A year one since basic utilities were cut from hundreds of homes at an island resort on the Gold Coast, 'Couran cove' residents have taken matters into their own hands, by going off-grid.
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00:00 For the past year, Mark Pitt's been living off-grid with his partner Sharon and his 91-year-old
00:07 mother Jan in their island resort home.
00:10 Yet it's far from paradise.
00:12 Difficult, expensive, as you can imagine how much the fuel costs, sorry.
00:17 It's very stressful.
00:20 But you learn to adapt to what you're dealing with.
00:25 We're among hundreds of property owners caught in the middle of a long-running legal dispute
00:30 that's plagued Cooran Cove for years.
00:33 Homes had power, water and sewage cut because the resort's service providers claimed the
00:38 body's corporate owed $24 million in unpaid debt.
00:43 Instead, locals have had to install spear pumps, desalinators, power packs and solar
00:48 panels.
00:49 It took us months to learn, oh, the generator, you've got to do this, you've got to do that.
00:54 It's just hard work.
00:56 About 40 residents remain on the island because they can't afford to live anywhere else.
01:01 But they fear they could be left homeless because they're still required to pay thousands
01:06 of dollars in levies.
01:08 We can't pay for what the extras and still pay them in our body corporate fees.
01:13 We won't survive.
01:14 Can't afford to live here.
01:15 Property owners say they're being charged about $2,000 per year in council rates for
01:20 services they don't receive here, such as waste collection, public transport and community
01:25 facilities.
01:27 The local council has agreed to review their rates from next month.
01:31 That sounds wonderful if they do.
01:33 That would be tremendous.
01:34 Yeah, let's hope they do.
01:36 A glimmer of hope in a drawn out dispute.
01:39 [BLANK_AUDIO]