Stimulus funding in 2008 enabled both PreSchool and Primary School to be renovated and upgraded and a Govt grant funded the building of a new large Primary classroom in 2016.
The besser brick shop, initiated by a team led by Judy DeLepine and Neil Williams, was built and opened in late 1983. The building was funded by the Co-op and the capital needed to stock the business was raised by selling groceries and meals at the 1983 Aquarius 10 years after Festival. Neil and Judy managed the business until Judy’s departure for Sydney in 1987. Meg bought out Judy’s share and then that share was divided between her and other workers in the business, reformed as more of a workers’ co-op. When Neil moved away, he was paid out and his share was similarly divided and eventually there were 8 shareholding members of the shop group working together. Many of those workers moved on to other things and by the early 21st Century, the shop had totally folded as a business and morphed into an organic food co-op managed by Roger, Christina, Emma and others. After some years, the food co-op was no longer viable and the building was receiving little use. A new team, led by Satya and Christine around 2012, worked to upgrade the kitchen to commercial standard and the building has since been renamed the Community Centre and maintained by a small committed group. It’s available and used often for meetings, parties, events and also for small food business ventures, as well as the mail service.
Early in 1982, an enthusiastic team led by Dave Gittus began demolishing the old St Joseph’s Church Hall in Rhodes St, South Lismore. We camped onsite, with a few small children and got it all down in a couple of weeks, followed by many hours of sorting and denailing timber and cleaning bricks. Then we had to save the rainforest, so left it to the next year to design the building. Two camps prevailed. One, led by Charlie Ohle, argued for an octagonal building like a western NSW shearing shed. The other camp, led by Nichol, argued for a rectangular building that would utilise the hoop pine trusses of the old church hall. We met weekly at night at the teabails for months and months while these 2 camps debated the pros and cons of each design. I would take my kids down in the wheelbarrow so I could wheel them home asleep [using the candle torch for a light] and it was getting a bit much. Eventually Alan Prowd and I designed a compromise, a rectangular hall with a rounded end, ending the stalemate. Alan’s balsawood model may still be around somewhere.
Once we had the design approved, the building finally began in earnest around 1985. Heroes with stamina stepped forward, ably led by Rocky; huge poles from the forest went up, then the roof and the brickwork and we had our 1987 AGM on the dirt floor. The making of mudbricks by machine was done by a keen team led by Lisa Yeates, the beautiful tallow floor was polished and it was a sin for many years to wear shoes inside. We were so proud. The besser block additions at the back were built by Ollie Francis and Frank Reid in the 1990s so the office could be expanded after several years being part of the old shop – and when computers had become an essential part of our admin. Many, many years of commitment by Hall committees and volunteers have contributed to ongoing maintenance and improvement, including nearly ten years of regular fundraising bush dances inspired and led by Jacko Kevans and catered for by a committed team that included Rose, Peg and others.
In the 1980’s, the Co-op acquired the Waterpark property, which solved problems with the easement accessing the main property. It has since been renovated and rented out to members in need of shelter. The Fire Shed was built in 1995, using a Council grant (our first – prior to this, all our buildings were financed entirely by us as the Co-op). Since then, community building works have been confined to renovations of the existing community buildings (Sam’s, Brown House, Garden House, Waterpark, Teabails) and the extension of the Primary School through grant monies.
The original farmhouse at the North End, Sam’s, was extensively remodelled as a Healing Centre by a team of workers mostly organised by Karlin and including Terry, Ben and others. It has been used as accommodation for elderly or unwell members as well as short-term visitors.
Following much discussion at meetings in 1983-4, rules were made to prevent speculation by limiting the resale price of houses to the value of improvements. Initially, the resale value was limited to the cost of replacing building materials only, but over the years as more people also paid for construction labour, these costs were also incorporated in valuations. Valuations were originally done by Hoolihan’s, professional land valuers in Lismore, but for the past 20 years we have engaged local builders to assess the relevant value.
In the mid-1990s, an amnesty regarding building approvals enabled many of us to submit or resubmit building plans to LCC without penalty. Then In the late 1990s, new legislation required all Councils across the state to ensure that adequate sewage systems were in place in all residential buildings. This led to a flurry of gray water and compost toilet designs, approvals and inspections, a process that took several years and a lot of effort on behalf of some Board members, especially Harry Anning, Lisa Yeates and Rose Cubis. The Co-op as an entity was under threat of legal action by Council if individual members did not comply, which meant that a few recalcitrant members caused a lot of extra work and pressure. This situation has been repeated in recent years also.
Historically, we had a Council Liaison portfolio to assist members making building applications, as well as liaising with council about other Co-op matters, including new local DAs that might affect us and any other relevant issues. In this way, the Co-op maintained a good diplomatic relationship with Council and the Board took some responsibility for ensuring that building applications were made and approvals filed. House plans were stamped with the Co-op seal before being submitted to Council.
Council fees and requirements for building approvals and onsite sewage management systems have now become more expensive and extensive, now covering far more environmental aspects than when we first arrived here. This has meant that individual house Development Applications to Council are far more complex and expensive than they once were and the onus for fulfilling all requirements has become the responsibility of members, with the Co-op Occupancy Co-ordinator simply confirming the validity of sites with Council and assisting applicants with referrals to trades and drafts people. All site applications, earthworks and building plans still need to be presented to the monthly Tribal Meetings before application to Council.
Building our community buildings, for many of us, has been as essential to building our sense of community as the original experimental shelters at the 73 Aquarius Festival were. The landslide disasters of 2022 destroyed or damaged many individual homes here, but our community buildings in the valley were untouched and bear testament to 50 years of work and fun.
NB: This document has been collated by Meg James, using information from Terry McGee, Sue Bingham, Ian Dixon, David Spain and herself – and while we have all done our best, we make no claim to its absolute veracity.