Almost half of Cobargo's main street commercial infrastructure was destroyed by fire on New Year's Eve three years ago. Facing economic ruin, a town cooperative has fought back, purchasing and repurposing the land with an objective to build the street back better.
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Laura Haynes had packed her gift and homewares shop fuller than usual to cater for summer tourism before losing the lot on December 31, 2019.
Ms Haynes had taken over the shop months earlier and had not yet secured insurance for the $150,000 worth of stock and $50,000 in fittings that burnt.
She'd fled to Bermagui when the fire front approached Cobargo and was watching the television at the country club for an update when she saw her shop flash across the screen.
"We left thinking we'd lost the house," she said.
"At that point I thought, 'oh wow, I've lost everything'."
There were 301 houses burnt out in the region that night, thankfully, Ms Haynes' home was not one of them.
"My elderly neighbours' son came up the street and emptied their tanks," she said. "And then they spent a week defending the houses."
A popular pottery shop, Bangles Gallery, a leather shop and Cobargo cafes were also destroyed, the blaze demolishing the bottom half of the street that runs through town.
Business owners began picking up the pieces in the months that followed. Those who'd lost their livelihoods and those who'd been spared formed a recovery group whose focus was preventing Cobargo from perishing.
The main street landowners who joined all agreed they did not have the capacity to rebuild and start over.
The Cobargo Community Development Corporation Limited was created when the business group joined forces with the Cobargo Co-op, a community-owned enterprise made up of 1700 members, each with a $20 share.
A $10 million grant gave the group the means to purchase the burnt blocks from those wanting out, and the power to control what their main street looked like in the future.
John Walters, a founding member, said the alternative could have been vacant lots sitting empty for years, less money in the town and fewer reasons for people to stay.
"We lost that regular commercial pulse of the village and the flow on impact of that has been sustained," he said.
"It has just devastated the local economy, it's meant that there's less money circulating into the other businesses, less kids in the local school.
"Prior to the fires, the economy of the town was trading okay, but it wasn't brilliant, so it was a devastating impact."
The volunteer-run enterprise has proposed a mixture of ground level shops with apartments on top.
There'll be an allied health centre, a visitor information centre, a new post office and a co-working space to allow people working from home somewhere to meet.
A large commercial cafe and restaurant will go in too. The aim is to have it registered as a training facility to cater to the "crying need for baristas and qualified hospitality staff", Mr Walters said.
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Most of Cobargo has gotten behind the coordinated effort of the Cobargo Community Development Corporation Limited Board of Directors.
A few "tall poppies" would prefer things "back like it was", Mr Walters said.
"Understandable, but unachievable," he said.
Two blocks were retained by the family group that owned them for the development of a bushfire resilience centre and museum. They are working with the National Library to archive the history of people who experienced the fires.
Mr Walters was working alongside the Rural Fire Service the night the fires came through.
"I had homes within 100 metres of me burn while I was standing there with a hose with no water coming out of it," he said.
"I had never thought that the residential part of Cobargo was a high fire risk area. But that night changed everything.
"It was absolutely horrible. It was just like being in a volcano."
Having moved to Cobargo to retire, Mr Walters has been working more than ever to open the Cobargo Business Innovation Hub. The centre recently opened to provide a space for those who lost their shops to operate, while the main street build is underway.
Ms Haynes was among those who moved in last month to start selling again for the first time since the bushfires.
"We just kind of muddled through three years," she said.
"Not having half the town there has made it a place that people don't really come to so much anymore.
"They have it in their heads that there's nothing here."
Ms Haynes said the ones that were left had "done it really tough" having to reduce hours and struggling to hire people.
"It just kind of naturally shrunk the trade," she said.
Ms Haynes said she's banking on drivers veering away from the main drag this summer.
"Without it, we probably won't make it," she said.
"We need a bit of a miracle to be honest."
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Alex Crowe
Alex covers science and environment issues, with a focus on local Canberra stories. alex.crowe@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Alex covers science and environment issues, with a focus on local Canberra stories. alex.crowe@austcommunitymedia.com.au
