28 July 2020 - Ordinary

I hand over to the General Manager for some procedural matters.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public participating in the meeting are advised that in accordance with the Code of Meeting Practice, the meetings of Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary. If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, and the recordings are stored on Council's record management meeting system.

For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making an insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person, present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in the meeting has a mobile phone, that they either turn it off or turn it to silent. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Conroy. Firstly, I just want to apologise for our late start. We've had some technical issues, and I believe there still might be some technical issues going on, and the staff are doing their best to fix all those problems as we continue.

Tonight's agenda we have... Two items on block. They are items 138 and 143, sorry, 142. 138 and 142. We have one public speaker, that is for item 143 , and we'll be doing that one first and then running through the rest in the order that they're in the business paper. I wanted to firstly also point out that our Save by the Bell event at Thompson Square last week had to be cancelled due to COVID considerations, but the bell is being set up in the museum and we invite all people in the district to come along and ring the bell. Just turn up at the museum and also sign the petition that's there. We want you to avoid crowds. If there's a crowd there, don't get into a big crowd. Please keep your distance.

Secondly, a number of members of the public spoke to me in the last fortnight and thought that our last meeting went way too long. We had too many people, too many councillors speaking on too many issues, and a number of them said they would have liked to have stayed to the end, but it just got too late. So by having so many speakers on this issue, I think we're losing our audience. So if possible tonight, can we try and limit our speeches, please, and try and make sure we don't keep everyone up past midnight like we did last time.

Do we have any apologies, please?

Councillor Trees, an apology, I believe.

Anybody else out there?

No other apologies.

Would someone like to move we accept the apologies?

I'd like to do that, Mr Mayor. By Councillor Rasmussen , seconded by

I'll second it, Mr Mayor.

Deputy Mayor, all those in favour say aye. Aye. Declare it carried. I should point out at the beginning of the meeting when we're just looking at apologies and minutes and things, I'm not going to go by the blue hand on the computer . But once we get into the items for discussion, then it'll be strictly by the blue hands and who comes up first. Do we have any declarations of interest, please? No?

None at all. Okay, we've moved to the minutes. Would someone like to move that we accept the minutes? Move that way, Mr Mayor. Rasmussen. Do we have a seconder?

I'll move, Mr Mayor. Councillor Zamprogno

Anyone wish to speak against that? If not, I'll put it then. All those in favour of accepting the minutes, please say aye. Aye. Declare it carried.

We now move on to items subject to public address. We have one speaker. This item 143. The speaker is Ms Sharon Simich. Is Sharon ready, please?

Yes? No? Yes

Yes,

There

She is. Sharon, would you like to address us on item 143, please? Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, councillors and staff. I'm happy to have the opportunity to speak in favour of this motion, and thank you. We have a wealth of wetlands in the Hawkesbury, and they are certainly an iconic and functional part of our landscape. It is important that they are viewed within the whole landscape and not treated as separate independent beings, and that is how I believe the protection and management of these important places should be approached, on a multifaceted level. Not just the land they sit upon, but the lands and practices which surround them and hence impact them. The people, the uses, the habitat and the wildlife, our whole environment. They are unique systems unto themselves, but they do not live in isolation, nor does the existing wildlife, which we have a wealth of here in the Hawkesbury.

If we wish to retain these incredibly diverse environments, they need to be regarded within the whole landscape, and that is what happens in them, on them and surrounding them. Wetlands provide us important environmental links throughout the landscape. Connectivity of these lagoons is of enormous importance. I do not believe these wetlands can be retained via a one-issuer approach, or certainly not in a healthy, functional state. Each issue and solution has a cause and effect, and that is why they need to be treated in an unfragmented way. Wetlands provide us many positives and many opportunities. They provide us history. They also show us our mistakes. They provide us protection in times of floods.

They filter the surface and the groundwater and, importantly, capture carbon. Therefore, they aid our environment. They aid our lifestyles. They also provide us with very important water in our landscape. Scenic amenity, tourism, recreation. They also provide wildlife habitat and foraging vegetation, though many of our wetlands sadly lack this asset. All of these functions have usefulness to humans, economics and to our environment. I personally find them a place where I find joy and peace. I find them incredibly healing places. It is time the irreplaceable value of these wetlands is seen and acted upon before it is too late. Historically, they have been misunderstood, and some have managed to survive despite the impacts upon them.

But that is only for so long. Therefore, I urge the council to think about the assets and the usefulness of these protective systems. There are many issues impacting our wetlands. The impacts may vary, but overall they are very similar, and I believe they can be managed via education and planning. Many of our wetlands are under varying land managements, though surrounding land use and development is the responsibility of the Council and varying linked agencies. Therefore, planning is essential to minimise land use conflicts and to encourage appropriate activities on surrounding lands. There are still many questions to be addressed. Some examples are boundaries, setbacks, buffer zones, and vegetation to aid in the protection of these assets.

These measures can enhance filtering and provide much-needed bird habitat. Soan Egypt Bushland, showing its status as a declared wildlife refuge, is currently no longer in place, though the status still exists. Is there still public access to Bakers Lagoon, a proclaimed bird sanctuary? How can we get a simple message out not to feed our wildlife, and in particular no bread, to look after the health of our waterbirds and the environment? How can we best manage fishing at piers so that access is unimpeded to all visitors, and the health and safety of wildlife, people, and the animals is a consideration? Cultural maintenance of and around lagoon verges also needs to be addressed. This type of information is vital in enhancing these places and their use.

As we know, agriculture is a valued asset in the Hawkesbury, though its detrimental impact on wetlands is well known and well documented. Our wetlands still provide us with much bird life and many are listed on threatened species list, also are our floodplain wetlands. We are losing many wetlands within our landscape. My hope is that Council takes a protective stance to these very useful places.

Even though these wetland systems are great, they

Are

Also incredibly vulnerable. They need some help and they also need... Thank you.

Thank you. Are you happy to answer questions if there are any? Yes. Does anyone have a question? Please use your blue hand on the computer . Thanks.

No questions?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thanks, Mr Mc for that presentation. You're a very talented wildlife photographer, and you've spent a lot of time documenting Bushells Lagoon in particular. Can you tell us how it's going at the moment? We've heard over the last three or four years about some of the poor conditions at Bushells . What's it like at the moment?

There's a lot of varying impacts which happens around Bushells. Like right at the very moment, as of yesterday, we've had like 126 mils of rain, so it's not full, but it's getting back up there again.

So after some of the impacts which happen around there, or just, so the current state of it's not.. . There's not much bird life, which is quite unusual for Bushells.

Sorry, I— That's okay. Could you tell us about some of the— you've been photographing in the last week. I've seen your posts, and you've seen— what sort of species are we looking at on Bushells currently?

Currently there's probably maybe 30 species, which is very low for Bushells. Generally you can get sort of 50, 50, 60 species and large numbers of them. The numbers have certainly dropped since it dried out before the flood we had in February, and then after the flood the numbers dropped off again, and then there's been some ploughing on the verges of that lagoon, which the numbers just dramatically dropped off. There's a sort of island from where there was some trenching done a few years ago, and the birds were actually starting to nest there and use it as a spot to sit. But again, there's not much there at all as far as—

So we've really seen further deterioration on that site. Yeah, just— Thank you.

Thank you, Ms Semek. There appears to be no other questions, so thanks for your time here tonight. We appreciate your input. Oh , you're welcome. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, you'd like to move this notice of motion, I believe.

Yes, please, Mr Mayor.

Do we have a seconder, please? Seconded, Mr Mayor. Councillor Rasmussen, Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak?

Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you to Ms Simic for her delivery of about the wetlands. The reason I brought forward this notice of motion was that Ms Simic was one of the members of the public who've brought this to my attention, and also to the attention of Councillor Wheeler over the past few years, as some people have really been working hard to try and get some protection over our wetlands. We have some very valuable wetlands in the Hawkesbury. We have a lot of wetlands, and they really deserve protection. We should value them. As Sharon said, they are an integral part of our overall ecosystems, and they really are vulnerable, particularly some of them. They're vulnerable from the threat of human impact, from development and from intensive agriculture.

So I thank the staff for giving The update in the business paper, which relates to the Coastal Zone Management Plan, which is being done. I'm looking forward to that being done. We did do one, I think it was in 2013. And my issue with these sort of plans is that it's all very well to have a plan, but we have to be able to implement what's in it. So when that plan's done, I hope it will be supported with the actions of what we might do and how we might implement them, and who will be responsible for implementing them across the six councils and so on. Likewise, with the Blue Green Grid, which is a, I understand it's quite a high-level document, and I would be interested to find out the timeline for it.

The issue with waiting on all these things are that we don't want our wetlands to be irreversibly altered or destroyed in the interim time. They really are at a peak of vulnerability. As Ms Simic said, Bushells Lagoon had completely dried out previously, and we know that there have been impacts on that lagoon in particular, and we also see an increasing number of impacts on the wildlife at Pughs Lagoon. It's not entirely conclusive, but it is thought that the feeding of bread to ducks and geese, et cetera, which is not of good nutrition for that bird life, can lead to a condition called angel wing, which is where the growing feathers grow out in a very awkward position and prevent the animals flying and foraging properly as they would.

So we know there's some signs down there, but this really needs to be revisited. We need to give some very clear and very obvious signage. to the public that they shouldn't be feeding, you know, loaves of white bread to our birdlife down there. I think that Hen, and I think Councillor Wheeler will address this, but I think that the Hawkesbury Environment Network have some funding and they're doing a project on the signage. And hopefully out of the work that they're doing, there'll be some management principles come forward about how best to manage the wetlands in those areas, because we really need to do this. We know that Council is the land manager for two of our two wetlands, Pughs Lagoon and Bushells Lagoon.

Ms Simic alluded to some of the issues with Bushells Lagoon. We also have some problems at Pughs Lagoon where if people are fishing there, they're probably only going to catch carp, and there is the issue of fish hooks and fishing line being ingested by the birds, and also the fishing line going across the power lines and other various issues associated with that. I look forward to the work that Hen's doing, and I also note that there are some issues with Council in delivering compliance around Bushells Lagoon because of the various ownership issues and us only being responsible for the water section. But I think that it doesn't hurt from time to time to call upon the Council to update our response.

Ideally, we will be looking at how we protect our wetlands in all of our documentation, when we're looking at our rural land study, when we're looking at any of our various studies. We need to bear in mind that we have this pressure, water system, various systems such as the chain of ponds, et cetera. We've really got to take care of it, and we should be mindful all the time of its vulnerability and the various things that we can do that can protect our very precious wetlands and the birdlife and the other native animals whose habitat it is and who depend on it for their food source. So this was to update, bring it back on the agenda, and to just call again for Council to be keeping it in mind always as we're doing our planning.

Councillor Zamprogno, you wish to speak? Yes, thank you, Mr Mayor. I am presently the chair of the Hawkesbury River County Council, and of course, as one of the member councils of the HRCC, we do a lot of work in this space. And I want to acknowledge the work of Councillor Kotlash on the Hawkesbury Wetlands Working Group. And some things that I'd like to bring to your attention in terms of the HRCC space is there's an initiative called Wetland Care, where we work alongside the Hawkesbury Landcare Network. to look after Bradley's Lagoon in Sackville, Lundall Swamp in North Sackville, Hughes Lagoon, Garamundi Lagoon, and an unnamed private lagoon at Ebenezer. And there's also an initiative that was reported to us as recently as June, where the local Landcare coordinator that's retained by HRCC with grant money is engaging in a Hawkesbury wetlands site assessment program, where there are 30 different wetlands in the district, some on private property, that are now going to be reviewed for their health and a report combined.

So to the degree that we're enjoining council staff to put together a report, I'd encourage you to work closely with Hawkesbury River County Council, of which we are a key stakeholder, because we're already doing a lot of work in that space. And so long as the work that we're enjoining council staff to do isn't onerous and actually leads to some positive action, then I have no difficulty in supporting this Notice of Motion.

Thank you, Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've got a question, if I may, and it relates to whether or not council or anyone else has done an audit of our wetlands in our LGA. And if so, where is it available? Because I haven't seen it. But if not, is it something that this council perhaps should be thinking about? And I acknowledge, and I didn't know the work that the HRCC was doing on the wetlands, which I encourage and commend. But just wondering whether we've got an audit of our wetlands, because they are terribly

Important to us. General Manager, do we have an audit

Mr Mayor, the Biodiversity Planning Framework includes a layer in it which has mapped all the wetlands, and when that comes to Council, we'll be able to see those on that mapping layer. Well, that's great. Thank you very much. Councillor Rasmussen, and you're finished? Sorry, I had my hand.

Thank you

Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. And I wanted to particularly thank Ms Semek for coming and speaking to us this evening. She's stolen a good part of my thunder, so that leaves me more time to talk about other things. But she is right in that these are a really pivotal part of our landscape, and they have to be viewed as an integrated part of our landscape. As much as we are known for the areas beyond the floodplain, it's these remnant wetlands that are particularly important for the character that they give to the Hawkesbury, and for the environmental functions that they perform. They really are quite iconic to the Hawkesbury. They're not dams, and they shouldn't be treated as such. They have intrinsic ecological value in their own right.

And it behoves us to recognise that and to use these as a pivotal feature of the Hawkesbury. Very few other places have retained wetlands like we have. We should be very proud of what we've got, but we should also be looking after the ones that are deteriorating. I had a lengthy chat to a couple of members of the Hawkesbury Environment Network today. They have two federal government grants of $20,000 each looking at wetlands. The first is a grant for Pughs Lagoon. They've been working with council staff, particularly Mick Patterson, and they've employed EcoTune, a bush care business that's doing some weeding work on the site. They have working bees most Tuesdays on site apparently, and people are welcome to go.

There's quite a lot of in-kind work that's contributing to this as well. They're developing signage around four themes: Indigenous stories, history, heritage, and ecology. But they're relying on council to provide the signs about feeding animals, which goes to the Deputy Mayor's notice of motion. So the signs that we've got now currently don't seem to be working. People are still feeding huge quantities of white bread to the birds on site, and that causes two things to happen. Firstly, it's not of adequate nutrition, and so the birds develop deformities, but also it fouls the water and causes a bacterial bloom that can then poison the bird life on the site. The fishing line bin that's been referred to in the report no longer exists.

Someone stole it. I don't know why you'd want three foot of poly pipe, but clearly someone was in desperate need. If we could get that replaced, that would be excellent. It's not expensive. It was made from bits and pieces that I think Mr Patterson had lying around. What's desperately needed is community education. HEN are able to provide the words. They've got some budget towards printing, and they can provide the materials and the Facebook posts. But if council could get on board with HEN and push that information out, that would be really helpful. The second project is the one that Councillor Zamprogno was referring to, which is another $20,000 grant that HEN— HCC has obtained through the auspices of the Hawkesbury River County Council and Local Land Services, and they've got a very proactive worker from Local Land Services, Catherine.

It's to do an assessment of the wetlands at 20 sites. It's within the Hawkesbury catchment rather than the Hawkesbury LGA. So several of them are in the hills. In fact, the very best examples so far appear to be in the hills. There's a good working relationship with the University of Western Sydney. They're doing quick assessments of the wetlands that they can access. They're very keen to know of further wetlands, if people are aware of other wetlands that they could access, they'd be very keen on that. And they're concentrating a lot of efforts around Longneck Lagoon and Pitt Town Lagoon. It would be helpful if the mapping layer that the general manager referred to could be made available to HCC so that they could target some of those wetlands.

The more wetlands that they can assess within our LGA, the better I think it is for council. But that project needs to be completed by next March. It should give us some good information about the health of our wetlands and what council should be doing with regards to management. We really need to be more active in this space. These are incredibly important ecological niche zones. They're very important for future filtering and carbon capture, for biodiversity, but they're also really important to our sense of place and marking the Hawkesbury as it is. And we really should be joining with these organisations that are doing the lion's share of the work that council currently isn't doing. So I urge you to support this, but also to support the Hawkesbury Environment Network in these efforts.

Councillor Rasmussen, you wish to speak

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I obviously speak in support of the notice of motion. I think it is timely that we pay a lot more attention to our wetlands, and there are numerous wetlands, some documented, some not. Obviously, some many on private land. And I heard Councillor Sadekbroggo talking about Yarramundi Lagoon. There's actually a chain of Yarramundi lagoons running almost from Penrith , not quite from Penrith, but almost from there all the way down to the University Farm. So there's a whole lot of lagoons all joining up along that stretch. But my request, or my, yeah, it isn't a request, that we think about doing an audit. We think about doing some drone flying over our wetlands and our lagoons to get a better picture of what they look like, and then that way we can map their change over time if we do drone flying on a regular or semi-regular basis.

So that's the first thing. Now, the other thing I've become aware of, and I've spoken to the general manager, he may have an update on this, and that is that the Sydney Airport, Western Sydney Airport Corporation is looking for biodiversity offsets, as I've mentioned several times, and one of the ones that they're really, really keen to try and obtain biodiversity offsets for are in fact wetlands, and As we have quite a few of them, and as they have quite a bit of money to spend, we were talking about, well, they start out with $100 million to spend on biodiversity offsets. But I think they're pretty much into that budget now, but they've still got about 20 or so million dollars left in their budget to spend.

So I'm just wondering whether we could not make approaches to the Western Sydney Airports Corporation to see whether or not we could all work together on this front and get some serious money. And I'm talking about some serious money for our wetlands and our lagoons. So that was just something that I thought we should pay attention to, and I'm really keen on an audit of our wetlands and our lagoons. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor . Yeah, I agree with everything that everybody said,

And it was great to hear Sharon, your address about the wetlands. It's obviously that you're very, very passionate and caring about the wetlands we have in Hawkesbury . But coming back to practicalities, I'm not all that sure what we're asking for in this notice of motion. It says in point one to provide an update on the work being done. Has that already been done in the note from management, or was there something else that I'm just not quite clear what we're actually asking Council staff to do here. It seems we've just had a bit of an update of who's doing what and what we can expect to happen in the future . Point two, investigate ways, and there's a whole list of things that we could do .

It seems to me that there's lots of organisations dipping in to a lot of those issues, so it's not really clear to me at the moment where Council might be able to move forward . It seems to me that the wetlands working group that I am involved in has all sorts of participants from, you know, staff from our own Council, from Greater Sydney LLS, from National Parks and Wildlife, from the Hawkesbury Environment Network, as we've heard , Western Sydney University, HRCC, EarthCare, Bushells Lagoon Landholders, Hawkesbury Landcare, Cat Eye Hills Landcare, Bath Sydney Conservation Volunteers Australia. There's a whole heap of people involved here. So can we just get some better clarification of what we're actually asking Council to do?

I mean, I'm happy to support this, but it's just, I think that I'm more supporting the notion of this, not actually anything that's too specific, and I think for the sake of the staff, I think we need to give them some better direction, if that's possible. I

Might regard that as a question to the general manager and he may defer to the mover of the motion, but general manager, do you have an answer to that question?

Not really, Mr Mayor. I think we'll leave it till the mover of the motion

Deputy Mayor, I notice your light's on.

Thank you. Yes, I did have it on because I was going to add something to it before, but I ran out of my five minutes. I wouldn't want to confuse Councillor Kotlash, but I think that the working group—I don't know when staff last attended, Councillor Wheeler and I are both on the working group as well—and it seems to have reduced basically down to basically being him , I think, and the local land services, and they're the people who are active in it, and of course they have these other grants. So what I was really looking for, and I did deliberately leave it very broadly because at that time we didn't have any update, but this is somewhat of an update. But the update doesn't address the things such as improving the signage and how we would do that.

But I think maybe the best way to do it is to refer it into perhaps one of the committees, so the Sustainability Committee, I would think, to actually look at what could be done. The main purpose for bringing the motion was simply to get an update because we were going to do so much a couple of years ago and it's all sort of dropped by the wayside. So there are—and I mean, there's no vehicle for people to know what work is being done. So if a member of the public wants to know, it's very difficult. The HRCC doesn't put out what grants it's doing, or I've never seen anything publicly. So it's something about how does Council portray the partnerships that we have and the work that we have going on, which is advantageous to something such as wetlands.

How do we do that? So I think that perhaps it is probably best to put a point three to refer it into the committee for the committee to look at it more, and perhaps if that's suitable to people on that committee. That may be a way forward. Otherwise— This sustainability committee, you mean? Yes,

The Sustainability Committee

Councillor Wheeler wants to say something.

Councillor Rasmussen, you're seconder. You happy with that? Yes, Mr Mayor. Thank you. So we have a 0.3 now. Deputy Mayor, you finished with your explanation?

I'm finished for now, yes.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler

A suggestion, Mr Mayor, for 0.3, or perhaps I might need to rephrase it as a question. I wonder if the Deputy Mayor would consider having Council's sustainability officer meet with the Hawkesbury Environment Network and LLS, the people who are doing this project, to discuss how Council could help, perhaps before it comes to the Sustainability Committee, because I don't think that committee is due to meet again for a little while.

I think that's a wonderful idea, and of course we didn't have a sustainability officer when we started out with the Wetlands Working Group. So I think if she could meet with HEN and see where they're up to, and then bring back just the information to the Sustainability Committee. If HEN has some money to be doing some community education, then that would be a good vehicle for feeding it into Council to see how Council can support that and how we can actually translate that into something being actually done within the community. That'd be great. Thanks. So

We're widening 0.3, that sustainability officer meet with HEN. Should they also be meeting with other groups?

I think HEN are the main people working on it.

Local land services. You could just meet with the Wetlands Working Group. It's still active. They're meeting next Tuesday, I think.

Deputy Mayor, is that okay?

Yes, that's fine.

Councillor Rasmussen, seconder, are you happy with that addition? Yes, thank you, Mr Mayor. Okay. Any further speakers, for or against

Can I just point out we've had five speakers and they've all been in favour of this motion. Theoretically that shouldn't happen. We're supposed to go for and then against. Deputy Mayor, would you like to have your right of reply?

Just briefly, Mr Mayor, and I'd like to thank the councillors for their input. And I think that it's not a bad thing from time to time to just revisit these very important aspects of what we do, especially when we don't actually have the capacity to be doing much. So I think it's timely to remind both the public and the Council that we should be looking at things such as valuable assets like our wetlands and so on. So I'll be really happy if the Sustainability Officer can have the conversation with HEN and see what they're doing and that that will go through a committee. That way then we get the minutes to Council and people can see that something is being done and what that is that's being done. Thank you.

Thank you. That was right of reply, so now I'll put the motion. If you're in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Calvert, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Richards, Councillor Conolly. Absent is Councillor Tree. And the Deputy Mayor, of course, is in favour. Did I miss anybody?

No , declared carried. Thank you.

We have two items on block.

Screen appears to be frozen. Can you still hear me?

I'll move, Mr Mayor. Okay , the two items. I can hear you, Mr Mayor. 138 and 142, moved by the Deputy Mayor, seconded by Councillor Rasmussen. Any discussion? If not, I'll put that motion. All those in favour say aye. Declare it carried. We now move.

We now move to items without public speakers, and the first one of those, and please use your blue hands here. First one of those is item 134. Councillor Rasmussen, is your hand up from before, or is that for now? Sorry, Mr Mayor, from before. Sorry. Any blue hands to move something on item 134? Yeah, I will move that one, Mr Mayor. Moved by Councillor Rasmussen. Do we have a seconder?

No seconders?

Second. I'll second that,

Mr Mayor. Councillor Conolly. Councillor Rasmussen, do you wish to speak on this?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Very briefly, as most councillors will know, I'm not in favour of these developments for a long time, very long time, like forever, but I will support this one on this occasion because I think the VPA is fair and equitable and will allow this landowner to get on with his job. Thank you, Mr Mayor

Any further speakers? Please raise your blue hand if you wish to speak, otherwise, Councillor Rasmussen, you wish to have right of reply.

Not necessary, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

In that case, I'll put the motion. If you're in favour of this motion, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Sam Progno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Richards, Councillor Ross, absent is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anyone? If not, I'll declare it carried.

This item 135. Do we have a speaker? Do we have Councillor Wheeler?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So

Do

You want to

Move this? Yes

I'll move the recommendation. Do we have a second? I'll second, Mr Mayor. Deputy Mayor. Okay. Yes, Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I won't labour this. We've discussed this a number of times in the chamber already. It perhaps might be helpful to have the Director of Planning talk a little bit about what this program means for the community. But what I do want to do at this point is to really encourage the community to get involved. Council has, and the consultants have, worked quite hard to get community input to this point. What we've heard from the community backs up the findings of our previous investigations, particularly around the place score and what people find valuable about our town centres, and also what they would like to see improved about our town centres, particularly areas around connectivity, greening things up, making things more pleasant to walk around in summer in particular when it's really hot.

This is a once-in-a-generation project. This is a lot of money. It's never enough money, and I think the money will go quite quickly given how ambitious some of these ideas are. And so we are now at the stage where we have to prioritise what we do with the money and the time that we have available to us. But this won't come our way again for a long time. So what we really need now is for the community to take ownership of this project and tell us what they want to happen in Windsor, Richmond and South Windsor, so that we can put in a program and master plans and works that follow those master plans that the community really wants, that really increases the liveability, the quality of life, and our use of those spaces.

This won't happen again for a very long time. So I really want to urge people to get involved in this document. It's an interactive document. I really want to commend the staff for the way they've put this together and how they've made it accessible for the community. I hope that this sparks people's imagination and that they really engage with this. We need to get this right, but we can't get this right without people's input. And I think it would be a great shame for people not to contribute now and then not like the results down the track. Because if you don't participate now, it will be too late. We have to spend this money. We will do these things. You need to choose the things that you want so that we can spend this money the way that best suits the community.

So please engage. Thank you.

Thank you for jolting my memory, Councillor Wheeler. I had invited the General Manager to introduce this item or get Director of Planning to introduce it. So, General Manager, would you like to do that now? Yes, Mr Mayor, the Director is ready to introduce the item.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you , Councillors. Yes, so as Councillor Wheeler has said, this is a once in a—hopefully not once in a lifetime, but certainly it is a huge opportunity for this Council. This deliverability program was a key deliverable under the Western City City Deal, and Council resolved to undertake master planning and public domain planning for the centres of Windsor, South Windsor and Richmond. And so essentially what we've got here is some key foundation documents, both in terms of a master plan and public domain plans. And when I say foundation, yes, we have this money to spend, which we need to spend by April 2022. However, what we're also hoping is that it sets a framework for other grants or other opportunities for getting money in the future as well.

A lot of community involvement has been undertaken to date to understand what the community, you know, want to see in their town centres. And it is very much about, you know, looking at making these places attractive both day and night, encouraging, you know, people to come in and, you know, walk the streets. There's been key projects around, you know, planting trees or just putting in what we call pods so people actually can, you know, buy a sandwich and sit within the town centre and, you know, just spend some time within the, you know, on the streets talking to people and

Spending time .

So there are a number of projects both, you know, to range in price. So we will be seeking community input in terms of what, how do we prioritise these as well as, you know, in terms of going forward. To help with this document, we have, we will be promoting via our normal, you know, Facebook, Your Hawkesbury, Your Say. We'll have the hard copy documents within, you know, libraries, et cetera, for people to see. But we're also going to have an interactive document on our website, which is just literally a click. You can say, I want to look at what's being proposed for South Windsor. So you hit the tab that says South Windsor, and it talks about what's happening around the master plan. Or if you want to know what projects are being looked at, you hit South Windsor and up pops this map of the study area of South Windsor with various numbers on it, and you just click on a number and it will take you to that project.

So whether it's about trees or seating or creating spaces around, you know, the forecourt of the library, or any of those ideas have been put forward, this interactive document is meant to help make it easier for people to engage with what's being proposed. And then obviously they can, you know, submit their views through the normal processes. We will obviously be contacting the people that have been, you know, we've been liaising with, so whoever gave us their contact details, we'll go out so they know. The document here and encouraging them to, you know, give us some feedback. So the document will be on exhibition for 28 days, and then it will come back to Council. But ultimately, the next phase is really developing the detailed design around whatever works we're going to be rolling out over the next 18 months.

Can I ask you a question, please? For those people who can't access this in an interactive way and get the paper copies in the library, for example, will there be some kind of similar form that they can tick, or is it just they have to write a letter or something? So, a similar form in terms of a list of the projects and they can just tick? So, yes, so we can make a list of projects available through Your Hawkesbury Your Say, so then people can then just give us a response in terms of what projects they'd like for us to consider as a priority.

Yes, but if they get the paper copy at the library, is there going to be a paper thing to fill in as well?

Yes. Yes. We want to make sure, yes .

Councillor Wheeler, in fairness, now you've heard the introduction, did you want to add anything to...?

No, I'll do that in right of reply. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Okay. Any other speakers? Going once, going twice. If not, Councillor Wheeler, you want right of reply?

Looks like I shall. Thanks, Mr Mayor. And thanks to the Director of Planning. The staff have worked really hard on this project. The Strategic Planning Department, Amanda Kearney, Council's new Economics Manager. This has been a lengthy process. I also want to thank the Town Centres Working Group who have given really generously of their time and expertise and have really shown their care for Windsor, Richmond and South Windsor in this... This has been an interesting process. We thought that we had a very small pot of money, and we were looking at a very low-level cleanup and some imaginative projects in a few shop fronts. And when the liveability program came out and we were successful in getting all this money, the project morphed into something really big and really lasting.

And that same working group has stuck with this process through all its changes, from murals in Windsor Mall to now planning the spending of $18 million of state, federal and local money. It's been pretty huge and it's pretty challenging. What we've heard time and again from the experts that we've had in this space is that our towns are really unique, particularly as human-scale colonial-era townships that have slowly evolved, but they're tired and they're dated, and we know this. Our businesses know this. Our locals know this. The struggle that we have is competing with big town centres like Rouse Hill and keeping people here. And we won't do that by replicating Rouse Hill. We won't do that by becoming another Penrith.

We will do that by being a better Hawkesbury and by having our iconic town centres. function at their very best, and that's what this project seeks to do. I urge people to read the report. It's really interesting. It highlights some of our past mistakes and how actually previous decisions by Council have made life much harder for business owners and now for us in trying to rebuild these spaces. But it also highlights many of the good things about these three towns, in particular the thriving business space that is South Windsor. And if you don't go to South Windsor often, I urge you to go down there. Some of our very best food outlets for buying something to eat while you're at work are in South Windsor.

If you haven't been down there at lunchtime, you're really missing out. This project hopes to improve connectivity between Windsor and South Windsor, but also connectivity to the station, which has long been a problem for us, and connectivity to the river. The geography and topography that's caused us to build on these ridge lines to stay above the floodplain has meant that we often walk past the river and don't look at it, and there's moves to try and improve that. There is a suggestion that we open up the lower end of the mall, the current dead end of the mall. It would be really, really good to get community feedback on that because that's something that we're going to have to tackle. There's a green corridor proposed for Windsor from Thompson Square down to the station, and also for a dramatic greening up of Richmond's main street as well.

All of the plans include increased pedestrian access, increased pedestrian activity, increased activity outside the library and in our parks. It's as basic as public toilets and pedestrian crossings, and as high level as how to mitigate urban heat in the LGA, or in these parts of the LGA, so that we get better foot traffic and more people enjoying our town centres. So again, I'll leave you with the Urge to please get involved. It's too late after the fact. We really need your help now.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. That was right of reply. I'll now put the motion. If you're in favour of this motion, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Garrow, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Ross, Councillor Richards, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Wheeler. Absent is Councillor Tree. Have I missed anyone? No. Declare it carried.

Item 136, please use your hands, your blue hands.

Item 136, New South Wales Housing Strategy. Any speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move the recommendation in the business paper, Mr Mayor.

Do we have a seconder? Second that, Mr Mayor. Councillor Rasmussen. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, firstly, I want to commend the staff in the preparation of this report. What I think we can see here is the value of having studies like the Housing Strategy and the background information that we've obtained to develop the Local Strategic Planning Statement and our subsequent strategy documents that are going into the LEP. If we want to adequately represent the Hawkesbury's unique place on the floodplain, on the peri-urban fringe, surrounded by a fire-affected national park, constrained by RAF height limits and significant heritage, then we have to have an evidence-based position to enable us to speak with authority and to be taken seriously when we put in submissions like this to the state government.

And I think we're now seeing the value of the background work that we've done and, frankly , the money that we've spent in getting to this point. I applaud the calls for greater certainty with respect to orbital corridors and transport, and the calls for more nuanced application of floodplain planning controls instead of this one-size-fits-all blanket ban that we've got currently, say, on detached dual occupancy on rural land. There's also a clear call in here for increased affordable and social housing and a better housing mix that are really important to take both our community and wider Sydney forward with a changing and ageing population. And I think we're probably going to need to look far more stringently at affordable and social housing after the, look, from the impacts of this pandemic.

What we see here is a council that I think now has a much better developed, more mature position on development. We're not closed for business. We're not running an anti-development agenda. What we're calling for here is right housing in the right place and for the state government's support on this. So I really would like to commend the staff on their work. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. I'd just like to comment that I am a little bit disappointed in the New South Wales Housing Strategy as put forward because it doesn't emphasise the role of public housing. I know it talks about social housing and affordable housing, but those two things are actually different to public housing. And public housing has a role to play in our economy in terms of it provides an economic dampener or a way of stabilising the economy when there's a downturn. It keeps the construction industry going. So it doesn't just provide housing, it provides a support for the economy. Now, by public housing, I mean like in South Windsor, there's many streets full of what used to be called Housing Commission houses, and there are many suburbs, and they are all public housing.

Affordable housing in its new context tends to be that there are some houses built over cheaper nature within a larger development. And it doesn't actually address the large number of people that are looking for houses they can afford. What I would like the government to consider is that the degree of public housing that they get into would be tied to the economic activity, so that as, if the economy was failing or going downwards, we're having a drop in growth, then the public housing should go the other way and there should be more investment in public housing. When the economy is going well, then you reduce the spending on public housing. That would be good for the economy and good for housing.

And I'm wondering whether, Councillor Wheeler, you would consider, well

Adding a point, which would be that, would be point four, I suppose, that we ask the state government to consider reinvesting in public housing and linking that to the degree of economic activity.

I'd be happy to, Mr Mayor. I think that's an excellent suggestion.

And would you also be happy for us to send a copy to WESROC and ask them to campaign on that issue? Certainly. Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. That was— I was going to actually raise that issue of public housing as well. I think I do welcome the State Government doing these sorts of strategies because I think that, as Councillor Wheeler said, we've also been directed to do a housing strategy, and of course all of these things are feeding into a strategic planning model, which hopefully is going to give us the certainty and the direction that we have lacked here for so long. And I think that I agree, and I'm happy that that's added now because I think there is just such a deficit in public housing, and it's just something that has to be addressed at some point. So if we can push for it, I think that that's a wonderful way to move forward.

Basically, the other points that I would have made have been covered, but I think that the staff have done a great job in doing that, and I agree with Councillor Wheeler. It's because of this, all this background work that we're doing, and the developed and matured understanding of the uniqueness of our area and how we're not a one-size-fits-all place, that is really assisting us to get these plans right. And hopefully the Government will listen to the feedback from all the councils who submit something and come up with a housing strategy for New South Wales, which is something that can help us go forward. The inclusion of increased public housing, one would have thought, would have been a natural progression to make, but I'm happy that we will make an effort and push for that, and push very strongly for that.

Thanks.

Thank you. I should have asked Councillor Rasmussen as seconder, are you happy with that addition to the motion?

Yeah, I was waiting for that, Mr Mayor. Yes, I am. Thank you. Sorry to keep you waiting.

Councillor Zamprogno, you wish to speak? That's all right. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Generally, I'm supportive of this, but I'm disappointed that after we raised some points that required greater emphasis in our workshop phase, is that the wording of our submission still seems to me to be a little weak, and I just wanted to put some suggestions forward. So, we've resolved a position in relation to detached dual occupancy, and indeed there is now a mention that Council would welcome further discussion with the government with respect to this matter. But I'd like to draw a stronger nexus between our desire to have a more flexible ability to implement detached dual occupancy and indeed a larger, a more generous definition of secondary dwelling, which I don't believe is mentioned at all, and the social goods that we believe will flow from that.

So, if we've taken the time to point out the housing needs of an ageing population, or the need for affordable housing for people that might just be starting out in the housing market, I think we could have done a better job to draw the connection between those social goods and what, for example, detached dual occupancy might be able to do for us, and it's been mentioned in the Chamber on many occasions. The ability to keep family units together, to allow families to keep elderly parents with them in or near the family home, to allow young people that are just starting out on their

Coupled lives to stay on the property and to give them a leg up in the property market. We could have mentioned that these are the goals that we're seeking to achieve by having a more flexible policy in relation to detached dual occupancy and secondary dwelling. So, I wonder whether we could have one more pass at this and whether the wording in those sections could be beefed up before this submission goes into the State Government.

General Manager, can you comment on that please?

I'll direct that to the Manager of Strategic Planning, Mr Mayor.

Thank you .

Yes, certainly, we can look at those particular sections. So there's the section in the submission that specifically deals with detached dual occupancies and secondary dwellings. We can look at additional wording in terms of that.

So, Councillor Zamprogno, are you suggesting a 0 .5 that asks the General Manager to— you might provide me with the rest of the words?

Well, if you wanted to formalise this, then the 0.5 would be that wording be strengthened, drawing the nexus between the

Declared goals of managing the housing needs for an ageing population and to improve housing affordability and the desirability of detached dual occupancy and secondary dwellings to achieve those goals.

That doesn't sound very clear, Councillor Zamprogno, but if you're happy with that. Is the staff happy? Is that understandable, Mr General Manager?

I'll refer that to the Manager Strategic Planning, who'll be preparing the document.

Yes, I understand the sentiment that's looking to be achieved, yeah.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler, are you happy with that change?

No, I think I'd need to see it in writing, Mr Mayor.

Okay. General Manager, can we get someone to put that in writing?

Andrew, can you draft something up and get it to Charles so we can have a look at it?

Okay, well we'll wait for that to come. Councillor Ross, you wish to speak?

Thank you, Mayor.

I do applaud the work of Council staff in drawing this together, and I notice there's even some mention of quiet roofs, which is a bit of a novelty for this state government.

However,

They and the Council seem to be schizophrenic. On the one hand, we've got this area which is subject to the natural, if you like, debilitation of flooding and fire ,

And also removal from mass public transit.

Now we know jolly well from what's happened with the City's deal that mass public transit is not destined for this area. We also know from the third river crossing proposal that's in the offing at the moment that there are insufficient funds, apparently, to enable a, shall we say, a one in 100 or a PMF-type crossing of the Hawkesbury River at another point.

One also needs to think, shall we say, in terms of the lines of communication. In a military sense, the lines of communication are often the causation of defeats in battle, because they become so long and so extended that they can't be accommodated. Now , we're getting to the point now with the state government also acknowledging climate change, that at some point there has to be a ring put around the major capital city, similar to as was done in the 1950s and 60s of, if you like, a green belt , the preservation of the vegetation and wildlife, etc., in that area to do anything in the way of accommodating the climate goals that the government has professed. I just see that this is most

Conflicted

And I believe this housing strategy also, to a degree, is in conflict with the housing study that will no doubt be released to the community comment in the near future, as has already been discussed internally. It's most disappointing that at some point the government must take a stand. And make some declarations, and everyone is skirting around the very big policy questions, and it's well overdue now, and everyone is posing as ostrich, which is most unfortunate. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm wondering if I could just seek a clarification about the agreement, or otherwise, that we have reached . Council has reached on detached dual occupancy in our local housing strategy that we discussed and looked at recently. I don't recall it being the way that Councillor St Braggo has articulated it, but I could be wrong. So could someone just refresh me on what we actually did agree on dual occupancy, detached dual occupancy? Sorry, Mr

Conroy.

Mr Mayor, I refer you to the Manager Strategic Planning.

Angie might be busy trying to get the wording ready. So, as you know, councillors, at the moment in our rural areas, we can only allow attached dual occupancies, and Council, this Council, has previously approached the State Government in regards to detached dual occupancies, and to date we've been refused. So I understand what the intent is to say, can we reopen that discussion with the State Government, raising awareness around providing people that flexibility around providing an additional dwelling on their property. Yeah,

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I understood that. I thought Councillor St Braggo was trying to draw a much closer and tighter connection between our housing... A strategy that we recently discussed, where I think he alluded to the fact that we had agreed on looking and expanding, or looking in greater detail about the detached dual occupancy. I don't recall it that way, but maybe it was actually done that way.

Mrs. Perrin,

Are you able to answer that?

Yes. So, in terms of you're referring to the workshop we had on the 18th, I think essentially it might be easier— That's correct, yeah. Yeah. So what we will be doing is we're going to be distributing the notes from that meeting, ensuring that we've captured all the notes. Obviously it's not subject to the conversation in relation to the support at the moment. And if there is any points that we need to clarify, then we will do that through an offline discussion with the councillors, whether it's around dual occupancy or any other items.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd like to see what actually comes up on the screen as added to the motion, but if dual occupancy goes in in that form, then I'd like to withdraw my—I think I supported it, or seconded it. I'd like to withdraw my support of it if I did second it, I think I did.

Okay. Well, is Mr. Kearns back yet with a written copy?

Doesn't look like it. Councillor Reynolds, you wish to speak?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd just like to remind councillors, we resolved on a notice of motion some time ago to approach the government, have the ability to put detached dual occupancy on non-flood affected land, that is land that is not subject to flooding or— Restricted by the need to evacuate in a major flood. That was the reason for the state government declining our request for detached dual occupancy, LGAY, because they believe that we need to evacuate the west side of the river and other areas. And the resolution specifically stated non-affected land such as Oakville and Vineyard, and I don't think we've heard back from that. I also note that our submission calls for the ability to have planning provisions reflective of Council's resolution. So I think that that is probably already covered. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think Mr. Kearns may be just about ready with the

Written changes

Must be a flurry of activity going on in the other room. There must be.

We actually can't move on. There's no more speakers, and I cannot give right of reply until we have that.

There's no more speakers.

Will you indulge me, Mr. Mayor?

Always, Councillor. No problem.

Not always, but no. Look, just to underline the point that I was perhaps making rather awkwardly before. Generally, the thrust of this document is correct. But if this is the submission that we're making to the state government, it states some goals and then, in a rather disjointed fashion, says that we have resolved positions relating to detached dual occupancy and secondary dwellings. But my criticism largely was that it didn't unite them. It didn't draw the connection between them. And I think that in a submission like this, we need to put our best Case forward. So what I'm inviting Mr Kearns to do, I hope, is to simply rephrase the way in which this submission is structured so that when we say that we are in favour of detached dual occupancy, or a more generous definition of secondary dwelling, is that we're putting forward the reasons why so that when the state government considers our submission, they understand where we're coming from.

I felt that the submission that's before us tonight did so imperfectly.

I did suggest that maybe what you said wasn't clear enough, and I think that's come back because Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Rasmussen are still

Unsure of what you meant. We're talking about point five, I think.

I'm happy with the way that that articulates the point that I was just making, and I'm hopeful that I'll get Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Rasmussen back on board on that basis.

Yeah, we'll see. Councillor Wheeler has moved

A motion . Could we have that back on the screen, Mr Mayor, and could the minute secretary just move that up a little bit? It's obscured on my iPad by the extra screen on the bottom.

It's

Gone again.

It's gone again. You've got to be quick.

Now you see it, now you don't. Next time, do a quick screenshot. There you go. Screenshot, quick.

Do you want me to respond now, Mr Mayor? Yes, please. Look, I think that's a little bit too strongly worded, given that Council currently doesn't have a position, a further position on detached dual occupancy. That reads to me a little bit too much like support for blanket detached dual occupancy. What we're calling for, I think, is a discussion about... Increasing the possibility of detached dual occupancy, but Council doesn't have a resolved position on this yet. And point five, as it currently reads, I think infers that it does. So I agree with Councillor Rasmussen that that probably isn't supportable in its current form. Can I also query point four, Mr Mayor? I'm not sure that where it reads, the supply of public housing linked to the level of economic activity, I'm not quite sure that that is entirely what you meant either.

Perhaps as an economic driver might be more effective, because currently it reads, I think it could be misinterpreted as the public housing being linked to people's personal levels of economic activity. And I think you were more focusing on it as an economic driver for the state economy.

Yes, I was. And I

Don't know whether economic driver is the term I would be happy with either.

Increase the supply of public housing and link this supply to the level of economic activity in the economy.

No. Could we take out linked to the level of economic activity and just go straight to, and request that Wesroc?

Well, yes , we could, but my point was that public housing can be used to assist us in times like at the moment where we're having a downturn. Public housing provides a floor, if you like, that we don't go through.

What about increase the supply of public housing, comma, including as an economic stimulus.

Okay.

I think you're talking about a recession, aren't you? We're actually going through a recession at the moment, Mr Mayor.

We are going through a recession, yeah. Some people would

Say... It's a bit more than a downturn.

Well, I stand corrected, but it is a downturn as well. Councillor Wheeler , are you...

I'm happy with that. I'm happy with revised four, but not currently with five.

I seek your guidance, Mr Mayor, then. Well, can I just ask Mrs Perrin to comment on what Councillor Wheeler said about point five, please.

So my understanding is, ultimately this would be supported by our housing strategy, which is yet to come back to Council. Yes, we've had a conversation in the form of a workshop. As I said, we will distribute those notes, and if the— ultimately the aim of that workshop is to find out where there is agreement to talk through any areas where there was potential, you know, variance of views. Once we've submitted those notes to Council, we'll be able to say, you know, where, if there are still areas to be clarified, what are those, and if, you know, dual occupancy is one of those items, then we'll have to have that conversation before finalising the housing strategy to come back to Council.

I think that the point of conflict was, Councillor Sam Prognosis, the declared goals of Council to permit these uses. Is that actually a declared goal of Council?

So there was obviously a resolution before from Council to look at dual occupancies. I don't have that, you know, resolution in front of me. However, and it was part of the original LEP housekeeping planning proposal, and then through various iterations it got removed from that. There have been conversations or approaches or discussions with the State Government in regards to detached dual occupancies in rural areas, and they have said, as Councillor Reynolds said, that it has been given a no for reasons in relation to flood and evacuation. So

You're saying it's not a declared goal of Council? No,

It's not. Well, under our, at the moment in our draft housing strategy, it is not an action that has been recommended. It is a discussion point that has been raised in the workshop. However, we have to come back and confirm that that is to be a recommendation of this council in the housing strategy. Okay,

Thank you. Now, given that, Councillor Sam Progro, are you interested in changing your wording

This has been very informative. I'm in support of detached dual occupancy, with the greatest of respect, I understood that council's current position was that we were generally in favour of a degree of detached dual occupancy, not what Councillor Wheeler describes as open slather dual occupancy. And again, keep in mind, the only purpose that this submission has— Yeah

Can you just, I don't want another lecture , please. I just want to know whether you want to change those words about declared goals of council.

Well, I mean, if Councillor Wheeler can suggest a form of words that will keep her happy as the mover of this, then I'm prepared to hear her. And if not, I'll suggest this form of words as an amendment. Councillor Wheeler? The form would be preferable.

Perhaps, depending on what Councillor Rasmussen is happy with, perhaps we could, after secondary dwellings, highlight

The need for a more nuanced approach to assessment of detached dual occupancy within the LGA. More nuanced

That doesn't work. I've used detached dual occupancy twice.

Might I suggest one of the issues that we've been talking about is the concept of place-based planning, which would then allow— A more nuanced seeing of looking at the local government area as opposed to a blanket set of controls.

That would be lovely. Can you make some words, please? Councillor

Rasmussen, are you happy with that change? If it keeps everybody on board, very much so.

I think it does. Councillor Rasmussen is seconder. I'm very

Happy with what the Chief Planner articulated there, but I'd still like to see the words that currently come up. But yes

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Okay, so can we get the change to those words, please, for point five? Yeah,

Hold on.

Could I suggest, Mr Mayor, highlight the need for a more place-based approach

To this type of development, and just leave it at that.

All right. Councillor Rasmussen, happy with that?

Yes, I am, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

Do we have any other speakers?

Well, we'll just wait for that wording to come up. In the meantime, Councillor Wheeler, would you like to exercise right of reply?

I just had a quick question, sorry.

Oh, sorry. Yes, your hand has just appeared, yes.

Sorry. I just need to get clarification on a process that we have here. It was my understanding that Council's resolution to be in favour of dual occupancy still stood until such time as we had a housing strategy. So I don't understand when things become, you know, dissolve into, well, we've got a draft strategy now, so that will be, you know, and then we'll change our minds. As far as I was concerned, we have a resolution of Council that still stands to say that we'd asked the State Government about detached dual occupancy and secondary dwellings, and we were knocked back. But our resolution still stands, doesn't it? I mean, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I mean—

Mrs Perandy, would you like to comment?

Yes, that's correct. A resolution does stand until it's changed or a new resolution takes over or it's completed. So yes, the intent is our housing strategy would then define how Council would meet the delivery of housing across the local government area. What I'm saying in terms of the draft strategy that Council has considered, one of the recommendations has not been to include detached dual occupancies across rural areas, and that's the point of discussion that we need to clarify and either include as a recommendation in the draft housing strategy or not.

Councillor Kotlash, are you happy with that answer?

Well, we did have a workshop, and I'm pretty sure, if my memory serves me well, we talked about this. So it is in the pipeline. I don't know how that's going to be resolved, but you're second guessing where we might come to on this, and I find that a bit, I find that a bit, that's a flaw in our process if that's the case. I mean, I'm happy with this. I just needed to get you to clarify that. So

We still have a resolution until our housing strategy is finalised. Okay.

Thank you. Okay. No further speakers. Councillor Wheeler, would you like right of reply?

Yes, please, Mr Mayor. So look, just in response to a few of the things that have come up, I think it's important to note that this isn't a strategy. We're not deciding on a housing strategy here. We're deciding on the key points in a draft submission in response to the state government's housing strategy. We don't make decisions in workshops. We don't make resolutions in workshops. We make them in the chamber. And so we have resolutions around detached dual occupancy, and that's that. And that's that. We need the state government to lift the blanket ban so that we can have a nuanced, place-based approach, like we should have with every other type of development across the LGA. I thank the Mayor for highlighting public housing, and I think we've had a continuing problem with public housing in this state where we've devalued the place of public housing, and we've passed it off to other agencies.

to manage or to build, and that has, and we've left ourselves with such little housing stock available for people that need it, that when we do hit a recession, when we hit something as drastic as the COVID-19 pandemic, we realise just the magnitude of the problem that has been created. And in fact, in March, the Greens released a pitch to give everyone access to public housing if required to mitigate the economic downturn from coronavirus. It has a key place in economic activity, and I thank the Mayor for bringing it up. What I think we also should be mindful of when we talk about social and affordable housing is that cheap housing should have no place in this. Poor quality cheap housing is rarely cheap for people to live in, and it's often those costs, those living costs, are most often borne by the people who have the least capacity to pay.

I'm pleased that the state government has a housing strategy. We've been winging this for far too long. I'm also very pleased that councils like ours are putting good evidence-based submissions into these. We've still got a lot to do in this space, as anyone playing at home can hear from this discussion. We're still not all on the same page. We may never be, but I think what we have here is a solid response from the staff based on the needs of the Hawkesbury as we move forward in the next few years. Thanks very much.

Thank you. That was right of reply. I'll put the motion. If you're in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen,

Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Reynolds,

Councillor Garrow.

If you're against, please raise your hand. Against is

Councillor Ross, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards. And

Absent is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anyone? No. I declare it carried. Thank you. Item...

Item number 137, please use your blue hands if you'd like to move something.

Councillor Rasmussen.

Yeah, I move that one, Mr Mayor. Moved by Councillor Rasmussen. Do we have a seconder?

Councillor Ross, are you seconding this?

I'll second it. No,

Thank you. I'm foreshadowing an

Amendment to the motion. Who was that, the Deputy Mayor then that said they seconded? Yes Okay, seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Rasmussen, do you wish to speak? Thank you,

Mr Mayor. Just quickly, our VPA track record has not been brilliant, to say the least. And I think some of them, particularly some of the big ones that we've had ended into over the years have been very faulty, flawed, and we are now seeing the results of that. So I do welcome the staff effort and the work that's been put into coming up with this new policy. I think it's a much improved policy. It certainly sharpens the tools that council staff have got available to it to use when we have to draw up these planning agreements, voluntary planning agreements. So, Mr Mayor, yeah, I want to commend the staff on this, and I commend it to councillors that it is a timely update to our rather poor track record on this, I think. So this will be welcomed, I think, hopefully by everybody. Thank you. Thank

You, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I propose an amendment to the motion, which I've supplied the governance officer prior to the meeting.

Okay. Would the governance officer be able to put it on the screen, please?

Disappeared

Councillor Ross, would you like to just quickly explain that without talking to it? Just explain what it is.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. The nub of the amended resolution is to pass this matter back to the internal audit committee on the basis that there is an ongoing program of work which has been running within the audit committee and within staff since early 2018, and it is not complete.

All right. Do we have a seconder for this amendment, please?

No seconder. Councillor Reynolds, are you seconding this? Yes, Councillor Reynolds is seconding it. Councillor Ross, do you wish to speak to your amendment?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I do indeed. At the audit committee meeting of, I think, 5th of December 2018,

Sentium Proprietary Limited, the internal auditor of Council, tabled at the audit committee meeting. A report regarding developer contributions. It was a less than favourable report, to put it politely.

Coming from that, and the discussions between Centium and staff, there were a series of work assignments required of staff to be completed to address the points raised in the Centium report. At the last Audit Committee meeting of June 3 this year,

Staff reported to the Council, to the Audit Committee, that there were 12 identified projects which were subordinate to the overall work assignment that were incomplete because staff had not completed those tasks and were apparently unable to sign off on those. In that regard, this particular element of things, this policy document is fundamentally germane. And bringing this matter forward in this fashion at this time is simply a pre-emption of any work that the Audit Committee has done or is intending to do, and likewise staff actions. I just find this quite difficult to understand the processes that have gone on here, and it, to me, is demeaning of the work that the Audit Committee is assigned to do by Council.

So I'm suggesting that the documents and the comments, which were, I think, praiseworthy from the person who submitted those comments and well thought out, should be taken back to the Audit Committee for its due consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Do you wish to speak about the amendment?

I have a number of questions, actually.

Okay.

First of all, I'm a little in the dark as to exactly what Councillor Ross is speaking about, but I would like to hear more, and I would like to have an explanation of what exactly those particular actions are that may impact on this policy, if we could have a brief explanation of that. And along with that, if this were deferred, is there any issue with deferring it at this point?

General Manager. Might refer that to Director of Support Services, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I have to take that on notice. I will need to get hold of the internal audit report and the management actions to check that.

If I may, Mr Mayor. Certainly

Okay. So yes, there was an internal audit of developer contributions that was completed not long after I started here, and it did identify a number of areas that needed to be addressed. And then they translated into management actions. One of the actions was that Council needed to prepare a voluntary planning agreement policy. The policy, in terms of the action, from my recollection of the action, wasn't contingent on any other actions being completed within those management actions, but is a standalone piece of work that we needed to do. It's also useful to have as we're trying to liaise with any developers that want to approach Council around undertaking VPAs, because up until this point, we really didn't have a policy that's guiding our negotiating with developers.

In terms of your question— Deputy Mayor, is there a problem if we defer the item? No, there's no problem in deferring the item. It just means that the timing in which we said we would have this action completed in terms of the audit will just need to be changed if it's gone past the due date. So

Thank you, Siren. So what would be an example of another action that was brought up that would have to occur? Would it be something that would impact on our policy as it stands, or is it something that would likely be changed, that would bring about changes if something were to be done?

No, I think the comment that Councillor Ross is referring to is there are a number of items that are relating to the developed contributions plan that we're waiting on for Vineyard. This policy is actually—this is more an overarching policy for all BPAs. It's not just permanent of Vineyard. So there are a number of actions that are, you know, on hold because we don't have the developed contributions plan for Vineyard. However, this is just a standalone action in and of itself. It's just an action that we need to do

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Another question, if I may, a more generalised question, and perhaps would help anyone watching this at the moment. Perhaps if we could have an explanation about why we tend to use voluntary planning agreements and what the difference is between a Section 7.11 development contribution, just for people to understand that, because I think that people are a little perplexed. It's not something people understand, and I know for years we, you know, we wanted to have these, as they were, Section 94 contributions plans for areas across the LGA, and we didn't seem to always get those. So could we just have a brief explanation for the public of what a voluntary planning agreement, the usefulness of it, and why we would use those rather than locality-based plans as such

Mrs. Perrin. Okay, so ideally councils would have a developer contributions plan that does cover the whole local government area, and in addition to that they might have specific plans for a specific area, in the case of Billiard, which is something that we are in the process of awaiting for. However, for this council, we don't have a generic plan that covers the whole local government area. So in that case, we then look to, in order to not miss out on developer contributions, we would then gain some funds under a VPA. And the case is the example in terms of 377 Bells Line of Road, which we've just considered earlier this evening. If we don't have a VPA agreement with that developer, we would actually be missing out on getting any funds, in this case $ 30,000 per lot, which would then go towards paying for, you know, infrastructure works or other works that we need to do as a result of that subdivision.

So essentially there are two types. There's, you know, contributions 7.11—sorry, contributions—and 7.12 contributions, which is more of a percentage which is put on development, which is like a 1% charge on the cost of development. So depending on the type of development will affect what you're charged. But in the case where we do not have a developer contributions plan covering that site, then a VPA gives councils a tool to still get some money from that developer.

Thank you, Ms. Perrin. I do have another question. I'm sorry, can I proceed with the question? I'm just thinking in the scheme of how this has been developed, and in light of what Councillor Ross said. Do we have, is this the appropriate mechanism where we would perhaps be seeking to have a specific contributions plan, for example, if we were to have secondary dwellings? Or do we have a 7.11 or 7.12 plan for secondary dwellings and granny flats? Because today when I was reading, I saw that many councils have a cap amount on granny flats from $500 to $21,000. And I know it is an issue that when we discussed dual occupancy that we, you know, think about how we would be getting revenue, et cetera, from a secondary dwelling on a property.

If we were to make changes, for example, not specifically that, but if we were to make any changes to how we wanted to levy these various types of developments and so on, would this impact on this policy, or are they more operational things that we can do and introduce after? I'm just a bit at a loss at how all that fits in.

Another piece of work that we have on our to-do list in strategic planning is to review and create a new generic developer contributions plan for the local government area, and that would sit separately to VPA policy. So ultimately, if a voluntary planning agreement is precisely that, it's voluntary on both parties. Council can choose not to engage with a developer, and a developer by default can also choose not to engage. So if there is a section, if there is a developer contributions plan in place that does apply to the development application at hand, then, you know, that would then guide what amount of money is charged to that developer. Over and above that though, councils do use VPAs.

So in our case, we use a VPA when we don't have a developer contributions plan in place. However, councils also will use VPAs, and developers will want to use a VPA to see if there are other things that you could get over and above to some extent, you know, contributions that might be charged through a developer contributions plan It does vary from council to council and from, you know, application to application.

Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak on this matter as well?

Thank you. I may shortly, thank you. Shortly

Okay.

Mr Mayor , Councillor Ross, I claim misrepresentation by the Director of Planning on an earlier speech she gave. I've just been holding tight to allow the Deputy Mayor to speak.

Okay, well we'll come back to you at the end if that's all right with you, Councillor Ross.

I think there's some further elucidation that I could provide my fellow councillors in regard to the particular report that was tabled before the Audit Committee.

Well, I'll be flexible and let you do that.

Go on. Thank you so much, sir. And this will, I think, address in part at least the misrepresentation about which I was speaking.

There were ten areas of key areas for improvement in terms of the report issued by Centium Proprietary Limited, the internal auditor. Point three of those reads as follows: VPAs and WIKAs, that's works in kind agreements , not formally monitored or enforced. There is no formal process to monitor and enforce and reconciliate, I think they mean reconcile, agreements. Quality checks of, in inverted commas, defined facilities can be approved. Inter-team communication, management reporting against agreements, allocation of appropriate resources can also be improved. Council should improve its computer system and should consider establishing another oversight body to oversee developments. In other words, there is concern expressed by the internal auditor that there are insufficient probity processes behind these agreements.

And it goes on at point seven: contribution plans not regularly reviewed. Developer contribution plans are not regularly reviewed, and there is no process in place to undertake regular reviews. The Pitt Town plan was developed in the 1990s and underestimated the value of land acquisition, as we have already heard in this recent six or so months.

Councillor

Ross

This is all— Just a clarification

On listening to you there, my opinion is that the audit committee said we lacked a policy; we need a policy on VPAs , so council's gone out and made that policy, and here it is. It doesn't, in my opinion, say that it has to go back to the audit committee, but that's just my opinion. Councillor Kotlash, do you wish to speak on the amendment?

Excuse me, Mayor. Yes. I wish to rebut that comment. Okay Because the developer contributions contributions review was part of the internal audit committee work program for the financial year 2017 to 2018, correct? I want that to be understood. It is a formal program of the audit committee, as adopted by council. Now , the audit committee surely has the right, before any formal adoption of anything in regard to developer contributions, the right to be heard and to consider the recommendations or— posit of staff before it's put to Council, and I think this is just a pre-emption of the role of the Audit Committee, with all due respect. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll have to agree to disagree. Councillor Wheeler, did you wish to speak on the amendment?

I had a couple of questions, Mr Mayor, that I think have largely been answered . My understanding from the Director of Planning's response to the Deputy Mayor's questions were that there wouldn't be major impacts from deferring this for a month, but it does leave us without an effective policy in that intervening period . I'm wondering if there's a mechanism for us to adopt this policy now, but to give it as perhaps an interim, and for the Audit Committee to give some feedback. But I'm also a bit confused about what Councillor Ross is saying about the responses of the Audit Committee, which in part don't appear to refer to the policy per se, but to our management of VPAs previously.

So what are you suggesting?

Well, I'm wondering if there is a possibility to adopt this as an interim policy to tide us over with the capacity to make potential changes based on the Audit Committee's response if they view it in September. General Manager, would you like

To comment on that?

Mr Mayor, I don't think you can have an interim policy really. I think if councillors are of a mind to refer it to the audit committee, they should refer it to the audit committee for comment and bring it back, and we'll get it back as soon as we can.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

So the general manager won't let me have a vote each way.

Apparently not.

But I'll sit on that for a while. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Lots of splinters there.

There are no further speakers on the board.

No further speakers?

On the amendment? If not, I'll put the amendment. If you're in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are

Councillor Ross,

Councillor Wheeler, I think. Deputy Mayor, was your hand up then?

It was, but I took it down.

So it's not up. Councillor Wheeler, your hand was up.

It was, it was, Mr Mayor, but I'd like a date on that notice of motion, on that amendment.

We can't do that right now, sorry. So you're voting yes for the amendment. No, you're not voting yes. So we've got Councillor Ross in favour, Councillor Reynolds in favour, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Richards, Councillor Garrow . If you're against, please raise your hand. Against are Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Bucket, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Wheeler . Absent is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anyone? Declare the amendment carried. The amendment now becomes the motion. Is there any further discussion on the motion as it now stands? Councillor Wheeler.

Could we have a date on— would Councillor Ross consider adding a date so that this comes back to Council as soon as possible after the audit committee's input?

Councillor Ross, you happy to add that?

I'm not, from the point of view that the work that still has to be done before the audit committee can even sign off on the whole thing is within the hands of staff. Now, at the June meeting, which we've just held, the staff are saying they won't finish the work until December this year. So I just don't believe that that's viable. And the other point is we haven't got a policy. If I could just read to you, sir, the point number two from Sentium back in December. Point two: policies and procedures. Council does not have any documented policies or procedures regarding, I think it means its, ITS rather than it, contribution planning processes or position. Pardon me. Its published planning policy is out of date and therefore inaccurate.

It does not have a VPA policy, full stop, and the red mark is high. Now, I concur with that, but this is the work that is supposed to be being done by Council and staff, and it should have gone back to the Audit Committee. Councillor

Ross, you're actually speaking out of turn. You asked a question by Councillor Wheeler, can we set a date? I think your answer is no. Okay that is correct, so that's in one word. Councillor Wheeler, have you finished?

No, Mr Mayor, I'd like to foreshadow a motion, or move an amendment, but the amendments become the motion, so can I move a motion? You can move an amendment to this, yes. So I'd like to move that this be deferred for consideration by the Audit Committee and that it come back to the next Council meeting following the Audit Committee for consideration by Council.

Do we have a seconder for that? Councillor Conolly, was that? Yes, seconder Councillor Conolly. Councillor Wheeler, do you wish to speak to that amendment? Yes

Mr Mayor. I think Councillor Ross is cutting his nose off to spite his face here. The key issue is that we currently have no voluntary planning agreement policy. That's a serious lack. This is a clear attempt to instate one. We need one. We have seen how badly the community has been done over by poor VPAs in the past. They've left communities vulnerable, and they've left us liable to pay for outstanding infrastructure. I don't want to see any more Glossodias where 30 to 40 years on, we are scrambling to put in really basic infrastructure like drainage and roads that are wide enough for people to pass safely on them. I don't want to see another Pitt Town where we're still Stuffing about years later trying to get the infrastructure that was promised for a community.

We have a history of poor VPAs here. By not adopting a policy, we are just continuing that mess. Councillor Ross is letting the perfect get in the way of the good, and I don't believe it's responsible. By all means, get the audit committee to make comment on this in September, but by October, we need to have this policy in place. This is not good governance.

Thank you. I'm wondering if the staff could write up your amendment, please, and put it on the screen when they get a chance. Councillor Ross, do you wish to speak to this amendment?

Yes, I will speak against it. Yep

Simply from the point of view, as Councillor Wheeler acknowledged, we don't have a VPA policy. However, we've voted on a VPA tonight in this very council meeting already.

So it's one thing to have a policy, and it's another thing to have actually implemented VPAs, and we've implemented them in the past. Now, I believe the council also neglected to understand the sentence that I quoted from earlier, which reads, Council should improve its computer system and should consider establishing an oversight body to oversee these developments.

In other words, there should be some oversight of what goes on with these VPAs, and that, frankly, is something about which I completely agree. Now, the other element to this, of course, is to read the submission that came through . To Council as a result of the public exhibition, there were some very granular and particularly, I think, cogent points raised by that person, who must have studied this in some detail. And whilst they have been batted away, shall we say, in the report, I fancy that that is neither appropriate in the interests of Council nor in the longer run benefit of the LGA. So I certainly would want to see the Audit Committee get involved in looking at those matters in more detail, as that is their requirement.

And I believe that seeking to do that purely at one meeting in September may be overly onerous. And likewise, I don't believe that given the amount of activity required of staff to complete their work on this area, that they can't complete their work by the time of the September meeting either. I'm sorry.

Thank you. Has the minute secretary got that amendment available yet?

Apparently not. Deputy Mayor, do you wish to speak on the amendment?

Thank you. Just briefly. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I support that. I think we can't, I do understand what Councillor Ross is raising in part, but I think that some of that seems like it's relating to the Developer Contributions Plan for Vineyard, etc., which are different. They're not voluntary planning agreements. I think we do need a policy, and we know we have a history of poor voluntary planning agreements. But I think the other thing to note is that we do also have an input into the voluntary planning agreements once they're drafted and that we have them come to Council. And in the past, we have pushed for better Or better inclusions in those agreements and so on. So I think that we do need to have this timed, because if we're going to wait for something like Council to have a better computer system and to have a body overseeing exactly what goes on with the developer contributions, we could be waiting for a very long time.

So whereas I really do value the input of the audit committee, and I think they can comment on that. If they were to raise something that was an absolute deficit and that we should be waiting for, then that can come back in the next report that comes back in October in that meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Rasmussen, you wish to speak on the amendment?

Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I don't see a big issue with the amendment at all. The audit committee does a great job, and it does delve into some very granular operations or some tasks of Council, particularly in this area. And Councillor Ross is absolutely correct, and I'm in total violent agreement with him that these tasks have been outstanding for a considerable time, and they should have been gotten on top of. But as we know, and I think Councillor McRealer said this, the perfect is perfect, but often gets in the way of the good or the better. Council staff and we as a Council, we need a number of tools to handle the contributions that developers of all shapes and sizes need to make, so that we are not left with infrastructure lacking, roads not footpath and so on and so on and so on, and I think this is a case where we have a better stance , a better solution than we obviously have had in the past.

I think I said in my initial comment that we have a history, a long, unfortunately not a very meritorious history of coming up with very bad VPAs that do not, that do not or are not in the best interest of the community in terms of development and contributions and so on. And I for one want to see that changed. Now there are a number of tools, and I think the Chief Planner has raised those, the Deputy Mayor has raised that as well, and if we, we need this policy on the streets very soon. The last thing I want to say, Mr Mayor, is this. The policy has been on exhibition in January, running through to February, on my reading, and we've had one very, very detailed and very good, in my view, submission, and we should thank that person for taking the time to go through this in such great detail.

But the fact is that it's been on exhibition, and if the Internal Audit Committee or anybody on the Internal Audit Committee had issues with this, it would have been a good time for a submission to go to Council to raise sort of specific issues with this. Now, I know the work has to be done. Clearly has to be done by staff. I don't agree that it's a walk in the park for some of these tasks to be completed. We all know that there's an awful lot of work to be completed on all sorts of fronts, and this one is important. And so, Mr Mayor, I certainly encourage that we get this VPA policy on the street as quickly as possible. And I think by the next Council's committee meeting, that that would be the longest possible, I think, time that we should delay on this particular important issue.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor Wheelie. You wish to clarify something?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a slight wording change to point two, that the policy be tabled for further consideration by the Audit Committee. Councillor Conolly, are you happy with that change?

Yes, Mr Mayor. Yes. Any further speakers on the amendment?

If not, I'll put the amendment.

If you're in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Sam Progner, Councillor Cutlass, Councillor Richards, Councillor Garrow. Those against? Councillor Ross. Abstained is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anybody? I declare the amendment carried. The amendment is now the motion. Any further discussion?

No blue hands. Councillor Rasmussen, it's actually your motion. It's been amended twice. You have right of reply. Yeah, it muster be. I don't think it's necessary. Thank you very much. Okay, well, that was the right of reply, so I'll put the amended motion . If you're in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Sam Progner, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Richards, Councillor Garrow, absent is Councillor Tree. I didn't miss anyone, did I? In that case, I'll declare it carried. Thank you.

Item 139, please. Please use your blue hands.

Councillor Rasmussen, you wish

To move? Yeah, move that way, Mr Mayor. I do, thank you. Do

We have a seconder? I'm

Happy with that, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Conolly. Councillor Rasmussen.

Just quickly, Mr Mayor, I notice that the—it's a good report, obviously, and the numbers look good. What are we at, $66 million folding money in the bank, so that's a good thing. So we're certainly well cashed up on that front. What I want to say is this, though, that the advice, the investment advice that we have received, and that's listed in the report, is quite sound, in my book, and it does recommend that we go seek better returns from non-first-tier banks, that is banks other than the four major banks in Australia. I don't have a problem with that per se, but, yeah , and I think there's caution, and I think the investment advice is 5% of our total cash. So that's probably a reasonable way to try and chase better returns, because the returns at the moment, or when we roll some of them over, and that's the risk to our budget, is that it will probably drop back to less than 1% for our investment.

So, and then it talks about a new product. On the— I've just lost the word of what it is, the finance, the Chief Finance Officer will tell us. But it seems to me that if such instruments are also available, we should be using that sort of strategy as well. And I do note that in the report, the council staff do make comment that we have begun the process of looking at that. So my question, perhaps Mr Mayor at the end, is could I have some idea of where those processes of looking into these investments, which are likely to give us better returns as we roll over into much lower interest returns. Thank you. General Manager. I refer that to the Chief Financial Officer, Mr Mayor

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In regard to investing with second tier banks, we have started that process and we've actually, after this report was produced, we did undertake an investment with one of those organisations. So there's quite a process to set ourselves up. So we are working through being ready to go to take advantage when those rates come up from those institutions. In regard to floating rates notices, which essentially it's like, it works like a variable mortgage where the rate fluctuates based on the bank bill swap rate plus a margin. That it also reflects prevailing market conditions. We have started the process in regard to understanding how the product works and the risks associated with it and the practical process how it would work.

And essentially, the latest advice, which was a bit earlier this week, was that it's quite simple to take advantage of those notes when they come out. However, given the current banking situation, it's probably unlikely we're going to see floating rate notices with good returns in the very short term. But having said that, we are in a position to take advantage of those if we had surplus funds. So also, just to clarify, floating rate notices, they're not like a normal term deposit where essentially a deposit matures and you look for a new one. With floating rate notice, the notice comes out and if you don't have surplus funds available at the time, you're potentially unable to take advantage of it.

So it's quite a complex process that we're working through, but we're certainly actively acting on the advice of the advisor as is reported in the report. And hopefully going forward, we'll have a bit more of a mix in our investment portfolio to try and maintain interest rates at least to achieve budget. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for that explanation.

Thank you, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd just like to make the comment that I think would be helpful for people such as myself to understand and my fellow councillors. To understand or be supplied some additional information. The first piece of information I'd like, in regard to the 62. 246 million, is that what component of that is represented by the City's deal funding that Council has received. And secondly, which I would also appreciate being reported separately, the combined efforts of the state and federal governments in terms of supply and grant relief funding, etc., in regard to fire and flood events that we've incurred, which all of those three elements I'd put to staff are, shall we say, abnormal and certainly weren't prevailing in the situation of Council up to the latter part of last year.

And I think it would be helpful if we were to know those on a running monthly basis to ascertain just where funds are being held in relation to, shall we say, regular activities, as opposed to these major inputs that, shall we say, one-offs, or we hope one-offs in one way or another. Thank you.

So to clarify, Councillor Ross, you wanting those answers now, or are you suggesting they should come in future in every report?

I would hope so. Thank you for the question. To have those identified on each following occasion. Whilst those programs are in vogue and operative,

So you don't want an answer tonight?

No, I think that'd be impolite. Yes

So you would like to recommend that that be included in future reports. Yes, please. Thank you. Would you like to add that to the recommendation?

Oh, I'd be delighted to, if you could accommodate that, sir.

Well, it's up to Councillor Rasmussen if he'd like to add that to the recommendation. Yeah, that'll be fine. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thank you. And Councillor Conolly, you're happy with that change?

Councillor Conolly?

I can't see you. Yes, sorry, yes, that's fine.

Thank you. Okay, so any further speakers on the motion as it now stands?

No. Councillor Rasmussen, you have right of reply. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. Not necessary, thank you. Okay, in that case, that was right of reply, I'll put the motion. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Ross, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Sam Prokopnow, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Richards, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow. Absent is Councillor Tree. Have I missed anybody? No. Declare it carried.

Item 1.40, please use your blue hands. Hardship policy. Councillor Conolly.

Yeah, I move the recommendation, please, Mr Mayor.

Moved by Councillor Conolly. Second. Seconded by Councillor Rasmusson. Councillor Conolly.

I don't think much discussion is required. There's been no change since we put it on exhibition, other than a couple of definitions added. So I think generally we can take that as support. For the policy, and I think we should adopt it.

Okay. Any further speakers?

Going once.

No further speakers. Councillor Zamprogno.

Yeah, it's just a question for the General Manager. It would be interesting to know what uptake there has been under Council's hardship provisions .

Was it intended that

This contain a snapshot of such things, or am I missing it?

I don't think so, but I'll ask the General Manager. I would be curious.

Mr Mayor, in the report we do mention that we're going to provide Councillors with an update in the near future on this. There has been some uptake from some of the commercial operators. There's also been some uptake from residents, but not as high as we were expecting, anticipating, and we wanted to give Councillors a more comprehensive report in due course when we've got a better position for the year ended 30th of June, and a bit of a snapshot going forward, given that the rates notices have recently been issued.

I'm satisfied with that, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further speakers? Going once. Going twice. Gone. Councillor Conolly, right of reply?

Not required, Mr Mayor. Not necessary. I'll put the motion. Those all in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Rasmusson, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Garrow . Those against? Councillor Richards, was your hand for or against? Can't hear you. For.

Also for the motion is Councillor Richards. Absent is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anybody? No. Declare it carried.

To item 141, please use your blue hands, Deputy Mayor.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor.

Second that, Mr Mayor. Councillor Laspas and Deputy Mayor, do you wish to speak?

Just briefly, councillors will see from the recommendation that there are a number of items to just draw to the attention of councillors from the committee, just about seeking endorsement that we, regarding, for example, number five, the Richmond Bridge duplication project, that the committee will look at that again once the information regarding Council's work on strategic transport is available. There's a couple of items that were suggested by the committee to recommend that Council have a briefing on, including the regional flood mitigation in the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley policy, which was an older policy that we have been looking at, the draft development on flood liable land. And just to note in point two that we did bring forward something from the committee that was included in our Council submission to the flood-prone land package .

And I think that was pretty much everything. It's very self-explanatory. It's very well set out, whoever set out how the minutes and the council report are written. I think it very comprehensively delivers what was discussed in the meeting and the recommendations brought forward from the committee

Thank you. Any further speakers?

Going once. Councillor Rasmussen.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yeah, look, on the point of setting out minutes, and I think they're well set out and describes, in my view, what we actually did. But something that I hadn't noticed with all these minutes coming out of the floodplain before, but after each item

There is a statement as to what the advisory committee resolved, and it's usually put in italics. And then below that there is a statement or a sentence which says, It is recommended that Council receive a separate briefing and report on this matter.

I'm just trying to resolve or find out whether was that part of the resolution of the committee, or has that been inserted by staff? And a further one is item number five, where the advisory committee resolved, and it's listed in the report in italics, that one, two, and then there's a further sentence or paragraph which goes on, The recommendation from the Floodplain Management Advisory Committee is considered to be appropriate. Is that a staff insertion, or was that part of the advisory committee's resolution? I don't... I'll

Put that to the General Manager in the first instance.

Mr Mayor, can I just ask the councillor to advise what page he's referring to? Oh yeah, 73.

73.

Thank you, Mr Mayor and Deputy Mayor, that's right, 73. But it's sort of, that particular pattern flows through the whole report: item 3, item 5, item 6. And there seems to be a comment on whether the committee's resolution is appropriate, or I'm just not sure how it fits in, that's all.

Mr Mayor, the officers have at the beginning of the report on page 71 identified the matters that have no policy or resource implications for Council, and those resolutions are listed for Council's information. However, where a committee recommendation has a policy or resource implication, they are highlighted and put before Council for formal consideration, and in doing so the staff have provided comments in relation to those specific committee recommendations. I can provide that general overview response, and if you wanted to speak to the staff about a particular matter, they could go to page 73 and discuss item 5 as an example if you wanted to.

And then those items in italics are included in the recommendations, correct?

Andrew, do you want

To answer that

So just highlighting, obviously, so this is the report of the committee, and the actual minutes of the committee are attached to that report. So the report of the committee is highlighting what actually was resolved by the committee, and with comments provided by staff at the end of each copied resolution of the committee. And

The minutes are on page 75.

That's correct, yeah, as an attachment.

Okay. Councillor Rasmussen, are you happy with that?

Yes and no. I'm just wondering whether, okay, I'm just wondering how to explain this without seeming to be churlish about it, but if a recommendation or a resolution of the committee was not— a resolution was made, but that was not acceptable to staff, would they then make a recommendation to Council not to accept it? I'm wondering whether the resolution by itself could go to Council, and Council could then determine whether it was appropriate or not appropriate. I'm just sort of a bit ambivalent with that process. Now, maybe it's been like that forever and I haven't noticed it, but it did strike me today when I was reading the great detail of it. But I might just, yeah , look, I might take it up with Mr Conroy. Thanks very much.

Item 2 on page 73 concludes with, It is recommended Council receive a separate briefing and report on this matter, yet it still appears in the recommendation on page 71. So I would say no, staff, don't take it out, just from my observation. Mr Kearns, did you want to answer that?

So just in terms of that item, it was just mentioned before. So the actual recommendation from the committee was for Council to endorse the adoption of the policy for the purposes of public exhibition. The staff comment at the end of, on the report of the committee is that there's a separate briefing and a separate report that comes to Council in that regard. So we've taken the committee's resolution on board, but it's a matter that we think that the Council needs to see. separately, rather than just being resolved through the minutes of the committee.

So I would say it's more of a transfer, it's not an amalgamation. Would that be right?

So where we support the committee's recommendation to Council, that's passed straight through to the recommendation. Where there's slight amendments that are required to, in this case, we think Council needs to have a separate briefing and consider the matter further, that's when we make changes to the actual. We don't bring forward the actual recommendation from the committee; we put a separate recommendation.

Okay. Councillor Rasmussen are you satisfied?

Look, I'm happy, yeah, I am satisfied. Thank you very much, and I thank you for that explanation. I'm just wondering whether that particular way of doing things flows across all of the council committees, because I hadn't noticed it before, and I sit on quite a few of them. But anyway, I'll leave it and I'll have a chat to the General Manager. Thank you.

Okay, well we might ask the General Manager to give us a report on that in future. Deputy Mayor, you wish to speak?

I do, because in what Councillor Rasmussen has raised, I then, I did see that, but I didn't take it up as much as he had, and I probably should have because I was concentrating on the recommendation and recalling from the floodplain notes that I had. But in other words, so for point three and four, it's recommended to have a briefing, and yet that's not in the recommendation. But now we don't. I'm a little perplexed. I'm a little perplexed by the inclusion of that, and I know we were sent the minutes and I did read the minutes, but I hadn't even thought of it in that context. But I think the committee were happy to adopt the briefing, the policies as put forward to go on public exhibition, and I expect that if any real issues arose, we could deal with that then in the future.

So I think I'm happy with the recommendation as it is because I think we had a briefing that was included the flood liable land policy. I was pretty sure had already come to a council briefing. Am I incorrect on thinking that? There's several flood strategies and policies around at the moment, and I know that we have had several briefings on it.

Mr Conroy?

That's through the Manager Strategic Planning, Mr Mayor.

So in terms of the proposed draft development of flood liable land policy and the draft amended policy for regional flood mitigation, they're matters that have been through the Floodplain Committee. There hasn't been a separate briefing of councillors to date on those draft policy or amended policy, and that's why, as officers, we felt rather than simply adopting the recommendation from the committee that councillors really needed to be briefed and consider the matter separately. Sorry, I was

Going to ask Mr Conroy, do you think it'd be possible for us to clarify this situation at a briefing session next week? Yes, Mr Mayor, we can do that. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Well, I would be happy to include having a briefing on that, only because I think that it may go on public exhibition and someone might call for a briefing on it after that. So, because I know that flood related issues are, so of interest to everybody, to all councillors, perhaps if we do move down that path on, for those two policies, the rest of the recommendation I would leave as is. But for items three and four, I would change that to the recommendation of staff to have a councillor briefing

What I was asking Mr Conroy, Deputy Mayor, was whether we could have a discussion next week on Councillor Rasmussen's question about the actual status of these items when the staff reply to them or report on them , just to clarify how the minutes and the report work. I wasn't suggesting that those particular two items should go to next week's briefing session. I don't know whether that would be possible, Mr Conroy.

Mr Mayor, I understood your original interpretation, just to explain the mechanics of the reporting process. And when we do that, we can give you an indication of the timing for the briefing and the report on these matters if the councillors are interested in that. Okay,

Thank you. Deputy Mayor, you're finished?

No, well, that would still stand. I would like to amend my own motion to include the recommendation that those two policies go to council briefings.

Would you like to name the policies for the minutes ? In

Points 3 and 4 of the recommendation on page 71, it would be, for both of those, it would be to , instead of receiving a separate report, I know that 4.3 that we've already had some input and we've contributed to a submission, but as Mr Kearns just said, we haven't had a councillor briefing on it as such. So it would be, instead of to receive a separate report on the draft development, it would be to have a briefing on the draft development on flood liable land policy 2020. And on point 4, the same wording for the draft amended policy on regional flood mitigation. Is

That, Mr General Manager, is that timeline possible to have this by next week?

I'll have to speak to the relevant staff,

Mr Mayor.

So if I may, the two items are scheduled for a briefing, and the recommendations could be amended to say receive a separate report on the draft, on the various policies following a councillor briefing, just adding the words following a councillor briefing. A councillor briefing.

Thank you, that

Would be very good, thank you. Okay,

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a question. It was my understanding that all policies had to come to Council. I was a bit confused. I would have thought that a recommendation from an advisory committee... Would just say that they recommend that, you know, they endorse the policy. But I would have thought it was a moot point that it comes to Council. But am I right in saying that all policies must come to Council? They don't ever get

Referred to public exhibition straight from a committee. Is that right?

Mr Mayor, the Council is responsible for Council policies. The committees can make recommendations, but ultimately it's the Council responsibility to determine, firstly , does it want such a policy? Secondly, the format of the policy, and then the exhibition of the policy and adoption.

So

My point was we don't really need to change that, that those recommendations coming out of the Floodplain Advisory Committee were as— they were appropriate. Possibly the wording was a bit weak.

Well, look, we'll talk about this on Tuesday night, but historically the reports used to come to Council with no context at all, and Council sometimes found itself adopting , endorsing a policy that it had had no real involvement in. So the approach that's been implemented is to try and identify any matters that have a resource or policy implication and to make sure that Council are aware of that implication and make sure that they're supportive of it or otherwise.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash,

Satisfied with that answer?

Councillor Kotlash, you've gone home,

Apparently. Councillor Wheeler.

Sorry. No, that's all from me. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Councillor

Wheeler. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yeah, I would appreciate the explanation around how this is now feeding into us coming to a briefing. I can certainly see the intent, and I can see that it will be helpful. What I think needs to, I think we need to understand how this is now happening, what the implications are for us as decision makers. But I think we also need to explain to the committees involved that there will be this intermediary step as well, because I would hate for committee members to read these minutes and, at the moment we've got recommendations that are considered appropriate, but I think it would be a very uncomfortable position to put committee members in to feel that their positions had then been adjudicated by the very staff who've sat through the council, those committee meetings with them, and not highlighted that perhaps some of the resolutions weren't appropriate at the time.

So I think we need to probably manage this a little bit more transparently. I applaud the intention. I think we have to get the delivery right, because these people give of their time, and we need to treat that respectfully, I think. There's a couple of things that aren't reflected in these minutes simply because it hasn't come up. One of them is the increased working relationship between Council and the representatives from the Department of Planning and Infrastructure. We've now developed a really good working relationship, and that's actually saving Council some time and resourcing because they're now very happy to give of their time and expertise across to Council staff, and that's a really good step forward, I think.

The other thing that’s referred to in item 7, which I think is a useful point for Council to note, because the floodplain management conference was all online this year because of COVID, we were able to, and it was very cheap, and we basically bought a package of tickets, so it wasn’t any more expensive to bring community members along. A number of community members were able to attend that conference, and it was really, really useful, and all of them reported how useful they found it and how thankful they were for the opportunity. People who’ve been working in this space for a very long time were able to listen to the expert presentations and really engage through the system that was set up, and I think that was really valuable.

They’ve asked that Council consider in the future allowing community members of the committee to continue to participate next year. The conference is in Sydney, should we ever get together to do anything again. It’s at Luna Park next year, because there won’t be any transport and accommodation costs. It’s possible that we could consider committee members joining us again. It was quite valuable, so I just wanted to highlight that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further speakers on this matter? I don’t have any blue hands up . Councillor

Deputy Mayor, you moved this. Do you want to have right of reply

Thank you. Just briefly, Mr Mayor, thank you. I valued the contributions of councillors around that. It will be good to clarify just what the situation is and to sort that out, but— Yes , I just agree with what Councillor Wheeler just said as well about how well we are working with those agencies and so on. It's a very valuable committee in terms of the information that we get back in, and sharing that with the other councillors is really something that's very important. So I look forward to being able to work on that mechanism so that we better get it formulated. But thank you to Councillor Rasmussen for raising that as well.

Thank you. That was right of reply. So I will now put the motion. If you're in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Rasmussen, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ross, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Reynolds, I think. Yes, Councillor Richards said yes. Yes, Councillor Garrow and Councillor Conolly. Absent is Councillor Tree. Did I miss anyone? Declare it carried. That's the end of the items for.

That's the end of the items for debate in public. I believe we now can move into confidential. Would someone like to move that we move into confidential? Move, Mr Mayor. Second that, Mr Mayor. Moved Councillor Connelly, seconded Councillor Rasmussen, and all those in favour say aye. Aye. Anybody against? Declared carried. Anyone who's still listening out there, we're going to disappear for a while and go into confidential and then come back when we finish that item. Thank you.

Those members of the public who have managed to hang on, welcome back. Councillor Rasmussen. Sorry, Mr Mayor, could I be a bit

Of a nuisance? For a change. For a change, yeah, that's right. It happens once every 25 years, so please, indulgence. Your indulgence, sorry. Now, on the minutes that we passed earlier, item number 127, which is the Hawkesbury War Memorial eligibility criteria deed, and it appears on page 22 of the minutes. The resolution number 155 says that the resolution was a result on the motion of Councillor Rasmussen and seconded by Councillor Rasmussen. Clearly,

I don't

Have that much power, so— You're a very powerful person

Councillor.

I know, I know, I know. I get around. So I think it should have been Councillor Lyons-Buckett in place of me appearing twice. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

I'll ask the staff to make that change to the minutes. Is there any discussion on that? Anyone wish to speak against it? I'll put that change. All those in favour say aye. Aye. Those against? Declare it carried.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

We welcome back everyone and I ask the General Manager for a report on the confidential section.

Put that through the

Director of Support Services, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Thanks, Mr Mayor. In regard to item 144, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Ross, seconded by Councillor Rasmussen, that one, Council agree to enter into a new lease with Jeanette James and Veronica Thompson for the property known as Shop 9 Glossodia Shopping Village as outlined in the report. Two, authority be given for the lease and any relevant documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessees together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put such resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.

Voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Ross, Rasmussen, Garrow, Reynolds, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Kotlash, Zembrogno, Conolly, Richards and Calvert. No councillors voting against the motion. Councillor Tree was not present at the voting. Thanks, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Any further business? Can I just invite everyone to go down to the museum in the next few days and ring the bell, sign the petition to save the Windsor Bridge. I'm going down at 2.15 tomorrow for an official photograph. Anyone who wants to join me there, as long as there's not too many, keep our safe distance , you're welcome to do so. Councillor Rasmussen, are you waving or drowning?

Not drowning. No,

Thank you,

Mr Mayor.

I was just pointing out the wonderful

Background that I've got on my video. Oh, okay. On my

Video . Thank you. Thank you. Save Windsor Bridge. Any further business? If not, I'll close the meeting at 9 .46 p.m. Thank you very much.