Properties like Karen Mansbridge’s usually sell within 30 days but her home has been on the market for eight months. The two-hectare hobby farm in the South Burnett region, 160km north-west of Brisbane, was receiving so few inquiries the real estate agent decided to remove the address from the listing.
Interest picked up – until buyers were reluctantly given the address. “They’d fly over it on Google Maps and go ‘nup’,” her real estate agent says.
Mansbridge purchased the house three years ago. It’s 300 metres from the newly constructed Kingaroy solar farm. No one wants to live so close.
“I really feel for her, it’s the only place that’s been on the market for that long,” the agent tells Guardian Australia.
It’s an example of one of the concerns most frequently raised by communities near renewable energy developments: that it could hit their property prices. The former national energy infrastructure commissioner Andrew Dyer says there’s no credible evidence that suggests property values are systemically affected. But he added there “may be particular examples where it may have an impact”.
Mansbridge, sobbing in her living room as she speaks to Guardian Australia, is one of those examples. The pensioner has spent years battling cancer. Every month she fails to sell is one less month spent living closer to her children.
Mansbridge and her neighbours hired lawyers and wrote to government officials to try to stop the project, but she says: “Every step of the way, no one cared, every government office, no one gave a shit.”
The solar farm was built by Metlen Energy & Metals (formerly known as Mytilineos), a Greek renewable energy developer. To compensate for disruptions during construction, they provided Mansbridge with a $110 voucher to spend at the local RSL in town, a new water filter to combat construction dust and dug a few holes on her property for trees to eventually block views of solar panels creeping up a distant hill. They also washed the dust off her house once construction was complete. A neighbour received a voucher for a massage to deal with the stress.
In a statement, a Metlen Energy & Metals spokesperson said the company was committed to working with the Kingaroy community to address social and environmental issues and was prioritising complaints with the “utmost care and attention”.
“We strictly adhere to all regulations and standards set by all relevant authorities and levels of governance,” they said.
Another landowner whose property backs the solar farm, who did not wish to be named, says the proponent’s lawyers “flat out refused” any form of significant compensation.
They feel helpless. And this, compounded by a sense that rural Australia is carrying an unfair burden for the country’s energy transition, is feeding growing animosity towards the renewable energy rollout in regional areas. Poor community engagement by some developers contributes to that animosity. It’s then layered over mis- and disinformation spreading online to create a febrile environment which has been stoked for political gain.
Lacklustre community consultation was one reason behind the South Burnett regional council’s decision to call for a moratorium on renewable energy projects unless strict conditions were met. “It’s about allowing time to get the planning guidelines right,” says the mayor, Kathy Duff.
The original proponent of the solar farm, Terrain Solar, took the council to the Queensland planning and environment court after it knocked back the development application in 2018. After slight adjustments were made to the plans, the project was approved. “If we go against a development application, the planning court just overrules it … we have no say where these are going to end up,” Duff says.
The solar farm was approved by state and local governments in early 2020. Mansbridge bought her property in January 2021 but says that because of the change in developers she didn’t know at the time that the project was still going ahead.
Damien Martoo, the president of the Kingaroy chamber of commerce, says there is more to be gained by working with renewable developers than trying to use roadblocks that “open the door for these developers to go elsewhere or through the back door”.
“If [the proposed development] is ticking all their boxes by law, then it’s going to happen anyway. You might as well build the relationships and make sure we are entitled to every cent, every piece of compensation we can get,” he says.
Martoo says the consultation methods used by some developers have left communities feeling cold. The failure to compensate neighbouring landholders for direct impacts or loss of property values has also further soured the relationship.
“People want to sit down with a real person and have their concerns heard,” Martoo says. “It’s coffee and cake or beer and a steak.”
Locals in Kingaroy tell Guardian Australia they are concerned about inappropriate development and loss of local amenity. Abating global heating is rarely listed as a consideration. “I’m a strong Christian and I believe that God controls the weather,” Duff says.
Suzanne Mungall, the organiser of a local environmental group, South Burnett Sustainable Future Network, says that regardless of views on the climate crisis, the region should welcome economic development. “Economically this is a very sensible move for our region … if we don’t do this we will have void of economic opportunity,” she says.
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