“I will have to play somewhere else, which is always a challenge. It was incredibly convenient to have the course across the road,” he said.
“I’ve played there for 30 years. I’ve made friends there, I socialise there, I also go with my two uncles and my cousin. It’s somewhere special to me, I really love it.”
Baker also predicted the new cemetery would cause house prices to plummet in the surrounding suburban streets because “no one will want to buy a house near a cemetery”.
“It will severely reduce the price, and it throws my family’s financial future up in the air. If prices fall, and we, for whatever reason, have to sell, we won’t be able to get into the market anywhere else.”
The decision to begin community consultation on the new cemetery has sparked backlash, with protesters outside Parliament House on Wednesday and expected in Coleman Park at the end of the month.
Neighbours aren’t the only ones upset. Members of Lidcombe Waratah FC, which plays next door at Coleman Park, are also upset they might be forced to play and train next to a cemetery.
Carnarvon Golf Club in Lidcombe is earmarked for conversion into a cemetery.Credit: Wolter Peeters
Caroline Staples is a lifetime member of the club, having coached, managed and played there, and said she thought it might be “disturbing” to players if the conversion went ahead.
“I just wouldn’t want to play a robust game of sport with mates near a cemetery. I feel like it would be disrespectful, I don’t think anyone would play any game near a cemetery,” she said.
“It would feel like it was looming over us, and that we were next.”
Staples said there were few alternatives to Coleman Park in the area.
“If you live here, you pretty much have no other choice. So if they do build the cemetery there, all the kids here will have no other choice but to play and train next to a cemetery. It would be strange.
“Of all the spaces in Sydney, they had to do it near our park? Couldn’t they have picked somewhere that didn’t already have a large cemetery down the road?”
A new Crown-owned cemetery has not been built in the heart of Sydney for over 80 years, despite huge growth in population, demand and changes in the city’s cultural makeup.
According to MMP, more than half of deaths in Greater Sydney require land for interment, either through burial or ash-interment, which has created a crisis for burial space. They said more than 1000 sites were considered before deciding on Carnarvon.
They also said that there was strong demand for local burial services, pointing to the 66 per cent of people who were buried or buried a loved one at Rookwood in the last two years living within 10 kilometres of the cemetery.
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A spokesperson for Lands and Property Minister Steve Kamper said the government welcomes the decision to begin community consultation on the project.
“The NSW government has directed Crown cemetery operators to identify options to significantly increase the supply of new burial space in Sydney. We also directed that community consultation must be done on any preferred sites,” he said, adding a proposal would then be put to the NSW government.
“Sydney is in a burial space crisis. Cemeteries across Sydney are running out of space with estimates they will need to begin turning away some faith groups in less than two years.”
The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.
