27 February - Ordinary

Second item for public address. If Mr Ridgewell does happen to turn up, we'll just go back to that. So we'll move on to item 40, and we have two speakers. The first speaker is Joe Vinci. Welcome. Just in regards to 6B, Wall Place rezoning, I have DLA who does our inspection reports for all the land and contamination assessment.

We haven't provided that information on the basis of we have been filling the site as per the DA requirements at Ennam and Venham with all the reports in from DLA.

Therefore, we didn't see a need to. We've already done a contemporary land assessment report from DLA, but I didn't see the need that we needed to provide an additional one.

So we're just obviously come here to have a chat about obviously pushing forward the rezoning without that information .

Thank you, Mr Vinci. Are you happy to take questions? Sure. Any questions, councillors? Councillor Conolly.

Thanks for that. Thank you for your address. I guess, just to clarify, I was a bit confused because I remember the last time this came to Council, the very reason we delayed it was so you could get this one report that we were asking for. And obviously, the subdivision is not a path you go down lightly. Given that this was the one thing Council was asking for, I'm just confused as to why it wouldn't just be provided. Well

It's not a subdivision. It's more obviously a rezoning for industrial, but it's a quite expensive cost to go through an exercise where we've already done the exercise in terms of what the material and the classification and all the reports. So we've done that all up. From the start, I can't see why we have to go and do it again when we spent a lot of time, effort and money to do it from the start.

Yeah, I guess what I was more going is obviously all those costs are sunk costs now, and what the expert planners were giving us recommendations are saying is you need this report. Unless there was something put in front of us to adequately rebut or refute why that we would need that report, I'm not sure how we can possibly proceed, that's all.

Yeah, hence I have DLA here today to explain that. Okay,

Thank you. Any further questions? No further questions, thank you. Our second speaker is Simon. I'm sorry, I may get your surname wrong, Spurds? Thank you.

Cool. So yeah, we were commissioned by Moitz to come around to do a contemporary land assessment. We came through, did the initial inspection, some preliminary sampling. We then got that report developed on the way submitted to Council. Council had a couple of questions. We then continued some other work on the stockpile on the site, and just here for any questions I can help out with with that.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks

I'll direct that question to you then. So our planners are telling us at Council that there is a need for a contemporary contamination land assessment to be prepared now. Why, in your opinion, would that not be required or is that too burdensome on the applicant? Look,

That's

Fine. We can go through that process. Like Mr Vinci said, it was

One of those things that there is an assessment that's been done. We'd be happy to review any comments that you had outlining that and any additional information you request from that, so we can have a look and include that. Any further questions, councillors? No further questions. Thank you. That was our final speaker. Councillor Conolly.

Can I ask a question?

Yes.

Just through you, Madam Mayor, just wondering what contact there's been since Council last considered this application until it's been brought back here, that obviously seems to be some sort of confusion around what happened last time, because my understanding was that last time this came to Council, we said, no, we require this, and we'll give you extra time to go and get it. And now we've come back here to the exact same answer. I'm just wondering what's happened in the meantime.

Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We have contacted the applicant on four different occasions requesting that information. We have a letter from DLA dated November 2017. It's about the progress of the cleanup notice from the EPA, which is saying we've done some of it, but not all of it. But the EPA cleanup notice is for a small portion of the site and it doesn't cover the rest of the site. We did get another report, but I spoke to the officer that assesses those this afternoon, and he went through page by page with the new report and the old report, and they are exactly the same except for the date. So we can't recommend rezoning any land if we don't know what's underneath it.

Anyone to move? Councillor Wheeler. Move the recommendation, Madam Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Conolly. Discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Look, we've given the applicant adequate time, it would seem, to come back to us. Either this has come back to us too early, before the applicant has had time to finish the job and tell us what they've done, or they simply don't intend to provide the documentation that we've asked for. This isn't a council recommendation; it's a state requirement. It hasn't been met. I can't see that we can proceed with this rezoning until we have the right information. It's a light industrial zoning that's being requested, and it includes facilities like childcare centres and hospitals. I don't think we can take a punt on what's under the soil given the significant amount of fill brought in. So at the moment, this is just mucking us around and wasting council's time. Further discussion?

Councillor Conolly

Just to add, Madam Mayor, that I mean, I don't really want to move this away, but I don't really see there's any other choice. As Councillor Wheeler indicated, it's a requirement. It wasn't met, and so we came here six months ago and said, go away and meet it. We'll give you plenty of time. And it's just obviously not going to be met, so unless we just let it go on forever. But the applicant didn't mention they were asking for extra time. They considered what they put in is to be adequate, so I don't really think we've got another choice, unfortunately. And just I don't really understand why you would commence a really expensive process and long process just to get to the last little bit and then stop. I don't see that we have another option.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler? Not necessary. It's a planning decision. I'll put the motion that Councillor Wheeler has moved. Trees not here. Vote with your buttons on the count of three. We're voting on the recommendation in the business paper. One, two, three. For the motion is Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and Councillor Tree is absent.

Item is item 41 . We have three speakers. Our first speaker is Ian Henry.

He is.

Thanks, Madam Mayor

Councillors. Ian Henry. I graduated as veterinary surgeon from Trinity College Dublin in '66, started working in the Hawkesbury in '67. My wife and I bought a property at Kurmond in the early '80s, and we built a purpose-built veterinary clinic, and I've been working there ever since. Our kids went to Kurmond School and Colo School. I love Kurmond. My wife died four years ago, and I intend to spend the rest of my life in Kurmond. And I think that the— I think, I envisage Kurmond being a very desirable area, and I'd like to be part of it. I was first approached by Len Fullston in May 2013. He advised the council's residential housing strategy and the council were receiving applications for subdivision in the Kurmond area. I asked them to prepare necessary documentation.

On the application was submitted in November 2013, 35 years ago. I have followed all the directions from council staff. I found the council staff to be very helpful and very courteous. I can't do any more than I've done, and I'm happy to answer any questions, provided it's not technical, and perhaps Mr. Falson would answer any technical questions.

Thank you, Mr. Henry. Any questions for Mr. Henry, councillors?

No questions. Thank you very much Thank you. Our second speaker is Glenn Falson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, councillors, for the opportunity. Mr. Henry advised me earlier on that, again, there is a mistake with his name in the business paper. In the voluntary planning agreements, it's referred to as, or he's referred to as, John E. Henry, and I understand it is James E. Henry. So that should be corrected on the VPA, some mistake.

Thank you for

Raising that. Also, only a minor issue, but I've mentioned it a few times, my name seems to be escaped from the business paper as the applicant. You have as the applicant Urban and Rural Planning Consultant, and that is me, but that's not a firm name, so it should be Glenn Falson, Urban and Rural Planning Consultant.

Thank you for

Correcting that. A number of times, but, you know, just for the record.

Thank you.

Very briefly, of those planning proposals that were submitted and that are old and subject to the council resolution. That would keep them being processed because they were all, they had already been supported by Council in one way or another prior to the Council's moratorium and then prohibitions. There were nine of those. Four have gone through to gazettal and five remain, and this is one of them. So it's been a process, a long and arduous and expensive exercise for Mr Henry. We've done all that has been asked of us by the Council staff and the Department of Planning. We've amended the lot layout, only slightly I must admit, but to get a better environmental outcome. And it will preserve and enhance the vegetation on site whilst at the same time allowing housing in accordance with Council's adopted residential housing strategy.

So I guess all in all a good outcome. So I would like to thank the Council and the staff for their support through the process, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr Falson. Any questions, Councillors?

No questions. Thank you

Our third speaker is Michael Watt.

Thank you, Councillors. We believe this item should be deferred till the following policy questions are answered by the Mayor or the General Manager. They should not be pushed aside as unimportant or irrelevant . On the 28th of October 2014, the resolution to send this application to the Gateway process at point six says, Council also makes a submission to the RMS requesting details of A, the current capacity of Richmond Bridge. B, any potential upgrades planned for Richmond Bridge, intersections between East Market Street, March Street, Richmond, Bells Line of Road, Grose Vale Road, Terrace Road, North Richmond, and the expected completion dates and confirmation that the funds are allocated.

And C, council to inform the RMS of the number of dwellings constructed since 2013 Richmond Bridge study and potential dwellings expected in the next seven years, 2021, west of the river and any other information so that the RMS has up-to-date details from council to provide sound information. Two questions arise from that that should be answered positively before approval.

Have councillors and the community seen the council submission and the RMS reply from the 2014 resolution? At page 86 of the Knights Business Paper, Transport for New South Wales raises concerns of the cumulative impacts on local traffic and regional traffic and transport infrastructure. The comments at page 93 that council officers have had detailed discussions with the RMS regarding the road network and the developer contribution mechanism for future residential development within the investigation area. The question arises from that: are the reports available to councillors and the public regarding the outcome of council officers' detailed discussions with the RMS? The report to council at page 21, the final paragraph of the business paper 2014, makes reference to petitions which raise concerns re traffic congestion, and that the business paper report goes on to say it is considered this will be a matter to be dealt with by council prior to the finalisation of any planning proposal in the locality as accumulative.

Impacts of these types of development will be unacceptable if no traffic improvements are made. The RMS and Transport New South Wales have made similar comments many times over on the cumulative impacts. The comments are found again at Appendix 1, page 84 and 86 of the Knights Business Paper. Two questions arise. How is the cumulative impact of these types of development acceptable now to Council when it was not four years ago? Is there any empirical evidence to demonstrate the cumulative impacts have been addressed to back up the claim? At page 92 of the Knights Business Paper headed an assessment against the fundamental constraints and associated recommendations, that report sets out the degree of constraints to development.

Road network constraint is identified as fundamental major constraint to development. Major is defined in the Structured Planning, the Kirmon Corrigong Investigation, July 15, at page 2 as, in terms of required infrastructure and servicing, the matter is so significant that development should not occur until a solution has been identified and delivery mechanisms achieved.

Council is a question:

Has a solution to the road congestion been identified and a delivery mechanism achieved? The Hawkesbury Residential Land Strategy, the Sustainable Matrix at 6.3, says service infrastructure is required for all centres. Among other things, road networks with links to key centres. Infrastructure has the capacity or can be augmented to cater for future growth and demand. The infrastructure capacity of each centre must be able to support future dwelling projections and provided in a timely and effective manner—efficient way, I should say. The question is, how does this application meet that criteria at 6.3 when so much is made by Council staff, the RMS, Transport New South Wales and the community with regard to traffic infrastructure and traffic congestion?

Until the above questions are answered and information is available to Councillors and the community, this planning proposal should be deferred, as the Community Strategic Plan says at page 22. Council's role is to encourage an informed community and enable meaningful engagement. Council's here is an opportunity to do just that, making sure those questions are answered.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Wonta. Are you happy to take questions, Councillor Zamprogno?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Mr . Wont, thank you for your address then. The report before us this evening indicates that this process has been underway since 2014, and that in March 2015, DPI instructed Council to engage in a process of community consultation, which resulted in zero submissions from the community. There were four agency submissions, and as you will see, they've been dealt with by Council staff. The concerns that you've raised can't be raised at this juncture because we're about to make this decision. Why were these concerns not raised during the period of community consultation so that they could have the appropriate response from Council staff?

Thank you, Councillor. The NRDCAA has continually opposed planning proposals west of the river. We were not notified at all about the community consultation process in relation to the exhibition. Now , I would have thought that we should have been notified in view of the NRDCW's position. So I can't answer your question in the sense that we weren't notified. We don't always get the courier and look at it , and so that's the answer to the question, Councillor. I hope in future we do.

Any further questions? No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Warren. Thank you.

Councillor Conolly. I

Move the recommendation, Madam Mayor.

Moved Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Richards. Discussion?

No discussion. Councillor Wheeler.

Can I seek some clarification? It appears that the initial application that came to us was for six lots, and we've enlarged the space in between those lots in order to attempt to provide a better protection for the vegetation zone through the middle, and now we're at seven lots. So how—I'm struggling to understand how we've increased the proposed lot yield given our concerns and this Council's very clearly stated concerns about traffic and infrastructure. Mr . Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The amendment, the subdivision concept plan on page 74 of the agenda, is not there for adoption. It's there just to... Demonstrate that it's capable of being subdivided. The figure five on page 75 shows different areas Y and W as lot size to change the lot size map. The extra lot is actually a community lot, so it won't have a dwelling entitlement. It's a lot to create that's created over the vegetated area, and the other lots will be responsible for the care and maintenance of it.

So I'm looking at Figure 7, which has five lots

With access from Bells Line of Road and two lots with access from Bells Lane. And it would appear to me that the community lot is the space in between, which would, if you counted that as a lot, would make eight. But we're talking about seven dwellings. Is that correct? Mr Rowlands.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. That's a restricted lot yield map, so that would mean no more than five lots could go there and no more than two lots could go there. But that's subject to a full assessment of a development application.

Mr Falson,

Could you come up here and clarify that? Thank you.

The original application that was put to the council was for seven housing lots and an eighth lot. And with the process of the council discussion, we've... Knock that back to 6,000 lots plus a community lot.

Thank you. Thank you.

Councillor Garrow. There seems there's an unknown, sorry, an unknown water source running through what appears to be that eighth lot. What measures will be put into place to protect this water source, and I'm assuming an already terribly affected Redbank Creek from previous development? Mr Owens. Thank you, Madam

Mayor. Is that the community lot? Yeah.

Sorry, through the community lot, there's an unnamed natural watercourse, which I'm assuming would run—

Well, the community lot's created there to protect the watercourse and the riparian areas both sides of the watercourse, and any development application would be required to do a vegetation management plan and a stormwater management plan to enhance

That area. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, I just want to pick up on a point that was raised by Councillor Zamprogno a bit earlier, and that is that the, I think the inference, or the stated, what he said was that the decision before us tonight, there was no point making the sorts of comments that the speaker had made because it's too late at this stage to raise those sorts of issues. Now, I'm just wondering, Madam Mayor, whether this is actually a decision of Council that's about to be made, and that we need to take into account all of the factors, including what is being said and addressed to us in this Council meeting tonight.

I believe so, Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah, I

Was under the same impression. So this is not just a roll it through, and we actually have to think about what it is that we're doing and take all these factors into consideration, including speakers tonight.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. A question for — The General Manager, when are we expecting the Kurrajong Kermond investigation report

To be finalised? Through you, Madam Mayor, the latest estimate is in the next couple of months. So we're still negotiating with the consultant, but that's the timing we've got to work to. Madam Mayor. Councillor Conolly. I just want

To clarify that question, if I could. That's okay. So which report exactly are we asking about?

So we've had a recent decision by the JRPP, and they've questioned Council's timing on getting their final position on Kurmond-Kurrajong. So we're bringing that forward as a separate piece of work that will then feed into the overall rural and urban strategy.

Just to make sure I understand Councillor Conolly. So does that include, I know a lot of planning processes that hadn't been to Gateway had been deferred pending the completion of a traffic study, is that included in the work you're talking about?

We'll have to include traffic considerations in that, that's correct.

Councillor Reynolds. Yes, sorry

Madam Mayor. A question for Mr Organ. Council's traffic study, I think stage one is underway. Is there an ETA on that stage one report?

Mr Organ. Through you, Madam Mayor, the interim report should be due in about two weeks. We'll assess that then and look at the next stage of that, but probably around two weeks, and that's the basic model of the network.

Thank you, Mr Organ. Any further disc

Councillor Richards. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can I just get some confirmation on exactly how many reports and what reports are being considered as part of the structure planning for the Kurrajong-Kurmond investigation area? Mr Conroy.

Madam Mayor, we're doing a series of broader reports for the whole local government area to do with biodiversity and those broader issues that relate to the whole local government area. But as I mentioned earlier, there's been a recent decision of the Joint Regional Planning Panel. They've made some comments about Council's progress in relation to Kurmond Kurrajong, and that's necessitated the need for us to bring that work forward specifically for that area. So we're in the process of finalising a negotiation with a consultant, and we hope to start that in the very near future to look at the issues that relate specifically to the investigation area. So that's things like landscape, biodiversity, traffic, the function of the town centre in terms of the sorts of facilities that we want to see there, and the catchment that's required to sustain those facilities. So

Will that be a report brought back to Council, or are we going to have a briefing session about that first, Mr Conroy?

There would be a briefing and then a report to Council.

So that's two months' time frame, roughly?

Roughly.

And can I ask how many applications are still pending?

Mr Rowan?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think it's about five.

Rezonings?

Yes.

Yeah.

And then will they all be brought to Council once Council has voted on the structural planning report? Is that the intention? I just need a time frame.

Yes, once we have that information.

Okay. All right, thanks. At the expense of sounding like a broken record, we really do need to... Follow through with the resolutions that our Council makes. Just to have it on the record, I'm going to reread point six, 29th November 2016. Council continue processing the planning proposals within the investigation area that have received support via a Council resolution to proceed to a gateway determination. We have debated this and debated this till we are blue in the face. I think it's very simple. That was a way forward for the community. It gave certainty and surety to the applicants who'd already spent a fortune ticking the boxes of our planning instruments in what they can do. I hope tonight that common sense prevails and this goes through because that is still the outstanding resolution that we have currently pending on this Council.

We have a VPA. We've given direction to these applicants, and I just hope that tonight we can actually see sense and move forward with the staff recommendation and the direction of the Council already undertaken back in November. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I didn't wish to imply, as Councillor Rasmussen suggests, that Mr Wont did not have any right to raise any issues or concerns that he wishes in his remarks to us. I strongly defend his right to do so. But equally, I have to place some weight in the fact that during the normal process of public consultation that occurred over a considerable period of time, that zero objections were made from the community and that the only submissions that came to Council were agency submissions. And as we can see, they've been given their appropriate response by Council staff. I was merely trying to suggest that Mr Wont's concerns, if they had been made in the normal process of public consultation, could have had a fuller response from Council staff and it could have appeared in the business paper.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a comment on Councillor Zamprogno's comment. I think that the point he raises is a valid one, and I think that that issue isn't to do with anything to do with the concern or the work of the public and North Richmond Districts Community Action Association. I think it's more to do with the notification of these proposals put out for public comment, and I think that that's an issue that we should look at. Comment on Councillor Richards' comments a little while ago. She's exactly right, yes. On that November 2016, we did agree to continue processing planning proposals within the investigation area, but processing, and I've said it before, she's said it before, so I'll say this again, processing isn't spelt A-P-P-R-O-V-E.

Deferring is part of the process if we're pending further information, and as the traffic report is pending and imminent, and the report on the Kurrajong, Kurmond-Kurrajong planning investigation area is only a couple of months away, I would like to move that we defer pending receipt of those reports.

Are you moving an amendment, Councillor Reynolds

Yes, I would like to move an amendment, yes.

Do you have a seconder for that? Second

That.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Councillor Conolly. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I was trying to avoid going over the whole thing again because I thought maybe Council would just let this one go through, but since it's clear that's not going to happen, we're going to go through this again. I would point out once again that this would be a very inconsistent process for Council to adopt because since this resolution of 26 November, Council has approved some applications on the basis they've already been to Gateway and then switched its position once again and started not using that as a valid reason anymore.

The fact is that Council on November 2016 did say that it would look at all these factors, do some further planning, but continue to process those applications that had already received some support from Council. Councillor Reynolds says that that doesn't mean that we have to assess them on their merits. We can defer them on the basis of overarching planning instruments. I would say that's not correct. Deferring individual applications on the basis of regional planning, when you've got a Council resolution that says specifically no, we'll continue to process these ones that have already been lodged, I think is in direct contradiction to that resolution. If not, why would it have ever been included?

If all we were trying to say was, we'll do all this extra overarching planning for this region and not accept any further planning proposals till we're done, if we didn't mean, but we won't let that overarching regional planning hold up the ones we've got, then why would that part even be in the motion? There would be no logical reason to have included it. So clearly, the will of the Council at the time, and clearly since changed, but the will of the Council at the time was that it could see that it was fair to continue to process these applications that had been in the system for years and years under the previous policies of Council, and therefore those should continue to be assessed on their merits.

But what's happening is we're not assessing them on their merits. We're making decisions on these planning proposals not because of anything about the specific site or any planning matters that have to do with the proposal itself, but because of the regional planning that we've decided to do, and that's not continuing to process applications. This application was lodged in 2013. It's taken over four years to get to this point. The applicant has followed everything that Council has asked them to do. They're at the end of the process. Council has already supported the application to go to Gateway, signalling to the applicant they should go ahead and spend more money and do everything that Gateway requires, because Council supports them and what they're trying to do.

There's been no community submissions against this application, despite it being, you know, whether we think we should have notified it more broadly or not, it was notified obviously to those people who are in the normal notification area, and none of them had a problem with it. No one else in the community has come forward until tonight, Mr Wont again putting his view forward. But I think it would be incredibly unfair of this council to signal to an applicant that they have our support back in 2013, or 2015, sorry, send it to the Gateway, tell them, you've got our support, go and spend the money the Gateway requires, and then it comes back here and we say, no, there's a new council now and we no longer support it, so we're going to defer it pending some more regional planning.

I think that would be incredibly unfair. It's also very inconsistent, considering council has already, since November 2016, actually followed its resolution on one occasion and said, no, this has already received support from Gateway, so it should be assessed on its merits. So I think the applicant has a right to have this assessed on its merits. None of the comments, other than some of Councillor Wheelers' comments, have been about the merits of this proposal, just people talking about regional issues, which were known in November 2016, were known in November 2013, and are not materially different now. So I can't see how it would be fair or consistent for council to defer this application pending further regional planning.

Councillor Wheeler. Can I get some clarification of what happens with the community title lot designed to protect the vegetation? So do we have any information about how that will be, the maintenance and upkeep of that lot? Who will be responsible, and how we will fund that matter? Is that something that we expect to come back to council with future applications for this site, or is it something that we're expected to take on faith at this point? Mr. Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. A development application would be required to subdivide it. And as part of that, in a community title subdivision, if you look at the layout in figures four and five, just as an example, the access way off Bells Line of Road would be a private road. Lot one would be commonly owned by, or have entitlements from all the other lots. So the other five , six or seven lots, whatever it comes up to, will be the owners of that community title lot, and they will be responsible for the maintenance and care of it.

So upkeep of that portion of the site isn't likely to cost council down the track? Mr. Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. No, it's privately owned land, and it's owned and shared by those people.

Thank you.

Further discussion? Councillor Rasmussen. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Some points there I think that are valid, but can I just pick up the point about the lack of notification to residents. Over my 20-odd years also in this council, there have been many occasions when, in fact, for whatever good reason, notification hasn't gone out on time, and as a result of that, we, as a sensible council who listen to our community, have deferred a matter so that residents can, in fact, come and prepare themselves and then come and address the issues that they wish to talk and deliver to council, so that we as a council can make much better and better informed decisions on all the planning matters for all the residents of the whole of the Hawkesbury.

That's what we're here to do in my book. Now, we are proceeding with these applications in this case, but as Councillor Reynolds said, you know, proceed is spelled in a certain way, and it doesn't signify automatic approval. If it did, there'd be no point us debating it, absolutely no point being here listening to all this. If it was just a matter of going, Oh yeah, well tick, that's it, all done, all approved, because it's been in the process for a while. I mean, anybody who runs that argument needs to do a bit of philosophy or a bit of logic. Anyway, I think we all need to take account of the feelings of the people, the residents who travel to and from work every day from west to east and east to west, to get to work, to do whatever they need to do, go to medical appointments, go to wherever, deliver kids, shopping, and they sit in those traffic jams morning and evening for hours upon hours, hours upon hours.

And if you don't listen to them, who are you going to listen to? They have been telling us for years and years and years, this is a bad, bad move. Please do not do any more of this. Stop it. Please stop it. Do not add any more impacts. It's not fair on them. It's not fair on them. I hear councillors saying, well, it's not fair on particular applicants. Well, it's not fair on the people who sit in those traffic jams either with kids in the heat and all the rest of it. So we, in my book, I believe anyway, the residents, the major residents or the majority of residents in this area certainly have the right for us to make decisions so that they and their lives are not majorly impacted or continue to be majorly impacted as they go about their business and their work and their enjoyment of this lovely area.

There is no new infrastructure. This council has not generated any new infrastructure to enable the traffic jams and the delays across the bridges to be lowered by one second.

Now, if we continue with this cumulative impact and add more impact, more traffic jams, more time to the travel time for these people, I just don't think we are absolutely not doing what we should be here to do, and that is looking after the majority of residents in this area for the longer term, their health, their wellbeing, and the way they enjoy this area. So, Madam Mayor, I think we don't have much choice on this. I think we need to defer it. We need to get those studies done, and I agree the JRPP did make some scathing comments about the... You know, lack of progress on these particular plans, and I think that's appalling in my book. So we do need to speed that up, and I'm pleased the General Manager is saying that he's going to hurry up and get that done, because it needs to be done.

We need to have all that in place so that we can actually move ahead in a sensible way, figure out where we can grow and develop, and where infrastructure needs to be placed. But until we do that, I just cannot see how this Council can continue to add cumulative impact on cumulative impact on these residents who have been struggling for years and years and years and years, sitting in traffic jams. I just don't see how we can possibly say that a few applicants have the right over all of those residents, which is by far the majority.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. My understanding of the resolution from November 2016 is that we Council deliberately broke the applications into two categories. There were the new ones that could come forward, and there were the ones that were already being processed by Council. And in Section 5 of that resolution, it dealt with the new ones and said any new ones need to wait for the structured planning report. Section 5 said that we should continue to process the ones that are already in the pipeline, so to speak. And continue processing, to me, means that we could defer them or even refuse them based on site-specific objections. I haven't heard any site-specific objections. All I've heard is all the overarching structural planning, which Section 5 of the previous resolution dealt with.

So, in my opinion, what the amendment up there is asking us to do is, I believe it contradicts the resolution of November 2016. Therefore, I believe it is actually out of order and should be ruled out of order.

I'll just take advice of the General Manager on if that should be ruled out of order, Mr Conroy.

Sorry, I was looking at an email and I wasn't paying attention.

Councillor Calvert, could you just repeat? Sorry.

Repeat the last bit?

Yes, please.

I was saying, Mr Conroy, the motion or resolution of November 2016 says that any applications that are already in the pipeline should be continued to be processed, which would mean only be rejected or amended because of site-specific objections. That was the aim of that point 6. And this amendment up here contradicts that and says that we should defer this not because of site-specific objections, but because of structured planning considerations. So, I believe it therefore contradicts the resolution of November 2016 and is therefore out of order.

Mr Conroy.

I don't think it would be out of order in terms of—it's not. Contrary to any legislation or any Act or regulation, council's the responsible planning authority and it's responsible for determining applications on their merits, and it certainly has to have regard to all relevant considerations. But I think, again, it's up to each individual councillor to come to their own personal position in relation to this. I don't think you can place a black and white interpretation across that council resolution. So I wouldn't say that it's out of order, and I would say it's up to individual councillors to make their own decisions on this.

Further discussion? Councillor Rasmussen.

Just a question back on the resolution that Councillor Calvert referred to on the 29th of November 2016. Can you just point out to me, because I've missed it, where it says it can only be deferred on site specific matters? I just don't see those words in that resolution.

Councillor Calvert.

Madam Mayor, I just tried to move that this was out of order, and I've been told it's not, so I don't really want to go into that.

Thank you, Madam Mayor

Further discussion? Councillor Richards. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment. Sorry, Councillor Rasmussen, but the resolution pending is the way we are moving forward in a sensible way. That is what a council does. That is a sensible decision of this council. And every time one of these matters comes before us, we go in circles, we say the same thing, but surprisingly, we've never had a rescission motion to take that motion off the table. So it is still pending, it is still current, and it is still valid. And we as a council need to make sure that we follow the resolutions that we are making. I mean, honestly, I still am so surprised that that is still standing and you haven't put in a rescission motion.

But what we need to do is stick to what we've got here. We've had a regional planning body. Now tell Hawkesbury City Council to hurry up. I mean, if we've got those external bodies telling the council that you're making these decisions about structure planning and traffic reports and this, that and the other, and now we've put a timeline on that finally, I mean, to have to get another body to give us a kick up the backside and say, move forward. You've got applicants sitting here waiting for these reports. It's not a good look for us. And I've sat in this chamber time and time again and said that the reputation of this council is extremely important to me, and I don't like how the reputation of our council gets put into jeopardy by these sorts of things.

Please, Mr. Wont, please. We talk about infrastructure and the fact that west of the river we shouldn't be approving developments because we don't have any, yet we have a development sitting there in North Richmond that a developer is paying for a bridge to alleviate some of that traffic congestion. We need to be continuing as a council to push forward to make sure that that bridge is delivered in a timely manner. Those buildings, those houses are being constructed right now, so we need to make sure that we deliver on that bridge and we push all three parties to the VPA to make sure that that bridge is put there. If that's—if you want to talk about broader infrastructure issues, then that comes into it.

We shouldn't even be talking about those broader issues right now. We should be talking about the merits of this specific application. Not one person has brought up so far something that's detrimental about this specific application other than your overarching broader issues relating to all the structure planning in place. So, I mean, I would have to say that— Since being elected the last 18 months, this whole thing has been probably the single most disappointing issue that I've had to continuously sit in here on this chamber and debate. We have a current resolution sitting there. Let's just stick to it for once.

Further discussion? Councillor Ross. Councillor Ross.

Thank you. I think the remarks made by the previous speaker in regard to the availability of infrastructure coming out of Redbank bears little consequence upon this proposal because of its remoteness and the deviations that would be necessary to even come within cooee of such a crossing of the river. I've got concerns about it because I don't believe it's

Treating fairly the landscape ,

The vegetated area

And the necessity at some point or another where we are going to have to realise that the lack of vegetation on this area and the preservation of what we do have is of primary importance for the local people within the area and the broader community. And I don't see this as a reasonable response. to a broader social requirement of a body such as this, frankly. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Councillor Connolly. Just a question, Madam Mayor, if I can.

Just through you to Councillor Ross, I just want to confirm which way he was speaking. Given that he raised some site-specific issues, I imagine he was speaking against both the motion and the amendment.

Councillor Ross, question from Councillor Connolly. If you'd like to respond, thank you.

The councillor can wait till I vote.

I would ask each councillor, please, if when you speak, if you could declare whether you're speaking for or against the amendment or the motion, so that we can follow the debate. Madam

Mayor, I take your point and I apologise to the other councillor. I'm speaking in favour of the amendment as it stands at the moment. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross.

Can I just seek clarification of the time frame? I know you, Councillor Richards, just asked two months for the study. Does that include public exhibition time? And what's a realistic time of when anything deferred would be able to come back before the council for consideration?

So we're asking consultant to finalise the draft study within two months, so that then we can have a councillor briefing, and then we'd put a report to council, and then it would go out to some sort of notification.

So what sort of time are we sort of getting? For the

Time you get on notification, you're probably looking at the order of three and a half months. Okay

So in three and a half months it could come back. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. The very fact that we have to have exactly the same discussion with the same people making exactly the same points over and over again shows, in fact, that this Council is remarkably consistent in its approach to these matters. We talk about the same things. We agonise over exactly the same problems, and we get divided straight down the same lines, just like we always do. I'm sorry, Councillor Richards is frustrated by this Council's change in direction and its approach to planning. Democracy does that to you, unfortunately. It's

Not —

I beg your pardon?

Well, I'd like you to be quiet, please, Mr Kennedy. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, could Mr Kennedy leave the chamber? He has— I've asked

Him to be quiet. Really

Enough

This

Is my place of work, Councillor Richards, please. I've asked Mr Kennedy to be quiet. Continue

Councillor Wheeler. This is my place of work, Madam Mayor, and I feel bullied and harassed by Mr Kennedy through a number of medium, including this chamber.

Councillor Wheeler, if he says— if I have to address him again, I will ask him to leave. Thank you. Continue.

I don't believe this. I do have site-specific concerns

About this — I'm sorry, Councillor Richards, can you stop laughing? It's not funny. Continue.

Continue, Councillor Wheeler. I do have site-specific concerns about this application, largely relating to the vegetation and the watercourse in the centre of the property, and I appreciate that the applicant has made considerable effort to try and protect that vegetation and, to a degree, that watercourse. I am— Concerned that that watercourse drains into Redbank Creek, which has already suffered significant negative impacts from the development at Redbank, and I'm not quite sure how much more it can take or be expected to take. And what this really speaks to, as do the concerns about traffic, is a lack of overall planning, and that's really what this Council is concerned about, a sensible overarching approach to planning in the LGA, and that's what we're trying desperately to put into place.

Unfortunately, it's time-consuming and it's expensive. I don't believe that this is consistent with the CMP. 5.3.2 of the CMP expressly mentions planned development. This isn't planned development. This is ad hoc development, a carryover from the glory days of the previous Council of just picking a spot and saying to everybody, Well, chuck us your planning applications because we like this bit and we think that a few of you will like to carve it up. We're talking about a genuine large windfall for the applicant. That's what subdivision provides for the applicant, and it shouldn't have onerous impacts on the wider community. But what we've seen through cumulative development is large onerous impacts on the community who, on the North Richmond side, are spending about 45 minutes sitting in traffic in the morning, and on the Wilberforce side, sitting for about 30 minutes, and they're doing that to travel distances of between 5 and 6 kilometres.

Now, that's ludicrous, an hour and a half from the CBD, and it's not a reasonable impost on the community, and it's occurred because we haven't had an overarching approach to planning. I understand, I understand Councillor Connolly and Councillor Calvert's concerns about site-specific issues relating to this development, but we can't— sites don't exist in isolation. They exist as part of the wider landscape and the wider impact on the community. And it's our job to consider what those impacts are and if they're reasonable. On page 77 of the business paper, there's a list of seven objectives for the RU1 Primary Production Zone, which this site sits in. And it says in the next paragraph that it should be noted that there's no requirement for a subsequent development to be consistent with all of the objectives of the zone.

But I reckon if we were going to approve something, it would be nice if they were consistent with one or two. And I'm struggling to find at least two that this is consistent with. So currently, I can't support this application, simply because it can't be separated out as an application. I have real concerns about the site, about the impact of the development on the vegetation and the watercourse on this site, but I also have real concerns about the impact of this subdivision on the wider community.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. I'll just speak briefly to the amendment in support of the amendment, given the timeframe of three and a half months. He's not very long, if this has been a long and protracted application, I admit. But there's something I'd like to make clear with regard to planning proposals and spot rezoning proposals, is that these are speculative things that people undertake. Councillor Richards referred to us ticking the boxes of our planning instruments. This doesn't involve a planning instrument. Let's be clear on that. That's not correct. A planning instrument is our LEP or legislative documents. This was based on a residential land strategy, and we heard Mr Henry say he was approached and told that Council was taking applications for this.

Now that's based on the speculation of a land strategy, which is fine for people to take their chance and put in a proposal and to see what may develop out of that. That's a thing that everyone's open to do, but there seems to be a blurred line between that and some commitment to thinking that therefore, if there's a land strategy, that we therefore have to pass something because it complies with something. It's not that way. We're not ticking boxes because there aren't boxes to be ticked. Now, in my opinion, and it's well on record, the residential land strategy was very flawed in its implementation because it was implemented before it had the appropriate supportive studies to underpin it and to allow us to arrive at these decisions, for example, of a total yield in that particular area.

It's been modified over and over again. There's been different resolutions. It's very obvious by the course of events that have unfolded that there was no certainty for people in the first place, and I feel for- For applicants that have gone down this path, because that is what's happened. There was not documentation or studies to support what was actually being asked of people, and therefore we've had an inconsistency, and therefore I would support deferring it until we at least have these various reports, which are going to tell us the things that we should have known in the first place. Having said that, in this particular application, there's a number of positives that I can see that have been addressed and , you know, that do give it merit.

So it's not refusing that, but I think to view it in light of the various reports that we do get back is actually fairer to the applicant than sending them down this path before we have all those reports, because it's a three and a half month wait, and then we'll have the various things that relate to the vegetation studies and the various other things, which may actually enhance any application if there's increased information. I mean, we're sort of flying blind on a lot of this because we just simply don't have all of this information. Now, it's not to be construed as totally anti-development or anything, which it often is, but it's more to think this is our place where we live. We want to see it develop in the way that is sustainable and gives the best outcomes, and that ensures that the adequate and supporting infrastructure is in place.

Now that's— That's what we should be doing. We only have one chance. Once we do this, we need to do it properly. And sadly, it has not been done properly in the past, and we can move forward and rectify that now. And in a few months, people can then come back, and then if their applications are fitting into what the vision is, what the picture is, what the studies say is sustainable and allowable, then we can go down that path. So that's the way I'll be voting tonight. And I know that it's another delay for people, but I would rather see it done properly because it's a precious area. We've got precious waterways. We've got some very, very significant vegetation in those areas, and we want to get the best outcome from this that we can possibly get.

Further discussion?

Just another question, if I could, Madam Mayor. Yes. Just want to clarify that three-and-a-half-month time frame. I understood that to mean that the reports could be adopted in three and a half months, but I imagine there'll be another period where those reports, or whatever we adopt, then has to be assessed and applied to these planning proposals before they can be brought back. So, I mean, just to get an idea of how long these applications will be delayed before they're seen again, realistically, are we looking at more than three and a half months, perhaps? Mr Conroy. Sorry

Madam Mayor. So I think once we get the draft reports, we'll get a sense of whether the current applications are consistent with them or not, and that may be sufficient for Council and the community to proceed on that basis. But at the moment, we don't have that overall framework for that investigation area. So we're looking at sites on a case-by-case basis. Once we've got the overall framework, we'll see whether they fit into that framework and whether they can proceed. So it could well be that as soon as, you know, two to two and a half months, we'd be in a position to consider some, but it may well be that others have to wait three and a half, four months.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also have a question, and forgive the question, but it's only because we're now feeling our way through the process of working out which of those planning powers are going to be divested from us here in this chamber and given to planning panels. Is the process of dispatching things to Gateway and receiving them from Gateway and then encouraging that process to proceed something that we will continue to have control over, or is it also divested to a planning panel?

Mr Owens. Planning proposals were here.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I believe they go to the planning panel, but the criteria only just came out in the last two days, so I'll check that and, if it's different, I'll get back to you.

Which is to say that we may shortly be at a position where even these kinds of questions are taken out of our hands. Even the resolution of

This matter will be taken out of our hands by deferring it. Mr Owens.

I believe that's correct, but I'll just have a look to see if I can verify that for you.

Thank you, Mr Owens, because I think it's relevant and significant that we should consider that in the process of delaying this, we are giving it away and that we may never have the opportunity to resolve ourselves on what we want to do with this.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. I was actually under the impression that planning proposals would continue with councils, but that may have been changed by the government.

Further discussion? Councillor Rasmussen. Yeah

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to speak against the motion and make a couple of short, hopefully short, points about it. The residential land strategy—I don't know how many people in this chamber or outside understand or knew how it came about. The residential land strategy was a big piece of work done by very, very eminent and learned and professional consultants. It did not contain the Kurmond, Kurrajong investigation area initially as it was presented to council. That particular part of it, in a slightly different form, mainly to do with one kilometre within the, one kilometre of the village and town centres, that was actually parachuted into it, not because it had any foundation or basis in fact or science or planning or anything else.

It was parachuted in there because this previous council, some of the councillors decided that that was a good idea to be doing this because that area west of the river, people wanted to subdivide their pieces of land. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that per se. But as a planning body, overarching, looking after the future and the development and where growth should take place in this city , that is not exactly how one would want to do it. That's why we are in this situation. Not because there are any ticking boxes of magnificent magnicarta instruments that we needed to follow. It was parachuted in by a certain group of councillors who had the numbers in this council to achieve it.

That's why we're struggling with it. That's why we're going around in circles. That's why we're not— well, we are proceeding with it and we are dealing with it. And this council has changed, surprise, and the government, as we have just heard, has made the decisions that this council, or councillors, most councillors in Sydney, will no longer have the opportunity to actually debate and listen to their residents and actually make informed decisions based on what they want so that we can eliminate and maybe ameliorate. The impact of traffic and their moving about this city on a day-to-day basis. That's what we should be thinking about. That's the big picture we should be thinking about in here, not whether one or two applicants is going to miss out on a development because it might slip away from us.

I mean, for goodness' sake, this is a major planning body, governance structure, that needs to take account of all of the citizens, all of the residents of this area, for the good of all of them, not just a few.

Thank you, Councillor Brassmussen. I'll just get Mr Owens to clarify regarding Councillor Sam Bronio's question, and I'd also like to foreshadow that at the next meeting I'll be bringing something forward seeking clarification of councillors' actual involvement and role in IHAPs, which is a bit separate from that, but I just thought I'd get that in because we don't have a lot of information yet, and so it's very important that we understand the extent of our role and also the process of how, you know, the listings and all the operations of the IHAP will work. But that will be the next meeting. Thank you, Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is a direction about planning proposals for council, but the direction doesn't take effect till the first of June this year. But the council is required to refer all planning proposals to be prepared after the first of June 2018 to the local planning panel for advice, unless the council's general manager determines that the planning proposal relates to the correction of obvious error in the LEP, matters that are of a consequential transitional machinery or other nature, or matters that the general manager considers will not have significant adverse impact on the environment or adjoining land. So that is a change that is coming in on first of June.

Can I just clarify if for advice means they make the decision or we make the decision?

That's something that we are still checking on how that came. It's quite ambiguous,

I think. Anyway .

There was an issue at 5.21 on Friday. On Friday. Okay

Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the amendment to defer this planning application. I'll say it again. I've said it before. The spirit of the resolution that we made in November last year was to— was it last year or the year before?—was because we were in a transition. We had a new council, new ideas. We're all pretty passionate about getting our planning right for all our residents. And I think that the spirit of that resolution was so that we could deal with the applications that we had in a manner that was fair to those people. I don't think that it's fair for those five applicants that we have left to be treated this way. I think this proposal is sound. It has ticked all the boxes.

There's been obviously a lot of toing and froing with council staff, so they've satisfied those requirements. So for us to be talking about what the outcomes of of reports that we're waiting on might be, and that they will solve all of these issues about the traffic, I think is really naive. We have to make this decision today. We have to make this decision because it has been, we have had this application since 2013. We have to honour this application now. To keep deferring is a very , it's a very unprofessional way of conducting ourselves. I appreciate we have to get the traffic solved, and I appreciate we have to get our planning right. But the spirit of that resolution was the transitional, the transition so we could do that.

We could be fair to these applicants, and we could be fair to the rest of our citizens. I just really think we should start to act on our policies, act on our resolutions, and stop thinking that there's going to be a perfect world when we've got more studies. There's always a need for more studies. There's no perfect information. We will always strive to get better information. We have to stop and just be pragmatic about this. I find I find deferring this very, very unsatisfactory, and I can't support us deferring it for a minute more.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. If I could just address something you raised, because I know I was speaking about why I would defer it, and I'm not sure if you understand the process, but the rationale was that if it's three and a half months until we have studies that may eliminate something in something going ahead, or in fact the reverse, allow more or allow a different setout, that stops that person proceeding, and as we often hear in here, people spend money, etcetera, etcetera. That would be eliminating that from the process. So this isn't a subdivision. It's not a development application. It's a rezoning. So it could then go forward in a different shape or form. That is my rationale, because then we could be applying that fairly across the entire area, because we would have an area-wide solution with the correct studies to show that.

So I just wanted to clarify that because I didn't know if you grasped

That. Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I grasped all of that, and my comments still stand. Thank you.

Further discussion or right of reply?

Right of reply. Yeah,

Thank you, Madam Mayor. No, you're not right of reply, Councillor Reynolds. No, you don't have right of reply on amendment. Right of reply is Councillor Conolly

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just to address a few of the things that have just been raised. Especially in regards to your comments about this being, this being a speculative proposal, and someone approached him and told him to have a go, and everyone's welcome to have a go and see how they fare, and there's no documents to support this, and in your comment that we shouldn't send him down this path, I think we're— I'm not sure if you grasp, Madam Mayor, but this has already come to Council as a speculative application, and Council has supported it. It's not speculative anymore. Council supported the application to go to Gateway. It said, We think there's merit in this proposal. If it can get through Gateway, if you can go and do all your detailed planning and everything stacks up, then we're going to support it.

That's what we said. It's not speculative at that point. At the point where they started spending serious money doing all their planning, it was not speculative. Council had already supported it. We'd already sent them down that path, to use your phrase. And to say that there is no planning instrument, that's correct. But this is reported to us with a recommendation for approval because it has been assessed by Council staff on two occasions, first when it came in and now again when it's come back from the Gateway, and Council staff have found that it should be supported, that on all planning matters it does tick all the boxes. Gateway has done an assessment, and Gateway and the department has found that it's an application worthy of support, and having been assessed on its merits, it should proceed.

So I think to say that there's no planning instrument, it's just purely speculative, I think is very misleading. Well, not misleading. I don't mean to say that you meant to mislead, but I think it's incorrect. I don't think you can say that this is speculative if Council has said, We're going to support this, we're going to send you to Gateway. You should move ahead and spend all your money. And I think there's a lot of political point scoring going on here, a lot of playing to certain constituencies, because we've heard a lot about being fair to all the residents and the cumulative impacts of all these developments, and that might be true, but we're not talking about— The cumulative impacts of development.

We're talking about whether or not these five individual small applications should be supported in the meantime, or they should be put in the same lot as all the applications in point five of the November 26 resolution of having to wait for all the structure planning. And whether or not we have an extra 30 lots or not makes no difference to anybody, to use Councillor Rasmussen's phrase, sitting in the car in a traffic jam in the heat with their kids. It doesn't make a difference, these 30 lots.

Councillor Rasmussen.

I think it's a matter of fact, Councillor Rasmussen. There is in excess of 10,000 homes on that side of the river. Another 30 is not going to have any significant impact on the traffic that any person could ever notice. We're not talking about whether development— Sorry? Okay. From people who don't like to be interrupted, there's a lot of it going on, Madam Mayor.

I think she's muttering. I don't think she's — Is

That now allowed? Because this is my place of work, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor. I'm sorry, did you not like it when I muttered about you?

Councillor Weimer. I raised a legitimate concern about— I do not appreciate Councillor Connolly mocking that concern. Would you prefer I put in a formal—

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Councillor Connolly, all councillors, I'd just like to say let's keep the respect going on all sides from everybody and have this meeting running smoothly, all right? Legitimate debate, but just keep it respectful.

I think that would be a good way to proceed, Madam Mayor. To say that, and to come back to that— I'm just going to try and remember where I was up to now, now that I was interrupted by the muttering. You know, to say that we've been flying—

What is it?

Sorry, Madam Mayor. Well

I just said try and keep it just going respectfully,

Not little snide

Remarks. Keep going.

Well, I think, Madam Mayor, if muttering is allowed, I should be allowed to refer to it. But

30 applications is not going to make any significant difference that any person can notice, and that's all we're talking about here. We've already, as a whole council, unanimously, I believe it was, decided we shouldn't accept any more planning proposals in this area until we've done detailed planning. We're only arguing about the few that are left over on what is a fair way to proceed. This council has already sent one application in this exact situation. It came back from Gateway, and council looked at it and said, Oh, look, it's not too big, and it's actually got, you know, some positives about it. We'll send it through in spirit with our resolution of November 26, and then that just changed.

We changed our minds about how we're dealing with these things. So I think there is obviously some political point scoring happening here, because it's not logical to fight these last 30 applications on the basis of regional traffic, Madam Mayor. That's not logic, and we're not flying blind, as somebody said, because this has been assessed by council twice and by the department, and it said that on its merits it should proceed. So, Madam Mayor, I also struggled to understand—my final point I was going to make was I struggled to understand how anybody can list their site-specific issues with this application and then go ahead and support an amendment to defer it on the basis of regional traffic.

If there was no merit in this application, then you would be voting to not proceed with the amendment to the LEP, not to defer it and keep it going longer if your concerns are not about traffic. If the concerns are about traffic, then I would say you're not acting in good faith in terms of our resolution of November 26.

Okay, all right, I'll put, sorry, Councillor Reynolds, time for the motion. I'll put your amendment. We'll vote first. It's a planning decision. We'll vote first on the amendment by Councillor Reynolds, which is to defer the application on the count of three. One, two, three.

For the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Against the amendment, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zampronio, Councillor Conolly, and Councillor Richards. Councillor Tree is absent from the chamber. I'll now put the amendment as the motion and we'll vote again. The motion is Councillor Reynolds' former amendment, on the count of three. One, two, three.

We'd have to have a malfunction sooner or later. One, two, three. For the motion is Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Against the motion is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zampronio, Councillor Conolly, and Councillor Richards. Councillor Tree is absent. The motion is carried.

Our next item.

With a speaker is item 43.

We have one speaker, Helen Mason.

I'll just declare I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this item. I am the patron of the Hawkesbury Orchid Society, but that does not involve me making any form of decision, so I remain in the debate. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs Mason.

Link

For the international conference and show to be held on 18th to the 22nd of July this year at Hawkesbury Indoor Stadium. The not-for-profit Orchid Society of New South Wales is spending about $100,000 locally on fixed costs to pay for venue hire, tables, partitions, sound systems, as shown on page 118 of your business papers. We would also appreciate some in-kind supports, remarketing and publicity. I would like to tell you what is different about this event from the other shows you're probably familiar with. There will be a display of sensational international and Australian orchids rarely seen by the public because the growers grow them; they're not commercially available. We've also just heard today that the world's first blue orchid flower will be on display.

It has never been in Australia and has never been allowed outside Japan before, so that took a lot of government negotiation over the last couple of years. We are bringing together Australian experts with those from the US, Colombia, Brazil, Japan and Taiwan, who have never been here before, to share their knowledge of orchid growing and culture with special topics for hobbyists. We've challenged 34 cafes and restaurants to celebrate the contribution of the vanilla orchid to cuisine by offering vanilla flavoured items to customers over the next five months leading up to the show, with prizes to be awarded at the opening ceremony. We're also giving orchids to Windsor Park Primary School for a special science project that may be entered in the Wollongong University Science Fair in November, which has never had orchids before.

The main benefits include an economic benefit from the influx of visitors and booking of two local venues, local accommodation over five days for about 200 international and interstate delegates, as well as many Sydney orchid growers and volunteers who will need to stay in the area throughout the event. We currently have over 120 registered, with about 40 interstate and 20 international delegates. Their accompanying partners will take sightseeing tours as outlined on our website. About 2,000 day visitors are expected to use local transport, and we've hired a shuttle bus service to take people to clubs, cafes and restaurants for meals. Over the next five months, the vanilla on the menu challenge will increase retail business in this region.

The Hawkesbury Gazette will have a story about it tomorrow, and we would appreciate your support in promoting this. We hope to drive interest in the Hawkesbury Valley as a tourist destination during winter and to encourage orchid hobbyists to spend a few days exploring local plant nurseries. The main social benefit is to encourage orchid growing as a hobby. We will also highlight the environmental fragility of native orchid species. Many orchid growers come from diverse ethnic backgrounds and are generally retired. We therefore cater to a multicultural and ageing population, providing opportunities to connect and improve social interaction while sharing the joy of beautiful flowers. Future benefits include promoting the district as a centre of excellence for plant-based technology through the scientific program and by building on the existing horticulture infrastructure.

We warmly invite Her Worship the Mayor and Councillors to attend the precursor event called Orchids Out West on the 18th to the 20th of May, which is held each year at Hawkesbury Racecourse. This will provide an insight into our much larger international conference and show. You are also invited to our opening ceremony on the 19th of July to be officiated by His Excellency General the Honourable David Hurley, retired Governor of New South Wales, who is also very keen on orchids. To conclude, we are making a significant contribution to the local community and have estimated that we need about $20,000 in support. We therefore hope you will contribute towards the cost of venue hire, tables, partitions, sound systems, as well as marketing and publicity.

Perhaps you could discount the Hawkesbury Stadium rental of $23,250, which is the main fixed cost. Thank you.

Thank you, Helen, and I'm very excited for the event. Are you happy to take questions? Yes, of course. Any questions, Councillors? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Madam. A very delightful and well presented advertorial

I suppose you might say, certainly a piece of advocacy. Look, I had a little bit of a difficulty with the financial reference you made on page 118. I noticed that you had— Revenue coming in from the conference dinner of $3,600. I'm not quite sure what we're going to feed them because I couldn't see where the cost of the catering had been indicated on the expense side. Could you elaborate, please?

You're light.

There's a button.

Thank

You. Sorry, Councillor Ross, I'll clarify that. If you look at that table, we've already got 100 registrations, and then the last three columns are if we get an extra 100, an extra 150, or an extra 200 in the next five months on top of the 100 we've already got—120 it is now. So those estimates, like the dinner and the ceremony, are saying we're going to get an extra 10 or 30 people on top of the 120 we've already got fully registered with the dinner and everything included. So I guess that is a bit confusing, but we're saying we need some additional people to get this, the bottom line of $80,000, $95,000, $110,000. We haven't got there yet. So the catering cost is actually for the dinner, 120, and opening ceremony, $50 a head.

That's cost recovery. We're not for profit, so we're not making any profit on that. And so we're saying we'll get 10 more who only come to the opening ceremony and 30 more who'll only come to the dinner, on top of the hopefully a couple of hundred full registrants who get everything included in their registration of $300.

Does that make sense? Thank you.

Not quite. I'm sorry.

You've got 12 seconds.

The $ 94,866 on page 118 is your expenses. Yes. Appear not to contain any allowance for the hospitality element. Oh

Sorry. They're the fixed costs, and the catering is a variable cost depending on the number of people who come. So I haven't included any variable costs. I've only included the fixed costs, which we're up for no matter how many people attend. We have to cover the 94,600—what is it?—866.

Yes.

So that's why I'm seeking some government support to make sure we've got enough to cover the fixed costs. And then on top of that, we've got cost recovery on the variable costs, which we're charging the delegates on a per-head basis.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Sorry, can I ask a quick question? Yes, quick question, Councillor.

Can I just get some clarification on how many days are you actually hiring the exhibition hall for?

It's a five-day conference. The five days is a couple of days setting up. There's a judging day, and it's open to the public on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, depending on whether they come to the lecture program, which is on the Friday and Saturday. So there's many different options for who's going to attend and when. If you're a day visitor and you're only paying $10 a day, $10 a head, then you can only come Saturday or Sunday. Okay

So how long are you hiring out the exhibition hall for?

Five days. So for five days

You're getting charged $23, 250 from the YMCA.

That's our biggest fixed cost, yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for answering those. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was our only speaker on that item. Councillor

Oh, thank you. You can sit back down.

Move the recommendation, Madam Mayor.

Moved, Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Reynolds. Discussion?

I think it's a worthy idea. I think we'll all agree to that, so long as the orchids don't become man-eating and rampage through the district and

Consume

The citizenry. All for it.

Yes. Well, hopefully that won't happen, Councillor Zamprogno. I agree. I think it's a wonderful thing for our district, and I think it's something that we should definitely support. Unfortunately, we don't have huge monetary resources, as it says our allocation for those things is almost exhausted. However, I think that, I'm not sure, and I didn't get a chance to ask, but I'm not sure how much other sponsorship—looking around the room, could there be people who sponsor such an event, or within the community, if you had approached other sponsors? You have, yes. Okay, thank you. Well, I'm sorry that we don't have 20,000 to give you, but we don't. However, I'm sure that there will be a lot of— definitely, I definitely commit to promoting and supporting it any way I can possibly do because I think it's great to bring such an event here, and I would encourage you to continue.

I know it's sometimes disappointing when people don't sponsor, but I'll just see if we have any avenue where we could rally any different sponsors or give any advice on that, Mrs Stewart.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. No, probably just the letter of support through Destination New South Wales would be our best avenue, which we're currently preparing at the moment. Okay. All right, thank you for that.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, I think this is an outstanding proposal and something that the Hawkesbury would benefit enormously from, apart from being very beautiful orchids. And I have to declare an interest. I do have orchids at home as well, and I love the orchids. But anyway, Madam Mayor, I'm just wondering whether there is a way we could find to encourage the YMCA to sponsor half of the hall hire or something similar. I mean, at the end of the day , council contributes in the order of, and somebody might correct me if I'm wrong, about $120,000 a year to the running of that facility, so I'm just wondering whether, in fact, we could not find a way to lessen that burden, maybe not the full amount, but You know, at least down to their running costs or at least down to some more reasonable cost.

I mean, I would really like to see that. I don't know whether there's a will in Council to try and find a way to do that for this wonderful event, because I really do think we need to dig a bit deeper, in my view, to find a way to help this become a really, really success, because it will have. It will be shown. There is no doubt that this will be on YouTube, on Facebook. It will go viral, and there will be

Feral. It

Won't go feral. Not this one, not this one. Others might, but it will certainly have international—and thanks, Councillor Garrow—and it will have impacts way beyond the event as well, because it will be featured, it'll be there. So, yeah, if there is a will, I mean, I'm happy to move or at least have suggestions from other councillors if there is a will to find a way, but I think we need to find a way here.

I'll just ask Mr Mifsud what that would entail. If there's any mechanism to request the YMCA to somehow sponsor and therefore reduce the cost of hire, would that be totally in their hands or something that we could advocate for?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Certainly Council could advocate that to the YMCA, but YMCA are effectively running a business by managing and operating the stadium. So certainly Council could request them, but they'd be under no obligation to do that. Yep. Madam Mayor, at least could

We do that?

So do you want to move an amendment

Yes, I'd like to move an amendment that we—

Or request that the mover, who is Councillor Zamprogno, include that , perhaps. Yeah

I'm happy for Councillor Zamprogno to include it if he wishes to; if not, I'll do an amendment.

So an additional point that we simply write to the YMCA and ask if they would consider some contribution for reduction of hall hire, of venue hire.

That would be wonderful. If Councillor Zamprogno would be happy with that, but also a bit of a timeline, because I think they're obviously trying to get their finances in order and trying to work out what they can do and what they can't do, so maybe a bit of a timeframe on the request. Thanks very much.

Councillor Reynolds, are you happy with that? Thank you. Further discussion? Councillor Ross.

The dear lady who gave us the address indicated that this particular event is preceded by— An exposé up at the Hawkesbury Race Club, as I understand it? Yes Could I seek an understanding as to whether Council is supporting that in any financial or non-financial way, please, the preceding event?

Mr Stewart. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council doesn't sponsor that event.

Thank you.

Okay.

We're not talking now about one event. We're talking, in a sense, about two events. I detected last year, which I think the preceding event is an annual event, that it garnered a very significant amount of interest beyond our immediate environs and was a real drawcard for the area. I think that itself will draw the same type of attention as did last year's event, which is, I think, very good.

In view of the fact that this is an even— the amount, sorry, the element about which we're speaking at the moment is more significant exposition, and with those extra elements of uniqueness about it, that I would propose an amendment that... Council seek

To offer

An amount, a cash contribution of $5,000 rather than the $1,000.

All right, just a minute, Councillor Ross. I'm not sure if— I think you'll have to— you're moving that as an amendment. I'll just have to get clarification as to whether we have those funds available. Mrs Stewart.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. The sponsorship allocation that we have each year has almost been expended, so we don't have $5,000 available to sponsor that event.

Councillor Ross, do you wish to proceed and perhaps suggest where that additional money could come from?

Madam Mayor—

Councillor Ross.

Sorry, I just believe that the event is sufficiently worthy of

That sort of input from Council to support it and support our local people and growers, who are quite numerous. I'm disappointed to hear that the staff feel that the budgetary allocations are not able to accommodate it.

If I, just before you proceed, if I can just clarify, there's been a submission made to Destination New South Wales, but has there been a specific request to the local member, who has a tourism committee, if he could perhaps contribute to this? Not yet. So perhaps that's an option, Councillor Ross.

Absolutely. If you felt an amendment—

To add an element of the amendment might be to seek a possible consideration by the local member and any funds which he may have available to devote to such a worthy cause.

Councillor Zamprogno.

I must confess, I fear that we've strayed a little from the remit we were given here. I was happy to consider the adjustment into the original motion, but I can't consent to Councillor Ross's. Very well. If he wants to move it as an amendment, he's free to.

All right. Someone to second Councillor Ross's amendment, seconded Councillor Reynolds.

Further discussion?

Right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

None needed.

None needed. We'll vote on Councillor Ross's amendment, which we should clarify first before it goes. Councillor Ross has moved an amendment which I gather includes the first three plus an additional point, which would be for Council to write to the local member to ask if, from his tourism funding or any other funding he has access to, being the Treasurer, that might be a bit, that we could to see if he will contribute towards this event being held in the Hawkesbury.

So we'll put that amendment. All those in favour of the amendment? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven against, three . It must have been eight. Eight, three. So the amendment is carried. The amendment will be put as the motion. All those in favour? Against? That was ten to one. Ten for, one against. The motion is carried. Thank you. Our next item.

Is item 47. We have one speaker, Glenn Falson.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. You might recall that at a previous meeting, this matter of this heritage item was discussed, and my client, the landowner, is supportive of it if it does ultimately become a heritage item. And indeed, we did request that of Council some five or six years ago, to no avail at that time. But it's pleasing to see that it is happening, hopefully at this time. It will be interesting, however, because this property is also the subject of a planning proposal, what the Council will do, because this is one of the five that are outstanding, what the Council will do when it comes to the Council soon in a similar position as the one that you dealt with earlier. So on the one hand, you have all these horrific traffic problems that you perceive.

On the other hand, you have a heritage item, which you don't have at the moment. So do you vote in favour of the traffic? Do you vote in favour of the heritage? Interesting what will happen, I don't know.

Hopefully we'll have some more studies by then.

Yes, well, I don't share, with respect to the general manager's optimistic time constraints for these sorts of studies, but having been many times bitten. But anyway, hopefully it does. But recommendation tonight, I endorse the recommendation for this matter.

Thank you, Mr. Falson. Are you happy for any questions that may be on that? Any questions, Councillors? No questions. Thank you. That was our only speaker on that item.

Move the recommendation.

Moved, Councillor Richards. Seconded, Councillor Zamprogno. Discussion? Not necessary. Any discussion on this matter? Councillor Ross.

I'm of the understanding that this particular piece of built heritage was actually associated with an original land grant, and I would certainly support the Council's— sorry, the recommendation, should I say, because of that. And I think it's a worthy, a worthy element of

Heritage retention, if at all possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Councillor Richards. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried. Next item.

Item is item 48. We have one speaker, Bill Snedden.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Councillors. Item 148, City Planning, solar options presentation from Hawkesbury Sustainability Advisory Committee. I'm really pleased to see this. It dovetails in with the previous report from last year, which I chose not to speak on. You have a good consultant name here. I'm advised by people in industry that this is a really good group of people to be dealing with, and the advice that you've been handed, frankly, from an energy advisor point of view, is very similar to what would be given to a household. You're advised to address low-hanging fruit early. That is, do the easy measures very early on in this state, although Council has done many of the other things that are not mentioned in this other than solar.

Your engineering staff and the others, officers with various sections of Council, are well versed in a whole lot of things to do apart from solar. You're doing all sorts of things. You've got LED lights in here. You probably run all of these on what was only about four or five of the original fittings with the original device, etc. You also know a whole lot of other things with sewage, etc., power factor, a whole lot of things that certainly Mr. Organ and his staff know a lot about and that I've had dealings with in the past regarding other things. So the advice in this thing is simplistic, relatively, simply saying go for the easy items first. The payback items here recommended are relatively simple solar on the roofs.

You're talking about a payback period of about five years. And where can you get an honest 20% loan other than probably the Mafia Loans Company? And that's not an honest loan. Then once you've done that, you then further consider the longer payback and larger and more expensive complex schemes, for example solar farms, etc. There are certainly some advantages to what's going on here, or being suggested. There also will be some advantage of putting off the bigger things long term. For example, Australian energy policy is in a real mess at the moment. So delaying a couple of years on the bigger items, you'll have a chance for the federal and the state energy policies, etc., and the marketplace maybe to settle down and become a bit more realistic.

The energy market prices and generation projects at the moment are also in a mess, and council... Suffered this in the past with the trigeneration project when you simply couldn't get an energy price for the power that you would export from that project. Now that project is completely non-viable simply because of the rising gas prices. So energy things, considerations have certainly changed over the last 10 to 15 years. For example, regarding energy costs or equipment costs, the cost to do my five kilowatt system on the garage is about a third of what it would have been when I put it in just at the end of the energy— sorry, of the solar buyback— sorry, the solar bonus scheme, and that paid back in five years just as it finished.

I've not bought power for my house since the end of 2010. So hastening slowly is certainly— I say, it shouldn't say slowly— hastening steadily, and within our council's tight budget is a very sensible suggestion. And we also have to, of course, make sure that all of these assets are appropriately listed, maintained, depreciated, and considering that solar typically now is considered by the better installers to have a functional period of up to 20 years, you are certainly, after the five-year payback period, looking at being positive all the way.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Snedden. Are you happy for questions? Yes. Any questions? No questions. Thank you. That was our only speaker on that. Who that one, Madam Mayor? Councillor Rasmussen. Seconded? Councillor Kotlash. Thank you. Discussion? Madam

Mayor, I think it's a great initiative, as we've just heard, and I thank Mr Snedden for coming, and he always makes a lot of sense and compelling arguments for this sort of policy within council. I think it's a great idea and the faster we move in this direction, the better. And yes, there will be positives coming out of that, lots of positives, financial... Lowering our contribution to the greenhouse gases and so on, which we all know about and which we all applaud. So we are doing our bit, and we should be doing whatever we can to help the rest of the country do their bit as well. So this is great, and I appreciate it, and I thank the staff for, you know, moving as quickly as they can in this direction.

Thank you. Further discussion

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think what's come about in this report, it probably wasn't what the Sustainability Advisory Committee envisaged when we first discussed it and when Councillor Kotlash called for this report to Council. And I think what's happened is that we've used a very knowledgeable Community Advisory Committee to get us to a better place than we would have been had we just bandied this about as a group of councillors alone. And I think that really, I think the Sustainability Advisory Committee need to be congratulated for their input into this process. It's felt like it's sort of been fairly cyclical, and we've in some ways ended up back where we've started. But what we've ended up with is a resolution not to reinvent the wheel, not to spend money on yet another consultant's report when that money could actually start being spent on real sustainable change within Council's operations, and that's what we've chosen to do.

It isn't just solar panels; it's community education and reducing usage. In key areas that will give us the best outcome. It's no point trying to plaster the rooftops of the LGA with solar panels when we only need to plaster half the rooftops with solar panels. We need to cut usage before we invest in infrastructure, and we also need to use that infrastructure wisely in the areas where it's going to give us the best bang for the ratepayer's buck. I urge anyone who isn't convinced of the financial benefits of this to have a good read of the Ironbark report. It's taken us quite some time to get that page with the figures and the payback times out, but it's really quite compelling reading. Many of the payback times are quite short, and they're based on current energy prices.

And as we all know, unfortunately, energy prices are beginning to soar. So I think what we've got actually is the worst-case scenario in terms of payback. So I think this is a good, sort of really good option for the Hawkesbury. I was chatting to someone at the City Deals the other night where they were lamenting that Macrock didn't get on board with the LED lighting that Wesroc has. Macrock is now looking into doing it. They've missed the boat, and their street lighting is still costing them a fortune. Because we're an early adopter of that technology, we've saved a substantial amount of money and are well down that path. And I think that shows that now is a good time to be moving on to the next phase.

It also gives us a readily marketable delineation between the Hawkesbury and other LGAs that are dragging the chain on moving forward with climate change mitigation and adaptation. So I think this is a good thing.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler . Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just note in the recommendation that it says the matter be referred to the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee. In the initial resolution that we discussed in the item in the last Council meeting, we said that we wanted the Energy Working Group that was part of the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee to provide advice on that. So I guess I'd like that changed. The reason being is that the Environmental Sustainability Advisory Committee meets only a couple of times a year, I think three times a year, and we haven't got a committee meeting scheduled with enough time to start these discussions. So if we can just get that changed to the Energy Working Group, if that's all right with Councillor Rasmussen. Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Referring it to the committee will be referring it to the working group, because the working group is part of that committee. I

Realise that, but we could start working—

And that will be done electronically. Okay so we can still start working

On that? Yes And report to—

That's correct. This resolution will be referred to the committee members. Electronically, with a request for that. So

We don't have

To wait till the next meeting?

No, no, that's right

Thanks. Thank you. Further discussion, Councillor Calvert?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've always seen sustainability as one of our top priorities for all local governments, actually, and I was part of WesROC over 10 years ago when the scheme for bringing in the LED lighting was first put forward, and it has been very successful across Western Sydney. What I'm worried about here is that we're not suggesting anywhere that we are actually going to support these recommendations. We're just handing it back to the committee. What I'm wondering is whether we could have another point which says something like, We consider the recommendations of this committee to be a top priority for our council in terms of timing and funding

Do you want that added to it, Councillor Rasmussen

Well, I want to discuss it, but yeah, perhaps we could do it. Yeah, let's add it. Okay

Thank you. That's all.

Thank you. Did you get that wording, Jodie? Yep.

Okay.

Thank you.

Further discussion?

Right of reply, Councillor Rasmussen?

Not necessarily, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

I'll put the motion which has the additional point that Councillor Calvert just read out before. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried. Our next item is item 49. We have one speaker, Bill.

Madam Mayor, Council, I'm speaking regarding the submission for the DA for Hawkesbury Agricultural College to move to the campus of Richmond University grounds, formerly Hawkesbury Agricultural College. I was a mature age student in the first degree year there from 1977 to 1979. I lived on for a year and a half in '77 and '78, and subsequently, newly married, I lived close by in Gibson Street in 1979 while I finished my degree. Having read these submissions, I wish to reinforce several aspects as identified by council staff in the report that I'm also concerned by. Whilst the move to the uni site of Hawkesbury will be ultimately beneficial because of the agricultural lands existing on the site as a good future for the high school, and subsequently the potential to use more of the agricultural lands in their training courses, and then later we're also proposing technology centres in this area, so the addition of this selective high school would nicely dovetail with existing and potential future uses of the area.

The recycling of the old college as a high school in the growing Glenfield area is also a useful thing. However, all of this change is but a symptom of Sydney's growth, and this is also affecting the Hawkesbury, and this is where some of my concerns come in. Concerns regarding the new school in particular: transport of 1,200... Day students are every day, morning and afternoon peak, largely by trains indicated in all this paperwork. Where are the trains and cars going with all of this? At the moment, I don't see that there's capacity for 1,200 students a day with the current train service. Certainly, we're going to have a morning and afternoon peak. The AM and PM traffic peaks will also be considering taking 100 staff and also the balance of students that aren't on the trains are probably going to be travelling by car.

There are also proposed to be five buses to the railway stations carrying students from the trains. I'm wondering about simply about capacity in the area. Whilst Council report does address that, the rather simplistic proposals apparently from the planning people that I've spoken to don't seem to consider the local residents at all. And certainly the main access will be through Londonderry Drive, so the ones coming up Blacktown Road is going to have to be circling through the residential areas around the uni area. Site car parks are also going to be cribbed in part from university. Whilst Council staff appear to consider it viable as reported, I have concerns about not providing the appropriate number of car parks under our normal planning.

Traffic at the university in the Richmond environs and the services is going to be increased. There's no infrastructure extended spend apparently on road or rail indicated in all of this. The effects on the surrounding residents and road networks are questionable in my opinion. I express concerns. I also have some other concerns regarding the very fast-track development proposal method. It's possibly problematic with Council environmental and other responsibilities regarding the site. Site on the university grounds. That's expressed in your staff report as well. Hawkesbury Council staff also expressed concerns regarding welfare and social impacts on and off the site. You have 300 residential high school students on the site.

You have concerns regarding safety and potential increases of crime in the area associated not just with the students but other activities that will be more so. There's other things to be said as well, but that's the main things.

Well, you've got 53 seconds.

Go on. Oh, okay. Well, pastoral care of the residential students at the weekends. They're also the social services that they need. I'm concerned about mixing of high school and university students potentially as being problematic, if not well handled. For example, with the age differences and the maturity levels, the uni students have access to alcohol, and I'm also aware anecdotally of drugs and potential other exposures of the welfare affecting high school students. The other thing is, if students at the weekends live on residential, they've got to get up to Richmond for recreation. If there's not good bus and transport, it's a 2K walk to the shops. I, as a mature age student, take students up there in my own personal vehicle. So it's quite a hike. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Snedden. Are you happy again

To take questions, if there are any?

Are there any questions, Councillor Caro? Mr . Snedden, have you visited that campus recently?

Yes. Actually, I spoke to my 25-year-old nutrition student this morning about his feelings about what's going on. He's reasonably satisfied with traffic and generally the services, but you are introducing a new and different thing over to the other side with access off the Agnes Banks side—sorry, off the Londonderry Road side. So I just am expressing general concerns and amplifying what's been said by your staff, and I think that's a very realistic assessment of a whole lot of things regarding a new campus there. The other thing is you're taking an existing culture from down at Glenfield, you're grafting it into Hawkesbury, which already has its own student and other cultures, which have changed markedly.

And I was part of the change because I was at a Greek person, and they didn't like us degree people there. And so there's a lot of things that, even though you might think that it's just going to drop this separate entity in, it's going to have to be integrated, and the academic climates for a high school and a university are significantly different.

Thank you. Sorry, I hadn't finished my question, sorry. Just at your recent visit, did you take note of the lack of parking facilities that were already available to the university

Yes, yes, yes, and I also dropped a previous daughter regularly into the horticulture section when she was doing a horticulture certificate, and she's also done nutrition. And so I've experienced the peaks going in and out morning and afternoon doing parent pickups of uni students. My 25-year-old self drives from down at Penrith. He's reasonably satisfied where he is, but he does also see the potential for those parking problems. But my concern also is 1,200 people, are they all coming by train, and how are they going to be handled?

Thank you. Councillor Calvert.

Just a quick question. Thanks for that, Mr Snedden. Given everything you said, are you happy with the recommendation on page 163, or do you think we should reword it in some way?

Your staff are being sort of cautious and expressing sort of feelings that I've had. I didn't put into the public comment report, but having gone to some of the open days and considered what's going, and spoken to my 25-year-old and a couple of other people that have been there recently, I think your staff are expressing due caution, but also you have a legal responsibility regarding the other environmental and planning concerns. So I don't wish to be alarmist, but certainly the pastoral and moral care of a new group of high school students, 300 dropped into the area residential, is also of concern. And also you are going to be mixing potentially high school students with uni students, so they're two different, and they're academically different cultures, a school versus university.

So I'm sort of... Exercise the precautionary principle as a scientifically minded person in saying something to you.

Thank you, Mr Snedden. Thank you. Thank you . That was our only speaker on that item. Move Councillor Rasmussen, seconded Councillor Zamprogno. Discussion?

Councillor

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, yeah, and I thank Mr Snedden for again for his quite detailed and forensic look at this whole picture, and that's good that we've got residents and students from this college that takes that sort of level of interest and puts that sort of energy and study into it. So I do appreciate all of that. But at the end of the day, Madam Mayor, I think the bigger picture here is that this is fundamentally, I think, is a good thing for the Hawkesbury. I think these are good schools, in my view. They certainly are conscious, in my understanding of these selective schools. They do a lot for our students, who get there. It is selective, but they do a hell of a lot for them.

But also they do care for them and they do spend time making sure that there's duty of care and kids away from home and so on, and they need to be looked after and minded, and they're growing young adults. So from that point of view, Madam Mayor, I think we're going to have to accept the fact that there are good people involved with this and they will do the right thing by the students. Now , having said all that, what I don't see, and we've just been through, and we may have some more yet, some really, really hot weather and kids like to swim. And I don't know that, I think the last I checked the university filled in its pool. Did indeed. Or pool. So I'm just wondering whether maybe we should add something about, you know, swimming pool, because other than that, I mean, we're going to have to, the impact will then be felt on our swimming pools, which is fine, but then we need to make sure that we can accommodate that and adjust for that, because no doubt they'll have competitions and carnivals and which is fine.

That's great, absolutely great. And a two kilometre walk is great, in my book, if they want to go to Richmond and enjoy themselves in Richmond or wherever. But I just think we just need to take a bit of notice of the fact that we probably will need to make the point that we probably will need some swimming pool facility or similar, or if not, certainly a contribution to an expansion of ours or some other modification, amendment to our particular swimming pools to accommodate these students as well.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Richards. Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had a briefing on this, just so everybody does know, late last year, and the plans that were shown to us were quite significant. They did actually take a lot of our breath away about how amazing this facility and this school is going to be. This is the first high school that's going to be opened in the Hawkesbury in 30 years. It's a $35 million facility, and I think that we need to be very careful in putting a negative tone on this, at the same time still raising the issues that are in the business paper. Can I just have a question, are the councillors going to be privy to the actual letter that gets sent out prior, so that we can appreciate the tone and the content that will be in that letter?

The submission, you mean? Mr Owens, yes. We will get that circulated prior because these things don't normally get circulated prior. So we will. I'd like to maintain that undertaking. I just want to say that, you know, I'm excited by this. I know a lot of people in the Hawkesbury are excited by this. It's an amazing opportunity for our young kids to have a further choice regarding education and to elevate the Hawkesbury's education precinct and provide more learning opportunities in the STEM area. This is something that the Hawkesbury hasn't seen before, and to focus on these issues, these learning aspects, science, technology, engineering and maths, as well as the arts, I think is absolutely fantastic.

I'd like to highlight that this wouldn't be happening if it wasn't for the great work of the New South Wales State Government helping to bring this, the single biggest agricultural education facility, right here to our doorstep. It's going to be the most advanced agricultural high school in Australia, and we have it right here. We should be embracing this and jumping at it. But, of course, like I said, being cautious and definitely taking note of the issues and making sure that along the planning process we are highlighting anything that we have of great concern. But we need this. We are an agricultural LGA. We need this to re-energise our vital agricultural industry, get our youth interested again in agricultural production.

We have a unique opportunity here, so I hope that Council continues to endorse that. Thank you, Councillor Richards. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As an educator, I am exceptionally excited about what this represents for our area. I think it's going to be a real feather in our cap, and my interest, when we look at substantial investments being made in a new piece of infrastructure, is that it's built for the ages. And what we've seen is a very striking architectural design, and I endorse the comments of council staff in ensuring that it does conform as completely as possible to the built environment at which it's being placed. I'm not a fan of utilitarian design. I like to see something that makes a statement, and I think this design really does make a statement. And I think the configuration of this school and its location is the way of the future.

I mean, all you need to do is look at the Nurrumba Education Precinct down at Quakers Hill, and you have that mix of secondary and tertiary education cheek by jowl, mixed in with vocational opportunities, and that kind of blended environment, I think, can be very positive. And it's great to see something like that in our area. What I'd add to that, though, is maybe a concern that I have that we're missing an opportunity here. Most of us... are old enough to remember Hawkesbury Agricultural College, which of course ceased to exist when it was incorporated into the University of Western Sydney. And that brand, I think, had some cachet. People still remember it fondly now. And when you think about what it is that makes a school what it is, what its brand or its ethos is, it has to be tied to a large extent by its place, because the student population is transient and comes and goes, and the staff is transient and they come and go.

So fundamentally, what defines an organisation, a large part of it, I think, is place. And yet we are allowing an organisation to be transplanted into our area and to still maintain the name Hawkesbury Agricultural College when it could be rebranded as Hawkesbury Agricultural College, the resurrection of a very storied and well-regarded brand. And it would give us the opportunity to exert some effort to have this facility, which will be so proud in our area, branded with our name. And I'm wondering whether the mover of the recommendation would be amenable to an extra line item being added that we expend some effort to see if there was some way in which this campus could be labelled with the name Hawkesbury in there somewhere, the Hawkesbury campus of the Halston Agricultural College, if not the Hawkesbury Agricultural College.

Would the mover be amenable to that?

Councillor Zamprogno, I'll ask that in a minute, but just to clarify, it's not intended to be called Halston Agricultural College anyway. It has another Ray somebody or something name, Mr Conroy.

That the whole naming thing's been quite contentious, so Halston Agricultural College is going, and the funds are being used to establish a series of other colleges, some in southwest Sydney and one here in northwest Sydney, but they don't have any name in place at the moment or intentions.

That's news to me and I'm now better educated, but I think my central point still stands, and that is that if this is the submission that we're making, maybe our submission should include a desire on our part that the facility be branded in some way that becomes readily identified with the area beyond just the fact that it's in our area.

Councillor. Councillor Rasmussen?

Yes, Madam Mayor. Look, I think that's an admirable suggestion, and certainly would pick up the history of this place and continue it on. Whether the State Government is minded to take that important history on board and give us that kudos, I don't know. Let's hope they might. But I would like to see something like that incorporated into our submission to at least flesh out why it would be significant and why it's important, not just from our point of view, but to continue on that tradition, which is very strong, as Councillor St Brogno said. It has a lot of cachet attached to it, particularly for people who subsequently have settled also in this area as well, but much wider than that, because these students, graduates went all over Australia and did wonderful, wonderful work in all sorts of places. So yeah, I think that's a good idea.

May I suggest a form of words, or we'll

Start pick up on... Yes, I'd like to see a form of words, because I wouldn't like to see it suggested to be Hawkesbury Agricultural College, because I think I'd like to see it reflect the Hawkesbury. But I think to try and replicate that name, that as itself was an institution of such power and significance in its time as what it was, I'd be happy for it to be, say, Hawkesbury something. But to say Hawkesbury Agricultural College, in my opinion, would be to cause a confusion perhaps, or to... I think there needs to be some separation from that very, very iconic name, which had many connotations attached and many specific things that made it what it was. But I'm happy to support something that's not specifically that

Madam Mayor, perhaps the best form of words then is that we write to the government. The relevant authority, and express our desire that the facility, in its naming and branding, represent the Hawkesbury in the most powerful way possible.

Excuse me, Madam Mayor. Yes. I just heard twice either photographs or screenshots being taken behind me by users of an iPad. I would just like them to confirm whether they were taking photographs or whether they were in fact screenshots. Who were you talking about?

Mr Conroy.

The iPad was raised, so I'm just seeking clarification. Okay,

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I think that's not a bad suggestion at all. So, in the submission, I guess we can flesh out what we mean, and the points you've made about the name and the importance of keeping that sort of branding or our connection to it, I think that's a good idea.

Yes. Sorry, just addressing something else. Sorry, Mr Conroy.

Madam Mayor, I think if people are going to be taking photographs, they should get permission to do it in the chamber. Okay

Thank you. Thank you.

Can I also make a suggestion that in doing, in the rebranding of, asking the questions of the rebranding, if the Hawkesbury Agricultural College and a derivative of such was to be considered, that we actually approach the HAC Old Boys Association and get their consent on how they would like the direction to go?

Yeah,

That's a good idea

Too. And

Relevant colours, which is quite significant

To that campus. Yes, very mustardy and blood. Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In a previous life, I had the pleasure of… Working with the then Minister for Education, John Aquilina, in 1998 and '99 to help develop a model for the Nurrimba Education Precinct. In fact, I was the precinct pathways officer for nearly two years to get that model working. That model works very well, and it's actually the proximity of the TAFE and the university that makes it work, because there's the opportunity there for resources to be shared, and resources at Nurrimba are being shared quite well. It took over a year of developing memorandums of understanding, which some of them were quite painful to develop. There were issues such as when the road goes down between the TAFE and the school and it gets a pothole, who pays to fix the pothole?

No, wish, I wish. And things like who pays for the water rates and how much do you pay and all that sort of thing. So I wish them well with all those decisions , and I'm happy to give them benefit of my experience if that's worth anything. But once you get through all those, the model works very well, and it works well in Coffs Harbour as well. And the other thing is that when this Nurrimba was being created, Quakers Hill was pretty much dead. But when the precinct was created, Quakers Hill has developed into quite a thriving little town. And I think the same sort of thing can happen in Richmond if this goes ahead, because People will be going to Richmond to get their services of some description, whether it's the swimming pool or going to the shops or whatever.

So as far as this area is concerned, I think it'll be a fantastic thing for our area, and I fully support what's happening. But like Narimba, some of the biggest problems are with things like the names, and they had about six streets that they had to give names to, and that took nearly 12 months to do that. So I wish them well with all those negotiations.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I actually went to a high school that was co-located with the University of Western Sydney back in the 80s. So Western Sydney has a long tradition of co-location with high schools. So back when Western Sydney was created out of Nepean, Hawkesbury Ag, and I can't remember who else, Macarthur, one of the early Westmead campuses was co-located with two high schools, and it was a fairly easy relationship, and we used all the same transport routes. They got our oval and we got the swimming pool, was the deal. I think this is a very workable arrangement. I think the staff have raised some quite sensible concerns about student welfare, surrounded by residential colleges, that I think both the university and the Department of Education need to address.

There's also concerns about flooding, and evacuation in particular related to flooding, which do need to be addressed, given that this is a selective school and many of the students who come won't come from the area. And that's one of the things that you learn very rapidly when you move to the Hawkesbury from somewhere else, is that living with flooding is a particular mindset, and people who don't live with it often grapple with how that works. I think Mr Stedden has raised some good points about traffic impacts, particularly along Londonderry. Road and also traffic along the approach roads from East Richmond Station and around that rat-run, zigzag, whatever you want to call it, that gets you across to Londonderry Road from the approach roads from Windsor in particular, where, and I presume that some of these students will be coming from the northwest, and so they, and if they're driven, they will come in that way.

And I think that's something that council needs to consider because it is going to have an impact on traffic and residents and pedestrian traffic. And if people are going to walk to the university , how we get them safely to the university beyond what, because we're dealing currently, we've got adults who are making that journey. It's different with some of these kids are going to be 12 and 13, so they're probably a bit more sensible than your average university student, but they're certainly not grown-ups. I think Councillor Rasmussen has raised something, though, that I think we need to look at this in terms of the implications for council, and I think some of them are clear. We're talking about quite a large high school in comparison to some of our other schools, 1,200 students by the time it's fully formed.

That's a lot of kids, and that's a lot of usage of our facilities like pools. So I think we probably need to, I presume that we've looked at whether we have access at the pool for additional, they won't just have carnivals. They'll have, you know, these kids will want to learn to swim. They might be bright and interested in science, but they're still going to get a well-rounded education, and that includes things like swimming lessons. And rather than bus them somewhere else, we should be determining whether they have access at our pools and what the knock-on effects of that are as well. We also don't have a lot of youth facilities in Richmond. So if there's a spillover from these kids hanging around in Richmond after school because they either live here or they're waiting to be picked up or they're looking for something to do, I think we need to start modelling some additional service provision around what we do with these kids once they've finished school and where they go after that.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Garrow. I just wanted to voice my concern over to the loss of 142 university parking spaces, knowing that campus there is already limited staff and student parking at the facility at a cost to the workers of, I think last check was $180 a year. Staff are paying to park there and the students are subsidised, but not a great deal less than that. So my concern is that by losing 142 spaces , is this going to affect the university that already, in my view, has a depleted parking availability as it is? Is there any way that we could possibly get the school to have their parking allocation not to deplete that of the university? And in addition to that, there's also community groups that use the facilities, the rugby club, the AusTag club.

There's already not enough parking spaces for those people, our community members that use the space, who I've witnessed rangers parking left, right and centre whilst they are parking in overflow areas on the grass. So can we make sure that that is not going to be— Well

We can only ask. I don't think we can control their parking, but we can put that—we need to voice that

Concern. Raise the

To ask that. If you want that included in Councillor Rasmussen's list of inclusions regarding the parking. Just while he's getting some words for that, I think this school will be a huge benefit to this area. I think that it's for so long children who've attended selective schools have had to go to Baulkham Hills or Penrith, and some even travel even further than that. So it will be very good for that opportunity to be something that some children miss out on because they can't cope with the travel or whatever. My one hope is that by having this, that the resources in this school will be shared with our other local high schools, because we also have some very under-resourced local high schools that could do with a good boost and allow children who have a particular interest, particularly in the STEM area, to be able to access the various facilities that there undoubtedly will be a lot of money put into.

And I know firsthand how much more money selective schools have put into them than comprehensive high schools. So I think that whereas it will benefit our region overall, it's very important that we use every mechanism possible to ensure that all the students of the Hawkesbury can have access to some of the things that will go to one particular school. I think I can understand some people may have concerns with the students in the same place as tertiary students. I think that, particularly for the senior students, however, it's a great opportunity to transition into university life because it tends to ensure they have more responsibility and that they, you know, are learning from the environment around them.

I went to a senior school, so I know that there's a lot of obligations put on you to look after yourself a lot more and not be sort of spoon-fed and so on. Thank you to Councillor Zambrano for bringing forward about the name. I do think that's really good. I express not having the identical name, but certainly having something that reflects both our agricultural prominence, but also the fine tradition of that specific area and parcel of land, which was the former Hawkesbury Agricultural College and now the university. I think that overall we're very, very fortunate that it's been decided to put this to enhance the precinct, an educational precinct, in the way that it has, and I really look forward to it coming.

And I'm just sorry that I'm about 50 years too old to be applying to go there because I most certainly would have.

I know that stunned everybody, sorry. Nobody thought I was— no one thought I was over 40, didn't you? Further discussion or right of reply, Councillor Rasmussen?

Madam Mayor, I don't think it's necessary. I think it's a great idea. Let's just make it happen.

Okay. All those in favour? Against, the motion is carried. We have one more item with speaker, that is item 52. We have one speaker, Peter Ryan. Can I just declare my interest, please?

Yes, Councillor Richardson.

Significant non-pecuniary for two reasons. The applicant number one, the Colo Shire Family History Group, I do have a relative involved in that group. Applicant three, the Hawkesbury Division of Legacy, I am the secretary of the fundraising arm of Legacy who raises money directly for them, so I'll be leaving the room. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Mr Bryan.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight in relation to a grant for the running of the ANZAC Day ceremony at Pitt Town. Pitt Town started their ANZAC Day a few years ago. It did happen a good while ago, but it stopped. We had 30 people standing under a borrowed flagpole. Last year, we were overwhelmed by the number of people. The hotel supplies a light breakfast after 448 meals, they stopped serving, they ran out of food. One thing stood out, that was the number of people standing on both sides of the road, even on top of the bus shelter, but there was still traffic moving on the road between them and the ceremony. We put a committee together with the Progress Association, and we came up with three options .

One was to cancel the day. That was really not an option. To move the ceremony to another location, but knowing that this site is where many of the people left to go to war from, and perhaps the last memories they had of their town, this was not an option. To continue on at the location and to develop a safe and respectful service for 2018. That was the option we've gone with. We have developed a traffic management plan for the day and have employed a professional management company to close the roads during the ceremony.

We have had a look into the public liability insurance and we are working on covering that cost. We still have considerable shortfall and are working with the community to raise the funds. If Council were to assist us with the funding of this event, it would lighten the burden on the organising and guarantee a safe and respectful event. The Progress Association over the years has really worked hard to build our community. Developers can put in roads, builders can build houses, but our community builds our community, and that's what we're about. We see ANZAC Day as our best opportunity to bring our community together. After last year, we've proven this beyond any doubt. We also have another initiative, Clean Up Australia Day on Sunday, this next weekend.

A lot of hard work's gone into that, and I've got to commend a couple of chaps over there that have really pushed that too. I feel ANZAC Day celebration is a tremendous community event. To have it put in jeopardy would be like to tear the heart out of our town. We don't need that to happen. So we've put it through the Progress Association. It is now part of our association, so it's audited as an incorporated, as part of our incorporated body. And look, thank you very much for listening to me. Brief. That's what we're about.

Thank you. Any questions? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Mr Rana, I wanted to ask you about your Clean Up Australia Day activities, and I know that Pitt Town now has a fine reputation, thanks to a couple of your residents for cleaning up after the Grubbia visitors. I'm sure none of them live there. And we've come out and had a look at some of the problem sites at Pitt Town and spoken to a couple of your volunteers who do this work. How can we help on Clean Up Australia Day?

Well, we have conversed with your staff, but it's probably an ongoing thing. We've got people who do clean our streets every week. We're finding that between Linwood Golf Course and Pitt Town, we've got a chap that does that twice a week. But we're finding now that he's been targeted by people throwing bottles at him and rubbish. So, yeah, I find that beyond , that's just bloody rude. And I think we could get our council ordinance staff out there to do some sort of targeted way of catching these people. We don't want them spoken to. We don't want them anything else, but target them, catch them, fine them, and get them the hell out of our community, because we don't accept that. We really don't.

That would actually be a police matter, and this is actually about sponsorship for the ANZAC Day. I apologise, sorry. No, that's all right. No, Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor, and thanks, Mr Ryan. The site of the ANZAC Memorial in Pitt Town, I was on the traffic committee and we dealt with the traffic management plan. The question was raised about there already being an existing ANZAC Memorial down near Brinsley Park, and the question was why the ceremony was being held up near the hotel. And I was just wondering if you could explain that, given that I think this week... They're doing the centenary of ANZAC soil collection and getting soil from ANZAC memorials around the state, maybe even the country, for taking them to Sydney. I know they're taking soil from the Windsor Memorial up here on the corner. So I was just wondering if you could explain to Council why you're holding the ceremony in this particular spot and not down where some people believe the memorial actually has been.

That memorial was actually donated by Mrs Brown. Her nephew was killed, I think, in the Second World War, and specifically just for him, in his memory, and that was the only memorial we ever had. But why we hold it where it is, I know my father spoke on it, and many of the men I know from the Second World War and a few from the First World War, that is where they made their decisions. Pitt Town was just a small little farming community, and we've done a bit of history. I've spoken to a few people recently, and I've put a fair bit together, names and that, but that is their last memories. That's where they left from. They didn't leave from down around in Wellesley Street. They left from there.

When there was no work, they'd play cricket there. They'd do all those sort of things in the middle of our town. That was the heart of their town. And I know my dad said, I only went to war for Pitt Town. Didn't go for any other reason. I can look after Pitt Town; the rest of the place can look after itself. So that is why we have it. It is the heart of our town. It is where they left, and many of those blokes that didn't come back, that was their last memories.

Thank you, Mr Bryan.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was our only speaker on that item. Moved. Councillor Rasmussen. Seconded, Councillor Reynolds. Let's use our microphones and get things on tape. Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Just a question, Madam Mayor. Is there—are there plans in future years, or has it been considered, to separate out the longstanding committed sponsorships from the community sponsorship program in the budget?

Mr Litwin.

Thank you, Madam

Mayor. No, short answer.

And on page 186, when it talks about the increases in funding that will be allowed for if the SRV is successful, so we're talking about increasing the total of 75 by 15,000 to 90 in the first year. Is that correct?

Mr Litwin. Yes

It's proposed that if the SRV is successful, it'll be 15,000, then 20, and then the full 30,000 in 2021. Thank you.

Discussion. Notice

Councillor Wheeler.

Just a few questions, I suppose. Do we ever refuse anyone's—I mean, we're now looking up, we've got this claim on our coffers, and it seems that the staff's intention is that we adjust the budget to pay that. And I guess that gets around the idea of us having somehow to grade the applications that we have in front of us to choose. I mean, that's what happens to Council if we apply for a grant. You know, things are ranked based on some sort of matrix, you would assume. And I know Mr Stewart has been working up a sponsorship matrix and tightening up our arrangements with groups that we sponsor so that Council gets— At least some recognition out of that sponsorship. But these are by and large much smaller scale sponsorship. Do we ever knock anyone back? Do we rank people? Do we ever say no?

Can I just add something to your question too before it's answered? I just was wondering if there was a resolution to give a specific amount to the sporting and representative people, as well as Councillor Wheeler's question, if that could be answered. Mr Litwin,

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. The funding provided is for all categories, so there's no specific allocation between the different categories. Council staff assess the applications based on the criteria. Where a criteria is not met, then Council staff would ordinarily bring that to Council's attention and not to recommend it for funding, but ultimately it's Council's determination. And I forgot the other part of the question, sorry.

It was my bit just about, I seemed to recall there was a resolution at some stage to give a specific amount to sporting people or like these people who are doing the, you know, representing powerlifting or representing—I'm just wondering, is that a specific 150 or is that something...? Sorry

Yes. For many years it was $100, and then I think it may have been a larger amount for a group, so it was increased recently, yes, and that's the specific amount.

Thank you. Councillor Conolly. So

I had another question, Madam Mayor, if that's okay. Green Hills Childcare Centre, is that being run from a Council building?

Mr Litwin.

Yes, it is a Council building. Okay. And do we charge them any rent?

Mr Litwin.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. No. The longstanding policy is we don't charge childcare centres rent, but we are reviewing that as part of the Fit for the Future.

So I know one of the strategies was that we're going to start charging them a proportion of our Depreciation charge. Has that commenced yet, or when is that scheduled to commence?

That hasn't commenced. We're just finalising a draft licence agreement to brief Council before we then advise the childcare centres of how we're proceeding. Okay.

You don't want to be a monster and not air condition the childcare centre in South Windsor, but just in future, maybe when we're reviewing the eligibility criteria, you know, if we're already giving an organisation free rent in our building, do we also have to fit it out for them? I would be questioning the logic behind that.

Thank you, Councillor Connelly. Councillor Wheeler.

Along the same lines as Councillor Connelly, I don't really understand why we're funding plant out of this fund. That doesn't seem logical to me, unless it doesn't fit somewhere else, in which case maybe it needs to fit somewhere else. I'm also wondering how we advertise applications or outcomes of that funding, and do people know that they're eligible for an amount of funding from Council because someone happens to tell them, or is this something that we actually actively promote within the community? Mr Litwin. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

We advertise, I think, in our Council notices, and we also distribute an email to the people on our networks advising them that the round is open and we'll accept applications.

Thank you. And so how will we, given that we've come staggering into the digital age, is there plans then to promote this round of funding using our digital platform once we've determined this application? Mr Litwin.

Yes, we'll try to migrate as many business activities as we can online.

Thank you. I'm supportive of the recommendation. I think it's problematic that we don't have enough money to meet the— The expectations of the community around sponsorship, and I think we need to address that, and hopefully we can comfortably address that in the future rather than getting to this point where we feel like we're being squeezed, I suppose. So clearly we have a shortfall between our coffers and the community expectation, which we are hoping to address with the SRV. I want to thank Mr Ryan for coming to address us about Pitt Town's Anzac Day commemoration . I'm the daughter of a World War II veteran. Anzac Day, I find Anzac Day a tough day, but I also really appreciate that it's events like that in appropriate places like Pitt Town are using that really build community.

And I think Pitt Town is to be congratulated for managing the transition between the old Pitt Town and the new Pitt Town. And I think it's an event like this that seeks to involve the new members of the community with the history of what Pitt Town was and what Pitt Town has become. I think that's a really admirable method, and I'm really pleased that staff have put forward a mechanism for us to do that. I think it's very worthy, and I think it's likely to be the sort of community-building activity that Anzac Day should be, rather than a recruiting drive or a piss-up or a gambling event. Now, I've marched in a lot of Anzac Days, and sometimes they lose their way. And I think what Pitt Town is achieving through this Anzac Day is really admirable, and so I'm pleased we can support it.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Further discussion? I'd like to echo Councillor Wheeler. She put that very well regarding the community building aspect of it, and of course our respect for— sorry, Councillor Ross, I'll get to you in a minute— and a community building and respectful event. I think that with this money, from discussions with the Pitt Town Group too, they will purchase things that can be ongoing to allow them to have their event on an annual basis. So it's a very productive investment in our community, I think, on that basis. And I too would like to thank Mr Ryan for coming in and addressing us on that tonight too. Sorry, Councillor Ross, I didn't see your light on. It's not on. Do you wish to put it on? Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor .

Wish to advise my fellow councillors that in 2017 I represented you, Mayor, at the ANZAC Day service in Pitt Town.

Thank you.

I had attended that service, I think on certainly one prior and possibly two prior occasions. I have a bit of a foggy memory. The crowd— the attendance last year was frankly remarkable. It was probably almost double the year before. And I felt it was

Very strongly community orientated and—

A great event, attended by serving personnel too, quite a few from the Blue Water Services, which was rather interesting. Even though it's adjacent to the river, but despite that element, it was quite good. I'm totally in support of the council being able to support the local community out there with this, and it was really a, it was an organic movement that started it, some ex-servicemen who felt it was warranted, one of whom I know, and all power to the people of Pitt Town for being able to come together in that way and to promote their wonderful ceremony before the council. I thank them for that very much. I'd also like to express the concern of Councillors Wheeler and possibly Conolly in regard to the Green Hills Child Care Centre.

I don't think it's an appropriate designation of that $3,000 recommendation to be described as, if you like, a gift or benevolence. It's really an addition to the council's capital investment in the property, and I would hope that we might be able to rejig it in a correct fashion, and as Councillor Conolly was intimating. If we come to the point of seeking some

Benefit from these groups who are using council assets, even to help defray the relatively small amounts of depreciation involved, I think that that would be appropriate in this instance. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Ross. Further discussion? Right of reply, Councillor Rasmussen.

Madam Mayor, not necessary. Thank you

I'll put the motion. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried . I don't think he's here, but did Mr Ridgewell turn up? No. We might just have a short five-minute break or so, five to ten-minute break, and we'll be back and we'll resume the...

Reasonably self-explanatory, I think. It just seeks to replace me on the Sydney West Planning Panel with the General Manager because the reason this is is I inherited this position; it always was the General Manager, and in the last council it was changed from the General Manager to the Mayor, Councillor Ford, at the time. I'm not really of the mind that it's advantageous to have a mayor on those committees; that's a personal opinion. But due to the nature of several items coming forward, for example a number of planning proposals, which unlike the one we examined tonight, they are ones that fall within the gambit of what our previous resolution was to not accept them and so on, and therefore there is some sort of conflict that I felt really more a perceived bias.

I don't necessarily believe there was an actual conflict, but it's not good when there's a perception of any form of bias. And by my participation, I believe that it was better to opt out of some of the panel content. So this really seeks to reinstate what was the original resolution of Hawkesbury Council, which was to have the General Manager in place of the Mayor, and the second part of the point is to authorise the General Manager to nominate an appropriate alternate member of the panel if necessary. There are a number of people on the panel, and therefore if he's not available, or if our Director of Planning is not available, the General Manager has the delegation to appoint one of those other members to take that place.

Discussion, Councillor Conolly.

Just a question, Madam Mayor. On that note, is the planning panel taking any notice of the resolution not to accept new planning proposals?

No, because I believe it has to accept them because it's not part of our resolution, but I can get clarification on that, Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. It does get a copy of all council reports and things, but it's asked by the Department of Planning because it then becomes an application of the Department of Planning for a review. So they're answering a request from the Department of Planning. And

How does a planning proposal get to the panel rather than to council?

Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Council has, after 90 days, if council hasn't made a decision on whether to support or not support the proposal, they can go to the department and request a review.

And has the planning panel considered many of these, or any of these, in the Kurmond-Carrajong area?

One.

Through you, Madam Mayor. A couple of weeks ago there was one, and about a year and a half ago there was another one in Kurrajong. So

The one that was a couple of weeks ago, what was the outcome of that assessment?

Mr Owens. I wasn't on it.

I withdrew from that as well because I'd had something to do with it. But I have read it, and I think they've forwarded it to the gateway for review with quite a number of comments about

What's required. So I note that it's not specifically 100% onto this matter, but my question would therefore be, Madam Mayor, is our— Resolution that paper thin, that all an applicant has to do is wait 90 days and go around us

Well, they can go around us anyway. They can make an application to have it reviewed, regardless of what our decision is, I believe, anyway, so

I guess the concern would be that surely we as a council should be trying to make a decision per the law, as the planning panel is making a decision per the law. So how do the decisions end up being different, is my question.

Mr Owens.

Are you saying why, if people are waiting 90 days, they can simply go to the planning, they can apply for a review? There's a number of, maybe it's easier to say, there's a number of avenues that allow them to have a review through the planning panel, for example a refusal or a failure to arrive at a decision. Is that correct? I'm saying this, you should do that, sorry. That's correct,

Sorry I wasn't sure what the question was. I guess my question was then to clarify.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. My question is, isn't there something wrong with a system where we wouldn't even consider an application, but because it's being assessed by another body, it actually gets approved and sent to the gateway? Surely there's something inconsistent, something wrong with the system that allows that, and we should be taking note of that.

Mr

Owens. If I could comment, the Act specifies timeframes for council to do things like, with a DA it has timeframes and after that timeframe the applicant has a right to go to court to ask that. With a planning proposal a couple of years ago they introduced a similar right to go to the department to request a review. That's just been recently changed and tightened up a little bit so that that review must be the same application that was put to council, because people would put something to council and then change it and put it to the Department of Planning. So now— Sorry. If an application goes to the—

Is this relevant to this matter? Sorry, Mr. Reynolds just finished answering the question. Good off topic.

Good question ,

But I don't think it's relevant. Yeah, yeah, finish.

So I'll just be— Just finish explaining the process. When an application goes to the Department of Planning, they ask Council if it's the same application that was submitted to Council.

I guess the point of relevance, if I can answer that, Madam Mayor, is that in the Mayoral Minute we're talking about the nature of the item as being brought before the panel and the necessity to withdraw due to perceived bias. And I'm just exploring how that comes about because one would assume that if you put an application to Council as the decision-making body or to a planning panel, you should—I mean, and there'll always be differences of opinion about the law—but in general terms, you should be getting the same answer rather than completely different ones.

I think that you're reading it far too narrowly. I just gave that as an example of why I might have a perceived bias. The fact is that with the issues that come in, most of them are something we have a Council policy on. Whether it be, you know, there's only been really a couple of things I can think of where any councillor in here wouldn't have what could be perceived as a bias, because most of us will have dealt with either that matter itself, in which case I have withdrawn because we had, for example, a planning proposal we had refused, and then therefore— I think there's a perceived bias. If I've taken a position, I don't go back. So that saying about the mayoral minute is merely one avenue, and there's been one of those.

And Mr Owen said there was one a year and a half ago, but I wasn't on it then, I don't think. Oh, that was the one that had been refused here. So I think you're reading too narrowly into what I mean. A perceived bias, I would imagine, would arise for any councillor on a planning panel because we take decisions and we make policies that are then applied.

That is sort of the crux of my question. I'm using the Kurmond Carrington as an example, rather than saying that's the only point. My question is, is the planning panel, I guess if I can summarise what's being said here, is that a councillor would have a conflict of interest, or a perceived conflict of interest. I understand they would if they've dealt with that particular proposal before, definitely.

But

If they've just dealt with setting the policy settings, how is it any different for that councillor to sit on a council and make a decision versus sitting on a panel and making the decision if the decision is being assessed under the exact same laws and policies?

Well, it's a fine line, and I'm speaking about perceived bias. I don't believe that I've ever withdrawn on the basis of actually having a conflict. It's about the perception because people have taken that alternative avenue. And I believe in the last council, when Councillor Ford was on some of those, that was raised in the community that, for example, on decisions regarding various developments and so on, that then that person is still on that panel. I mean, to me it's an anomaly in the system that you would have that, unless you were, you know, trying to combat it by having the alternate point of view, which you never would have because you don't know which item it is. But I see your point.

I don't necessarily think it's a good system. But all I'm saying is that rather than have these issues come up and then I analyse, do I have a, could there be a perception of bias? There often is, and therefore I've taken the approach that I believe it's better to have the general manager, who is much more neutral than I am, and than any councillor is, to be on our panel, which was the original position here. Mr Conroy.

It's a question that's discussed a lot, and essentially, I suppose the clearest answer that I've heard relates to the role that councillors want to take. If you're on the panel, then you're obliged to have an open mind and say nothing until you've actually got the application in front of you. That's particularly the case with a development application. But again, if you start, you know, thought bubbling and speaking out before the matters before the panel, then you do start compromising your ability to participate. And there are some councillors who want to advocate on behalf of the community, and so they don't want to be bound by those conventions. And I think they're the two roles that council has available to it, whether it wants to be on the panel, sort of distant and independent up until the decision is taken, or whether it wants to be able to advocate and participate at earlier stages on behalf of the community.

Thanks, Madam. Can I discuss now

I'll finish my question. Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I guess I'll support the recommendation because I don't have a problem with the idea of the general manager being on the panel instead of the mayor. I guess the point of my questions and the point that comes, the conclusion that sort of comes to me is that what the general manager has just said, I believe, is quite correct. If you're on the panel, you have to have an open mind. You can only make a decision once you've got the information. But I don't see that as being any different to council. We all have that obligation on this council. So I don't actually see that being a difference, and I don't understand how having to make a decision following the law rather than— Rather than something else, you might make the decision based on results in a conflict of interest for anybody, because we should be doing that as it is.

And I think it's important to take note for the Council that the policies of this Council do not stand up, obviously, as a result of that application. So far, it would seem do not stand up when being assessed by professionals following the law.

I just think, just to clarify that, Councillor Conolly, for example, one of the times that I had to withdraw was because we had examined it in here and I'd voted against it. But that's most of the time. That's what I mean by that's really a direct conflict. But also there could be a perceived one because we may have done something very similar and so on. It's just a matter of fairness, and I think it's more transparent and more open if there are other people doing it. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've voiced my misgivings about planning panels before, and I suppose what I'm going to say addresses this question of consistency. I think that democracy has been so diminished by having these questions taken out of our hands and given to planning panels. I was at least pleased that there could be some representation from the elected body on a planning panel. Now, the planning panels are not composed in such a way as that's mandatory. We can choose that mix of an elected representative and then make up the balance with staff as we please. And I suppose if we have the ability to have a member from the elected body convey, in some sense, the flavour of the sentiment of the chamber and of the community and feed that into the deliberative process, that's an entirely appropriate thing to do and does not of itself create.

An apprehension of bias. I think it's an important feature of the mix of the deliberation of that panel when it sits on any matter.

Now, maybe the thing that makes you feel, Madam Mayor, that you're in this invidious position too often to be able to persist in that role is some structural flaw in the system that puts you into that bind far too often. But I think my philosophy on this is a little different, and I would read it differently. The general manager says, well, look, maybe a councillor wants to advocate on behalf of their community and not be bound by the discipline of sitting on the panel, whereas I think any councillor would prefer, if they had the choice, of having a seat at that table and being one of the decision-making people that can influence the decision. My last point relates to, you know, the potential perception of conflict that council staff may themselves have, and I cite as my example the recent decision that a planning panel made, unanimously I might say, on the question of the Avina Caravan Park expansion in Vineyard.

Now, council staff were required to write a report, and the council staff's report was to recommend that, and yet the panel, which included Mr Rowlands, voted unanimously against that. So on that particular occasion, Mr Rowlands felt that he didn't have to recuse himself. He didn't feel that there was a potential conflict between the fact that his own department wrote the report and yet he made a decision that was contrary to that report. And I was very pleased that he did because I supported the outcome that the planning panel made on that occasion. So I think. What we have here is a situation where it sounds a little inconsistent.

Councillor Calvert.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Just the IHAPs and the planning panel, it's all sort of in a state of flux at the moment. I'm assuming that the staff are planning to give us a briefing session as soon as possible on this matter. Well

That's, and also that's why I earlier foreshadowed to raise something because I not only a briefing on the actual process of the panels and how they will all operate, of course, which we have no detail ourselves on at all, even though it starts tomorrow. Unusual policy to not have given any.

Yeah

But the thing is that I foreshadowed that we need to understand as councillors individually and as a council body what input we can have into the IHAP and into the planning panel. And I know Councillor Zambrano has raised this before. How do we take our majority thought on a specific proposal? In fact, how do we even know what's beforehand? So we need some form of list and some sort of notification so that we know what's being considered by an IHAP, and then how does that actually allow us to input and to advocate, as Councillor Zambrano was just saying, to get our point of view across. Part of the thing is, of course, having our planning documents in a state that clearly and concisely enables anyone doing an assessment to actually refer to them.

But the other part is what sort of input and how does that take place from the elected body, even though we're not technically making the decision? There has never been anything to say that we can't have an input. So obviously that would be one factor that a panel would have to consider. So I'm keen for that to be brought forward into actually outlining and making very clear how that would actually take place. And that would perhaps overcome some of the problems that you've raised previously. Further

Discussion? Councillor Richards. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of questions. I'm actually supporting the recommendation for the General Manager to be replacing you on the panel. I just wonder how you can differentiate between any perceived bias in deciding a matter on the same merits in the chamber as compared to a matter on its merits on a panel, and why you feel there would be a perceived bias in that circumstance, or why you feel uncomfortable or not willing to participate in that circumstance.

Well, it's not that I feel uncomfortable or anything like that. The perceived bias that I withdrew from recently I would have if it were in the chamber because I knew somebody. So obviously I would have withdrawn here anyway. The other occasions when I've had to withdraw, and having to withdraw means that there's less people on the panel making the decision and putting things forward. As I stated before to Councillor Conolly, there's been a number of things come for review. For example, a Pitt Town issue, a proposal in Windsor. They've been through this chamber. So obviously then I can't, I mean I could go, but it's going to be fairly, you know, it would be fairly obvious what I would say, and therefore that.

Is it necessarily, you know, somebody can submit that that is actually a conflict of interest to be doing that because they've called for a review to be done on a merits assessment and the technical people on the panel are doing that. So it's more about transparency and not giving rise to people in the community that I am in here pushing something that I believe in specifically. You know, if people said, well, you know, continue and go and do it, I'd happily do that, but I just think this is a more transparent way to do it. It was the way it was always done here, and the change occurred because the previous general manager stepped down and therefore the mayor stepped in, so it wasn't even something that was a big thing .

It was simply, and it just translated over when I did it. So I just think this is a better result for our council, but I'm also very keen to establish the exact mechanism of how we input into these panels in the future.

Councillor Wheeler. Oh, sorry, Councillor Richard. Thank you. I just also want to know why it took 14 months to come to this conclusion.

Well, there's not, the panel only meets very intermittently. I think I've done three,

And a couple, the one Councillor Zambrano referred to, it was an application we'd never seen. It wasn't anything that was an issue. I just thought it was a better idea, having, you know, knowing that we're going into the IHAPs as well, that there's going to be various panels making various decisions. I was also mindful that we would have to address how we are going to deal with our lack of decision-making. So that means we've got either council staff doing the decisions, the IHAP, or the planning panel. So for consistency, once the IHAP looks like it is coming in, I thought it was better to change this over so that we can then work as a body to inform either through our strategies and policies or through any form of submission that we make on any particular application that we do that.

I just wanted to end with, I mean, as a supporter of IHAPs and as a supporter of planning professionals deciding planning matters in a chamber or in a council, any council across the state, where inconsistency to planning documents applies, I mean, that's why I'm supporting this, because I do believe that the appointment, the exchange from the mayor to the general manager as a planning professional is definitely something that should be in place on this panel so that we have that complete openness, transparency, accountability, whatever you want to call it, professionalism, and that there is no possibility of those perceived biases, as you've said, arising. So that's why I'll be supporting the mayoral minute. And

Thank you for raising that, Councillor Richards, about the IHAPs too, because of course on the IHAPs, councillors or mayors are not allowed to sit on them, either in their own local government area or for another area. So I think there should be a consistency that they don't sit on any of the panels, because technically they're very similar but they're different. I think it is openness and transparency which it's about,

Councillor

Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I initially held Councillor Zamprogno's thoughts that having the mayor on the panel allowed us some form of local knowledge and some level of accountability with an elected person being on. What we're hearing from the mayor is that that isn't how this is working out, and I think the mayor needs to be applauded for coming forward with this. This perceived problem. And that's the trouble with perception of bias. It isn't necessarily that the Mayor has a bias. It isn't that anyone has a bias. It's the public's perception of that bias, and that's a very transient, difficult thing. You know, I think unless a Mayor would hold on to this position as a form of control or prestige .

And what we're hearing is a Mayor who's making a decision in the best interests of the LGA. My only concern is a lack of local knowledge when we lose the Mayor from the planning panel. But I think better the general manager than no representation, which is what is resulting. We're not having anyone representing that area, particularly if the Director of Planning has to step off the panel as well. So I think this is probably the most sensible way forward. And I think we need to acknowledge that some of the matters that come before planning panels are already contentious. The reason that they've been called to a planning panel is that they can be dissatisfied with the Council's decision, or they're dissatisfied with the time that Council has taken.

So they're already potentially contentious for councils. I think this is a far more sensible way forward. I disagree with Councillor Richards' point, though, that IHAPs are more transparent and accountable. I think they would have to be the very opposite of transparent and accountable. And I think it's quite reasonable to state that planning professionals are only human, and just like councillors and mayors, they can also have biases within them.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Further discussion? Right of reply. Oh, me. Not necessary. I'll put the motion. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried. Mayoral Minute 2. Again, this is fairly straightforward.

This is a mayoral minute, which is calling for a report just to investigate something which I've seen coming up. It's been mentioned to me by other people, but I have actually noticed it myself. And I hope that the investigation would give us various a way forward. I'm sure people have noticed just in various places around the Hawkesbury that people take off their prime mover, not front end loader, as I called it the other day, it's a prime mover, and they take the trailer and they leave the trailer parked. So, for example, and I understand the need to do this in various situations. There are obviously times when this has to happen. For example, the big trucks going to a local supermarket, they come in and they're a great big B-double, and they go to Ham Common and reverse in around that car park.

Now, bearing in mind that car park has a shared pathway that's on this side and then crosses the pathway where children are on their bikes and their walking, people are walking with their dogs and their animals, and they take off the back end and they take the front bit of the truck into the supermarket, and then they come back and they swap it over and they take the back end in. Now, obviously, that is because they can't get a big double truck through the roundabouts in Richmond, etc. So there's a logistical reason for it. However, I think that we have to—and the other place, and there's often, the other day I went past there and there was five of them in there, five different trailers in there.

And my concern in that specific location is that there is a danger to children and to pedestrians, and also takes up a lot of the car spacing and so on. It is a place that's suitable for turning around, so maybe it can be modified so it's safe. I mean, I don't really care if they're there, but it's the safety issue of that. So this is just a call to report and investigate if there's some sort of alternative or some sort of mechanism where we can ensure the safety. I don't know if there's a piece of, I don't know, somewhere where they could all go or something that could happen, but it's just simply to call and see if there is something better. The other area was on last week, one morning I was driving through and there was a truck connecting its back bit outside Colo High School near the gravel pit at the same time that the children were all walking into school.

So I just have real fears of the safety of this sort of thing and calling for a report to be done to just see if there's any alternatives. Discussion? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a similar concern and I'll express it and then try and relate it back to the mayoral minute.

On Pitt Town Road, for example, that I traverse regularly between McGraths Hill and, say, Glebe Road as you’re coming into Pitt Town, there are people that regularly use those spaces on the road verge and the common spaces between the road and the fences of houses to plant multiple second-hand cars for sale. And I believe that they represent not only a visual hazard, a visual pollution, but also a hazard. I mean, if we’re prepared to fine people in Bilpin for having a sign advertising their business that’s weighed down with a sack of concrete or something like that because of the hazard that it represents, a filthy great big car parked semi-permanently on the side of the road with a for sale sign on it.

This happened recently. A gentleman had obviously taken the opportunity to spread five different cars along Pitt Town Road. I called him up, I gave him a serve, I told him he should move the cars. I came back and I asked council staff and was surprised and chastened to find that there was actually no law against it and that that was just fine. If we’re going to be taking some action in investigating whether vehicles parked on the side of road, trucks in this case, I’d encourage council to look more broadly at whether selling cars on the side of the road should be looked at at the same time. I have no objection to an individual flogging a car on their own verge. I think we’re liberal enough to permit that.

But the idea of our verges being used for, you know, crass commercial purposes like that, which represent a hazard and a visual pollution, should be constrained.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. Is that correct, Mr Owens? There’s no law against that?

If a vehicle is parked legally, that’s acceptable. But there are times where multiple vehicles... Might be parked legally, but they're up for sale, and then we can take action about that as well. But we'd have to put no parking signs and that sort of thing up.

Further discussion? Councillor Calvert.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I just appreciate what you're saying about the safety issues. I just wanted to make sure that we don't blame the truck drivers for this. No. And they're just conducting their business, and they need a place to do this. And it is actually safer for them to divide the truck in half, as you said. So I'm hoping the report doesn't have that kind of approach to it. No

Well, that's certainly not the intention, because obviously, and I understand, I believe some of the people that leave them there are people who live maybe in a residential area, and they leave the truck somewhere so it's quieter and easier to go to their house. But I mean, that's fine. It really is a safety-based issue. Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, Madam Mayor. It's not exactly to do with trucks and trailers, but it's on a similar theme. At the moment, there's work carrying on in Macquarie Street, and the contractors are leaving their heavy machinery in parking places in, for example, Fitzgerald Street and down along the Terrace and in Baker Street, in areas where there's only one-hour parking, and these things are parked there, you know, like all over the weekend and times during the week. I was wondering, are they subject to normal parking laws, or are they exempt? Maybe a question maybe for Mr. Rowans.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Are these the road construction vehicles?

Yes, they're like big things with big snorkels sitting out, sticking out of the back of them.

I'd have to check on that, and I'll get back to you about those. Okay.

Mr. Organ?

Just probably add a bit to that. There's been two contracts going. There's the RMS work on Macquarie Street. Unfortunately, at the same time, Council was doing some work in Baker Street and further in the rest of town. There was one of the council contractors left his gear in Baker Street. That was relocated, and I think the RMS have now relocated their gear elsewhere as well, where they were parking in Baker Street on the Macquarie Street side. It's my understanding that they're exempt simply because they're engaged in road making, but I can probably get the comment back on that.

In relation to the one in Baker Street, that was there for over a week post completion of the project. We're not a storage yard for Bunnings Pave. Surely we need something implemented to accommodate that. Once their works have been completed, why are their trucks being left on public parking spaces that our community can't use, which is detrimental to our businesses, because they don't bother taking them back to their own yards and wait for the next project to come up.

Mr. Organ?

Through you, Madam Mayor, as soon as you raised that and identified, I misunderstood that there was still RMS that were parking in Baker Street. As soon as I was aware of that, we asked Bunnings Pave to move, and they did that within a couple of hours. So it was, yeah, a misunderstanding from my part. On the original request, but certainly we keep on to the contractors and get them to relocate as soon as possible from our perspective.

Can we possibly get something put into their contract to ensure that they comply to that in future, please?

I didn't check whether it's in their contract, but we have a fairly good relationship and certainly it's just a matter of keeping on to them and making sure that the particular schedulers have got them moved on. Obviously, they try to minimise the number of floats they do, particularly when they're doing further work for Council. But we can certainly make sure that that's in future contracts with them.

Thank you. Further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think the key issue here is safety, and that's the problem with the Clarendon parking spot and that shared pathway. And one of the issues with that shared pathway is that it isn't marked, so that there's a very large entrance to that car park. There's a lot of young children, and we've set that place up as a place that people bring their kids deliberately to exercise, to run around. There's a playground there. There's all the exercise equipment lined up. There's a lot of people with young children on bikes who get significantly ahead of their parents, or there's people with dogs, and I don't think that they're aware, actually, that that's become a large truck parking area.

And as much as I would prefer not to have B-doubles trying to get around Richmond, this might be easy, and it might mean that the drivers don't have to take any sort of detour. It's really not what that car park has been designed for, and I think we need to act before something goes wrong, because when it goes wrong, it's going to go spectacularly wrong. So I think we need to look at a number of strategies. Firstly, putting some sort of designated trailer parking somewhere else, but also I think we need to mark that entrance to the car park at Clarendon much better than we have,

Or an alternative of putting the shared pathway back around behind it or something like that. Further discussion? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mayor. I haven't—I've seen the area to which you allude. I haven't been through there in the last few days, but on my observation,

The units that were being left were actually trailer units.

Yes.

Not one of the two elements of a B-double unit. In other words, the trailer to which your prime mover is attached, and that's the rig.

I did notice, though, on the occasions when I did see these things, that those trailer units

Had

Livery of a certain large supermarket group

Adorning them.

I'm wondering if we could not , staff please, could contact the particular retail organisation, possibly speak to their logistics people or however they describe them, because it's my understanding that those larger concerns have contracts with freight companies, transport companies, and that those trailers could well belong to one of those major transport groups.

And we might be able to ascertain as to why they've adopted this practice. I mean, it hasn't always been thus.

No. It does call for an investigation, and I imagine that would be part of doing that. So

That's that side of it. Now, the other side, the other element germane to all of this is that I was in Hannabus Place off Groves Avenue today, and there was a refrigerated trailer unit parked in the street alongside the kerb. Is that a permissible parking area for a non-powered trailer

Mr Rowlands.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In an industrial area, trucks can park. In residential areas, trucks over a certain size shouldn't be parked on the street. But I'd have to look at the exact location.

And further to that, a slight digression. As I understand it, those heavy vehicles have a time restriction of one and a half hours if they are parked on a street side. Would

That apply to a trailer?

Mr Rowlands.

I'd have to check the road rules and laws about that. I don't know them all off by heart, so I would have to look into that specifically.

Thank you. Further discussion? No further discussion. I don't need a right of reply. I'll put the motion. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried. Mayoral Minute 3, another one about trucks. This is regarding just to have these specific things incorporated into the current…

Traffic study which is taking place. I've had a number of representations from people, particularly along Kirmond Road and Freeman's Reach Road, people who have—thank you—people who are hearing a lot of heavy vehicle noise in the early hours of this morning, a lot of exhaust braking and so on. So the concern is not only the noise, and somebody actually said to me they believe that the trucks go that way because there've been even more complaints from the residential areas in Richmond and so on of the trucks exhaust braking through the night. So, but more concern is the impact that heavy vehicles are having on these roads, the local roads, and our cost of having to maintain it when there's a lot of heavy vehicles on those roads.

So the recommendation is to investigate the costs of how much this is costing for our roads, and to report their findings to the Infrastructure Committee. I would sort of foreshadow coming out of that that if it's found that there is a lot of expense attributable to this specific practice due to traffic count studies and so on, that we may make a request to the state government for some sort of contribution, given that these trucks are using alternate roads rather than the main roads for various reasons, whether that be the congestion on the main roads or whether that be to eliminate noise in the more built-up areas or what, I don't know. But I have seen them at night. Nearly every time I go home from here, I see trucks turning into Kirmond Road.

So I don't know where they're all going, but I would welcome it being incorporated into the traffic study to do an assessment of. of this sort of practice and the impacts on our roads. Discussion? Councillor Reynolds. Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I was contacted by some residents, and the issue was raised at the last meeting of the local traffic committee, in that there were complaints of trucks using McGraths Road, and I think it was Hawkesbury Road, as some sort of bypass around the traffic lights at McGraths Hill. So they turn right at the old Millers Nursery and go around to avoid the congestion at the traffic lights. Just a question for Mr Organ. I might be remembering incorrectly, but I seem to remember council, on occasion, or I suppose on a regular basis, actually does counts of its own to monitor traffic so it can program works, scheduled works, according to the traffic load at that time. Is that right, or am I... Councillor Organ.

Back the front. Through you, Mayor. We do traffic counts and

Classifications, which

Is determining the twin tubes. So we do that for a variety of reasons, and that's to determine the works program, basically when reseals or the design of pavements. But also we do it in response to issues such as this, where we have complaints or we need to know what's actually happening there. That's the information that we would probably seek to feed into the traffic model that's being produced. It may require some additional counts to supplement

So we may already have some data on this issue? We

Certainly have data. It goes back many years, but we update it regularly, and generally we've got counters out most of the time doing it across the area.

So we may be able to see, for example, as the Mayor said, on Kurmond Road or Kurmond-Wilberforce Road, maybe able to see some growth or drop

Yeah, depending on what we've done the counts for in the past, whether it's been specifically for heavy vehicles or what we've done it for. As I said, you won't find huge amounts of — we've got 300 kilometres of road, sealed roads, so you don't find them on every street, but we do have a reasonable database. Okay, great. Thank you.

Councillor Garrow. For Mr Organ, possibly, would it be able to be considered the possibility of putting a load limit onto these said residential streets to prevent this detour happening, which is, from what I believe, is what is happening in the Hills District, which is then pushing a lot of these trucks to use our roads as opposed to the Hills roads for these said trips. So

We're paying the toll for that.

Council can only impose a load limit on a road generally where the road is inadequate of handling that particular traffic. So again, we'd need to do pavement tests to do that. I need to refresh my memory on—there was some changes some years ago on amenity issues, where lots of councils, particularly in the inner west, had just said, We're going to close this road off to trucks because of amenity, and there was a bit of a change in that . I need to check what the latest road rules are in relation to that. But we can only impose that with the approval of the RMS. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was hesitant to enter this debate, obviously, or even have an opinion, but I think the point needs to be made that a lot of the areas being spoken about and truck usage is there's a lot of truck ownership in the Hawkesbury. So people are driving these trucks to and from their home. So how can you limit the use of these trucks on these roads when people are taking them to their own premises? You know, there's a massive truck ownership in the Hawkesbury, whether it's a heavy— Kenworth or a Mack, or whether it's a turf truck, you've got a lot of ownership, and I don't know how you're going to eliminate the problem and work out what trucks are using the roads that aren't local residents compared to trucks that are going to and from their homes.

So I think that if you're going to do a study on it, you need to look at, you know, I mean, and where do you draw the line then? Truck ownership in the Hawkesbury LGA compared to trucks out of the LGA using our roads. It's, I think that's a legitimate concern.

I agree, Councillor Richards, and it's not designed to target any particular group. But I guess that's why you do the study, to see whether the same number are, you know, turning left and going along Kurmond Road and coming out the other side at Windsor across the bridge or something like that. There are ways, I imagine, of doing it, and I understand a lot of them are probably local trucks. It's probably not a lot of local trucks driving around at two or three in the morning. I don't know, maybe they are. But there are specific, I have seen specific named trucks in convoy, which I know are not local people because you see them come down the Bells Line of Road and they turn left and then you see them come out the other end.

So they're clearly going somewhere. But I understand that is a variable that needs to be addressed, and it's most certainly not— it's more really to do with both the noise and also to do with the impact on our roads as well. But as with any study, there would need to be controls and, you know, an acceptance that there are those anomalies. Councillor Wheeler . Thanks

Madam Mayor . I think we have seen a significant increase in heavy vehicle movement through the LGA, and I guess some of that comes from being on the outskirts of a building boom. I know Pitt Town Road, for example, the burden of quarry trucks there on residents and the discussions that we've had with the Pitt Town Residents Association and the impact of those quarry trucks through the middle of Pitt Town. And this is where we have a real anomaly with our Georgian designed towns and the impact of a burgeoning Sydney population, and some of them are quite poorly designed to cope with this, and many of our roads are very poorly equipped to deal with this as well. And I think you'd be hard pressed arguing that Freeman's Reach Road is standing up well to the huge volume of truck traffic that travels across it as it gets bumpier every week.

Council gets very little benefit for being used as an alternative truck route. We don't get any rego or petrol—we don't get any money out of the rego or petrol taxes that trucking companies or truck owners pay, and yet our residents carry all the burden. And I think it's notable that a significant portion of the SRV Council is applying for is for road maintenance and repairs, and this isn't helping. I'm hoping that the staff can suggest some other alternatives, perhaps some signs asking drivers to limit exhaust braking. I know they're prevalent in the Hunter. I live on a road where truckies use exhaust braking, and it's really jarring to be woken up at 2 o'clock in the morning by somebody who decided that he needed to stick the air brakes on.

It's grim. I don't know if there's other mechanisms around load limits, road markings, something, anything, because this is really starting to get out of hand. I think we also need to look at, we've also got some conflict of use areas, and Wilberforce is a fine example where Council made arrangements years ago to put in the Woodlands Park development, which has been very successful, but it's also had a massive impact on the residents of Wilberforce who put up with the increased vehicle traffic that goes to that industrial area right up a residential street day after day after day, and unfortunately night after night after night. And there has been a significant increase in truck traffic through Wilberforce to that development.

So that's something that Council needs to be aware of when we cite things like this. We had two trucks roll this morning travelling through our towns, and then they caused, and the knock-on effects of those are really quite big. And it's not just local truck owners. We have a number of quarry companies who are trucking through the Hawkesbury at the moment. I'm not sure if people are aware the disused mine on the pass Bell at the far end of the Blue Mountains is now being filled in . I don't have the daily truck movements. They are significant, and 30% of those movements are coming through the Hawkesbury LGA. Now we weren't notified when that went through, I don't think. Yeah, the Clarence. The Blue Mountains Council asked for a report and made representation about the impacts of that.

We've just sucked it up because yet again we are this— thoroughfare without the infrastructure to cope with it. And I think what this is calling for is some hard data to start arguing our case that we can't keep—we just can't keep absorbing these additional impacts and this additional cost on what is effectively a peri-urban council with a small rate base. It's just too onerous for ratepayers and residents.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think this goes to the issue that I think we dealt with last council meeting, and that's the issue of cost shifting that has continued on and on. Let me tell you this, that

I'm not saying that we should in any way, shape or form have any criticism directed at our local small business truckies or our farmers. They are here, they're doing their business, they add to the economy and all the rest of it. Let me tell you, because I know a lot of them, quite a few of them, what they'd rather do is drive on proper, well-constructed regional road for the bulk of their distance, and then the last kilometre before they get home, they divert onto one of our local roads. That would be their preference. Why? Much more efficient, much faster, better use of their time, better use of their equipment, and so on. That's what they want. They want better regional roads through this area.

Are we getting that? No. So what are we seeing, right? We see the spill-out into our local roads, and what do we get for that? We might get a little bit of money here and there, not a lot. We know what the cost shifting on that front is: about $69 million over 10 years. Let me tell you also about the drift road. Well, sorry, the driftway. And I travel on that quite a bit. And the 25, 6 years that I've travelled in and out of that and used that road, the minute the thing—and it's just been covered in certain parts of it now, nice new bitumen—the minute it gets done, bit of rain, being within, you know, two or three months, you've got ginormous potholes. You've got big ruts in the road. Why? Because it is a much easier road for the trucks to hurtle down there rather than through Richmond and so on and so on.

Then we get—and council pays with Penrith half and half. I think it's a five-year rotation. We pay, they pay, we pay, they pay. And it is an ongoing—it's a work in progress. Huge amount of money. Potholes, you wouldn't believe. Now that's one . Yarramundi Lane, another one. Old Kurrajong Road, another one. And it goes on and on and on and on. Now we've spoken about this. When is the state government going to use some of its funds to build decent regional roads in this area so that our people who work here, live here, and contribute to the economy can actually do their job?

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Getting back to your mayoral minute, I have a few—whilst I will support it, I've got a few reservations about

What... You're actually asking here. It seems to me that this is quite a big study, and I was a bit surprised that you needed to do this mayoral minute because I would have presumed that the traffic study would have covered these issues. And I'm just concerned about

The cost involved in the extra assessment. I mean, I don't know how hard it is or how easy it is to differentiate the damage done to a road in terms of what sort of vehicle causes it. For instance, Councillor Rasmussen mentioned the Driftway. On lots of occasions when I've driven down the Driftway, I've actually put the windscreen wipers on because the irrigation sprinklers go over the road. So—

It's

Not the Driftway. I'm thinking of Yarramundi Lane. Oh yes, that's right. Sorry, yes, I always get confused with that one. So I guess I'm highlighting that what we're asking here is quite major, and I'd hate for the traffic study to be held up

For a long time to achieve this. And maybe we could— well, does anybody know if this is within the scope of the traffic study? And could we offer some suggestions that would enhance the traffic study without necessarily going to these lengths? Mr Organ. Thanks.

I can probably answer that in a little bit of a roundabout direction. No pun intended. Sorry, it's late. That

Was good. That was good

The traffic study isn't a finite, once-off thing. What's actually going to be developed, or is being developed now, is the first stage, which is basically a traffic model that we can build and add to to do various things, which we referred earlier in the night to the Kurrajong-Kurmond area. If there was a need to do some modelling around that, then you could plug in additional information into that. Similarly, if it's about trying to understand where heavy vehicle movements are, we'll certainly get a range of information that's existing from both our traffic counts, or classification counts that we have, but also from RMS traffic signal data. So there's some modelling that every set of traffic signals is connection to detect that .

So we'll have that information. It's not a big ask to start to look at some of the findings of what that model says and the information we have to be able to say, look, this is what it is. I think there was a question earlier, obviously, or a statement earlier, that there's a lot of trucks that are owner-operated that garaged in the Hawkesbury. We can actually also get that information from RMS, not in terms of individuals, but by suburb where heavy vehicles are registered to. So we can also put another overlay over that. So it's a little bit of a fine grain as to what the study and the model and all of those things will do, and I think we can identify, without too much drama, where we've got probably excessive heavy vehicle movements that aren't necessarily related to residential or owner-garaged vehicles.

So we'll identify the hot spots, and as Councillor Rasmussen said, we know where they are anyway. I think those streets, and we can target those.

Right. I was also, it occurred to me that there are a lot of essential services delivered by quite big trucks. I mean the water delivery trucks that frequent, you know, the Kurrajong and Bilpin and et cetera, et cetera . I mean, I don't know how you get around having those big trucks on residential streets. And also there's the trucks that collect the pump out. So I just think, I guess I thank you for your answer, because if it's an ongoing thing without— this just seems a big onerous ask, but it seems like we're getting there in increments. So I'll leave it at that, and as I said, I support

The mayoral minute. Just to clarify that, Councillor Kotlash, it wasn't designed to be a whole big thing of its own, and it really does relate to truck movements in the early hours of the morning. So obviously water trucks and sullage trucks aren't on the roads then. So the issue, they shouldn't be— well, they shouldn't be if they are, because the water filling stations aren't meant to operate after certain hours. And of course there's fire brigades and all that sort of thing. So I'm fully aware of that. The thing is really the noise issue in the early hours of the morning, mainly the exhaust braking, and then the falling away of the sides of the road, particularly Hermon Road. And just to really ascertain if that is an issue or not.

It was by no means designed to be an entire big, hugely scoped project of its own. Further discussion? No further discussion. I'll put the motion. All those in favour? Against? The motion is carried. Can someone move the items en bloc? Move.

Moved that

Way, Madam Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Garrow. All those in favour? The motion is carried. Item, we're back to a planning item, item 39.

Move the recommendation, Madam Mayor.

Moved Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Reynolds. Discussion? I'd like to just point out that I did have an apology from the owners. I think I said that before, they're away. A number of us attended the site for a site visit, which was highly beneficial in my opinion because I had read the objections from the neighbour, and until I went there, I probably would have thought that they, you know, were a lot different to what I actually saw when I got there. I'd also like to applaud the applicants for their design of this and how they placed it in an area which was specifically placed to be unobtrusive and a good design for the sorts of use of having tourism accommodation in that area. Whereas it is a small country road, when we actually went to the site inspection and looked at what sort of a development it was, the fact that it's on a property with the owners living right there just near it, I would be highly surprised if they were ever all rented out at once anyway.

They may be, but I mean the general thing, you would think there'd be one or two people in there, so I don't think it would be a high impact. And I think that it is a... Also the water, the mentioned dam, the owners said they'd never seen water in it, so it was a dry dam. I imagine it's been very dry lately. And also there was a willingness to, if we felt necessary, to add any conditions to increase planting, for example to plant out the neighbour or anything. But... I don't know if anyone's got any other additions to make to it, but it was one instance where I was extremely pleased to have been able to see it before the application came to Council because it put it all in perspective, and we were able to walk over the property and see any impacts that would arise from it, and it was a good development.

Sorry, Councillor Conolly.

Sorry, Madam Mayor, I just had one quick question. I noticed, and I've asked this many times before, but I never really 100% sure of what the answer is. The estimated cost of $150,000, I mean, is ridiculous, and is obviously put there to lower what is already a ridiculously low contribution. What method—like, how can we—I mean, is it too late now to go back and say that's ridiculous? What's the real cost? I mean, does Council not do that as a matter of policy when they get these applications? I mean, where it's clearly, clearly nowhere near the real cost.

Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We do check the costs. There is a flexibility allowance, but we check the cost on all the applications now. We were doing it randomly, but we're doing them all, and we use cost estimates from Rawlinsons or Cordell's, which is a building cost

Estimate. I mean, we're talking here about five cabins plus all the associated earthworks and car parking, and we're going to have them for under $30,000 each.

Yeah, but you can't do that. You can't. Like, no way.

Mr Owens.

Well, as far as I'm aware, that was checked against the

Cost estimates we have, and they are small cabins, and they're almost like demountable cabins, but they will be constructed on site.

Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've foreshadowed the question that I was going to ask to Mr Owens and Mr Conroy by email, and it relates to the concern that the nearby Mr Ridgwell, who couldn't be here this evening, has expressed to me since this came up. And that is that this DA is at 63 Douglas Street, and that a very similar development was approved in early 2012 at 78 Douglas Street and has a very similar character, and at that time had similar conditions of consent applied to it relating to the cabins only being used for short-term tourist lets. Mr Ridgwell's claim is that these cabins have been the subject of long-term habitation by long-term tenants, not tourist letting at all. So I suppose, without wanting to disadvantage this applicant,

What's before us is approvable, and I intend to vote for the recommendation. But it lessens my confidence that conditions 58 and 59, that similarly say that the cabins must be used for short-term tourist accommodation, will be enforced, because an almost identical development very nearby, that condition of consent has been ignored, and the outcome was not what Council intended. Could I get Mr Owens to comment, please

Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I did speak to Mr Ridgwell about that, and he raised that issue, and I checked our records, and we haven't actually had a complaint . Previous to that. So he has made that complaint. I've passed it on to the compliance section to follow that up. I spoke to them today to see how it was going, and they said they're going out in the next couple of days to do that. It's not a condition that's been ignored, but we haven't had the resources to do a program of audit checks on these things. But we are setting something up like that to do that. The development across the road at 78, it appears to be two houses. I haven't got the full history of it. It may have been to replace another house, but instead of demolishing it, they turned it into a tourist accommodation.

This application is purpose-built small tourist cabins. So whilst they're called the same thing, they are actually quite different in that I don't think you could actually live full-time for very long in these cabins because they don't have kitchen facilities. But it is a problem that people are using the tourist accommodation as a ruse to get another dwelling and permanently live in it. So we're trying to set up a permanent program to audit those things on a regular basis. I'm glad to hear, Mr Owens. Thank you. That's the only

Question I had

Thank you, Councillor Semple. Councillor Ross.

Thank you. Following on from the previous questioning, there is a guest register which is noted at condition 55. Does that register indicate the date of entry as well as the date of departure, please?

Yes, please. Sorry,

I was looking for it. Through you, Madam Mayor, a guest register should—it's a register of who's staying, where they're from, when they came in, when they left. That's what a guest register should do. So any conditions in the audit that we do, if they haven't got a guest register like that, that's a fine for non-compliance with their DA. And then we'd do any other checks on that as well.

In light of that, even though it's not the subject of the matter, but the

Property 78, I think it was, that was mentioned, that would be the type of inquiry which compliance folk will be addressing when they actually go

Onto site.

Mr. Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Number 78 has a similar condition on it. Not all the tourist accommodation have that condition. It's only been something that's been put on over recent years. But that is one thing that they'll be doing. They'll check the site, they'll go through the conditions and do an audit of it, yes.

You've raised the next question yourself by implication. Is it possible where a DA has not had that condition? Attached to an abatement notice for it to be done as a subsequent matter by Council ?

Mr Owens.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We can't impose a condition after it's been approved, but if they're not complying with the use, if the use is for temporary accommodation and it's permanent accommodation, that's a direct contravention of the consent. But you can't put retrospective conditions on

Further discussion

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think this proposal has the potential to improve quite a weedy area on the site. So normally I would be concerned about the loss of a dam and the ecosystem around that dam, but it's never— having looked at the dam, it looks like it's never actually been particularly functional due to the soil type and also to the poor understanding of using contours to collect water high in the landscape rather than low, which is the standard place to collect water. So it's a dry old pit, really, rather than a dam. But below the area where the cabins are going in, it's quite weedy with lantana and a whole lot of other things, and the applicants are quite keen to clean that up.

And I think they've got significant incentive to clean that up because the balcony area that they're building at the back of each cabin looks out onto that space. So I think we could end up with some quite good land management as a result of this. It would be helpful, I think, for councillors if the internal plans had been included. So at the moment we've got a series of five boxes, but we don't know actually what's in the box. And I think that it would have been helpful if that had been included in the business paper so that we knew what we were approving and its potential to be used as something more than tourist accommodation. My understanding from speaking to the applicants is that you really, unless you're going to set up the porta-gas on the veranda, you're not going to be staying there long .

And they have no incentive to have people staying there for an extended period of time. They have a very large house now built to a very high spec. There's nothing in it for them to be putting five little cabins to spin an extra buck with people in what would effectively be boarding house-style conditions. My only concern with the development on exiting the property is the driveway visibility, and I wonder if council's traffic engineer has looked at that driveway visibility and if that's reasonable at the exit point. It's quite difficult to see, I think it's around to the right, it's quite difficult to see as you leave the driveway.

Mr Owens.

The application was reviewed by council's engineers and— They'd put any conditions on that they thought appropriate, but I think the site distance was okay from their perspective.

Further discussion? No discussion. Right of reply, Councillor O'Connellly. Not necessary. It's a planning matter, and we vote with our buttons for the recommendation in the business paper. Count of three. One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Okay. Is everyone take your finger off. Okay. On the count of three. One, two, three.

Okay. Yeah, show of hands. We'll do. All those in favour for the motion, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Zambrano. Hands can go down. Councillor Connelly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Tree is absent.

Moving on.

Item 42, digital strategy.

Moved that way, Madam Mayor.

Moved Councillor Rasmussen, seconded Councillor—

Garrow, discussion, Councillor Ross.