18062247-blog

[18062247-blog]

Home, Everchanging.

Community. noun 1. a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

It is built upon foundations of home, a common concern for everybody’s well-being and love for each other and love for the space around you. I was only just born when my mother and father purchased their very first family home in the newly developed suburb of Bella Vista, a small community within the Baulkham Hills (now formally known as The Hills) Shire Council. After moving from a small single story isolated house in Prospect, my parents decided that it would be beneficial for their growing family to move into a home with more space and a wider community where they can create new friends and new memories within this new community. As my mother was heavily pregnant with me when they purchased the house and began to settle into the community, this family home and suburb is all I have ever known. 

From a very young age, I had always known each and every one of my neighbours. We used to spend time at each other’s houses and would play outside with the entire neighborhood of children, while our mothers sat inside and drank tea and gossiped about silly television shows.Summertime consisted of water fights in the streets, walking down to the local shopping centre where our parents would buy us lunch and an ice block, and Christmas time was filled with street parties and joining in together with family and friends and we would celebrate Christmas and sing carols held at the village centre every year. You would bump into friends you hadn’t seen in years after we had all left primary school, but share laughs and stories as if no time had passed at all.

Soon enough, we all grew older and laughter in the streets became silent waves when one of us drove past the other or a brief smile was shared when we would cross paths dragging the bins out to the curb.  We were busy, and we were older. We had no time for playing out in the streets until dusk, or spending our weekends walking down to the local shops to eat lunch together. Those fleeting moments had passed, and our sense of community seemed as if it was too.

When the news broke out that there was going to be a dramatic change to our community, a sense of unsteadiness filled the air. The council had proposed that our beloved village green centre, where we had shared years of memories, was going to be destroyed and be replaced by a 26 apartment, 11 townhouse above ground housing development complex, completely washing away the memories we had shared there in our earlier years. They were taking away our community, our home, and our family.

Within the complex, there are a number of businesses, struggling to keep alive because of the threat to the community. Small businesses have come and gone, have been sold and resold to new owners, and from watching this change of space; our memories have not been sold out, unlike some of these businesses. Deli’s, café’s, and even family owned beauty salons have all made the move. Was the rent too high? Were they generating enough income? Or was it the talk of this urban development that scared them away? In fear that they were going to have to risk losing their whole business and customer base to larger corporate gain, they left. Now all that remains in our small family village is the local medical centre, whom make going to visit your doctor actually bearable, an old run down computer shop that is kept alive purely by the loyalty of the community and his local customers, and the neighbourhood’s favourite family-owned Italian restaurant.

“It’s such a shame to think that our little community, who hosts so many families could be destroyed so easily and so quickly”, said local resident and active visitor to the centre, Steven Haskins, who has lived in the community since it’s development as a suburb. He believes the demolition has not been “clearly thought through” and that the Council Chambers who approved the modifications made a rash decision and did not take into account the opinion of the community. Hosting so many events at the centre, such as Christmas carols, charity events, Sunday sasauge sizzles, children’s birthday parties in the park, or even just moments in the sun, our little place of happiness that brought us together as one is slowly slipping away from our memories. It seems to be the last standing physical memory we have as a community, which was shared amongst so many generations, soon to be demolished and to make way for new families to create new memories in their new and modified version of home.

Christmas Carols at the Village Green early 2000′s

One must think, is this the way it’s going to be from now on? Living in a society where once something becomes ‘too old’ it is knocked down and redeveloped? Do we passively force the current residents out of their community to help shape a new one for new residents? Did we evict current users of the land out 21 years ago to make way for our own gain in homeland development? As the changes are not expected to take place until the next three years, some still believe the community holds a fighting chance against the Council and the land they have shared and loved for many years. To see it redeveloped would be an end to an era of friendship. Without it, I feel as though there is nothing really keeping my memories of the community alive. Sure, I may not spend time with those who I shared those moments with, but never have I not walked through that park or sat on the park bench outside in the village centre and not reflected on those memories I shared many years ago. I don’t think anybody will deny they still wish it would stay the same.