Saumarez Homestead Armidale: development plans held-up for three years as plans change for tiny house tourism

Community concern reached a peak as Armidale lobby group New England Visions 2030 launched an online petition against the local council, the National Trust and the state government for an investigation into the delays.

But, behind the scenes, the National Trust has faced some hurdles and stumbling blocks in the planning process that have led them to a new tourist attraction at the site; glamping and tiny houses.

The new timeline means the project should be finished by the end of the year with a soft launch in March to April 2022.

A critical Conservation Management Plan had to be done, which showed some changes to how the accommodation and motor homes should be positioned would be beneficial for the site, National Trust NSW chief executive officer Debbie Mills said.

"The other thing that happened is that we went into the drought followed by COVID, we needed to make sure that what we were going to build really was going to meet the needs of the tourism market going forward," Ms Mills said.

"We were conscious the world was changing, so we had a look at the underlying business case of the sustainability of the project, so we worked on that with Infrastructure NSW throughout 2020.

"Through COVID it became obvious a more self-contained, independent accommodation would work better and serve a gap in the tourism market with a unique experience at Saumarez.

"I can appreciate it feels like everything is taking a long time but there are really valid reasons for the foundation steps we had to take."

Funds for the project were split between $1.7 million from the state government, $730,000 from Armidale Regional Council and $200,000 from the National Trust.

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The final CMP was approved in February 2020, and part of the $2.7m project involved renovations to the Jackson Centre, which was owned by a neighbour.

The Heritage Council approved a development application for solar panels in December and now the trust needs ARC approval to get started.

Initial plans for a 'bunkhouse' were scrapped in response to what the market needed, instead the property will host six tiny houses and glamping-style accommodation combined with normal caravan parking.

There was some community confusion about roadworks at the site; the original plans are still in place for new access roads within the property grounds, but external roads from the New England Highway are not part of the renovations.

The Leader contacted Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall and Armidale Regional Council for comment.