Ordinary Meeting - 30 April 2021

Good evening, everybody. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians and pay my respects to all Elders past, present and emerging. And I hand over to the Acting General Manager.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Members attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you'll be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I'd also like to advise that in accordance with Clause 5.18 of the Code of Meeting Practice, 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 revision 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.

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We have a couple of apologies requests for leave, actually, from Councillor Garo and Councillor Rasmussen. Somebody wish to move Moved, Deputy Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Declare it carried. Somebody wish to move the confirmation of the previous— sorry, declarations of interest. Any declarations?

Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, Mr Mayor. Let me find it, let me find it, let me find it. Item 58, pecuniary.

Okay.

No other declarations. Somebody wish to move the confirmation of the previous minutes.

Move, Mr Mayor.

Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Okay.

Declare it carried.

Before we move on to agenda item, subjects public address, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the passing of John Miller since we last met. John was somebody who made a huge contribution to the Hawkesbury every lifetime. He was a member of many local boards and committees over a long, long time. He was always committed to advancing the interest of the Hawkesbury. He had a deep appreciation for and interest in local history, wrote a number of books and papers about our local history. I personally met John about 15 years ago through our mutual membership of the Liberal Party. But John had friends and connections across the political spectrum, and his number one priority was always getting infrastructure and services for our region.

He was a mushroom farmer and told me once of the challenges he had with floods in his first few years of farming in the Hawkesbury and how many times he had to start again from nothing. And this sparked for him a lifelong passion for flood mitigation. And he spent years leading the charge to raise the wall of Warragamba Dam and to push the case for a third river crossing. John made an extraordinary contribution to our community, and I'd like to propose that we have a minute's silence in his memory.

Just

Stand for that.

Thank you, everyone.

So we have three items subject to public address. The first item is Item 57, the Commonwealth Local Roads and Community Infrastructure Program, and our first speaker is Mr Peter Ryan. Good.

Thank you, Council, for letting me speak tonight, Councillors, and I'm going to speak to you in favour of the Brennan Dams Road proposal. At the Pitt Town Progress Association meeting on the 4th of March 2019, the following motion was carried unanimously by the members. The Pitt Town Progress Association recommend to Hawkesbury Council to tar, seal, Old Stock Route Road, Commercial Road and Brennan Dams Road. The intersection of Windsor Road and Brennan Dams Road already provides adequate safe turning lanes, both into and out of the intersection. Sealing this section of road would have the effect of reducing congestion at the intersections of Windsor Road and Pitt Town Road. That was the motion that was moved by the people of Pitt Town, put to you.

Now this road upgrade would benefit many people, not just the Pitt Town people, but also Oakville people. It would give us another access out to the main road. The intersection of Pitt Town Road, Windsor Road continues to become congested by the month. The upgrade of the intersection of those two state roads would be expensive and there's really no plans to do it. The Progress Association therefore supports the proposal of upgrading the road. If Council should wish to go ahead with this in a staged— For. I believe the people of Pitt Town would be very much for that, and it is something that needs to be done, especially with the increase of traffic from the Arndell College. They seem to be starting to use that even more as another access to their college.

So with that, I thank you very much, and I hope you people see in favour to vote for this proposal. Thanks

Happy to take questions.

I am happy to.

Any questions, Mr Ryan? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Ryan. You referred to the staged option , and I think we've got an outline in the business paper of three stages. Obviously, you would prefer to see all of it done at once. What would be the minimum that would give you a significant amenity improvement?

Sorry, Mr Ryan, your microphone isn't on. Thank you.

Perhaps we could get the tar work done so that it's an extremely rough and gutted road. That would give us access in the wet weather, and I believe the safety gates would be extremely important there due to the fact that people are not that well educated. They only got educated a week or so ago in relation to floods, and that was one hell of an education for them. We did actually have a flood information night in 2019 in December, and a lot of people told us there's something wrong with you people. It's never going to flood again. Well, they got it wrong. But I believe if we could get the road tarred, keep the dust down, make it a smooth in and out, it'd be a great step forward, and then look at the other works, and especially those gates. I have a fear that someone will get killed out there.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Zamprogno. Hey , yeah, Mr Ryan, on behalf of the Pitt Town community, what's your estimation of how well used that road is as a legitimate conduit to Windsor Road and avoiding the lights at McGrath's Hill?

At present, it's not overused due to the state of the Tar sections, but I believe it would become further used. My thing is, especially with the RDL school, because the intersection of Saunders Road, Correction, Woolsley Road and Pitt Town Road, even though in the section the developer was supposed to give us funds to develop that intersection, and as we know, those funds never arrived. State Government have told us that they've done something. I notice that they have repainted one give way sign. That's about all they did. But we need that intersection upgraded. I don't think they're going to do it for us, even though we've lobbied continuously to have it done. And this would take a lot of pressure off that intersection, especially in school times.

And just not for the school people, but for people who live at Pitt Town coming through there. It is at times quite congested, and we have an easy route out by going down Brennan's Dam Road and Stock Route Road. I believe it would become more and more used as time goes on as people become aware of it.

Thanks, Mr Ryan. No further questions? Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno.

Yes, Mr Mayor, I'd like to move a form of words, and while they're being brought up onto the screen, the form of words is coupled with a question for our Director of Infrastructure. I was speaking with our Director of Infrastructure... Earlier today and put some questions to him, and I want to put that question to him for the benefit of the chamber. Yeah

I'll allow the question while we get the motion up.

All right then. So through you, Mr Mayor, Mr Organ, if we wanted to have our cake and eat it too and expend the 1.8 million that's recommended in the business paper and the 694K that's recommended in the business paper on a variety of footpath improvements, but then at least find the money for stage one of the Brennans Dam Road works, is there some other restaging that might be able to be achieved towards that outcome?

Through you, Mr Mayor, if that council was of a mind to do stage one of Brennans Dam Road, that'd require an additional $250,000. If there was a priority out of the road rehabilitation program, I would recommend there's actually two stages within the Y Lane at North Richmond works. Second stage of that would be $250,000, and that is also included in the draft VPA for the Jacaranda development. So if council was to spend the money there, it would mean further works in the Glossodia area. However, in terms of priority, that's one location where the road rehab could be deferred, and you could take $250,000 out of that to fund the Brennans Dam Road works if council wished.

Thank you, Mr Organ. So on that basis, I'd like to propose a form of words and seek a seconder.

So the thing we're bringing up, but just to clarify, the form of words you're after is that we— here it is.

All right then. So the

Main change there is you've decreased Yer Lane from 430 to 180.

That's correct, Mr Mayor. So what I'm attempting to achieve here is a variation on the recommendation in the business paper that has the 1.8 million, as

It was indicated with the Yer Lane variation. It has the full $694,000 for the footpath upgrades in a variety of locations around the LGA, but it seeks to fund stage one of the Brennan's Dam roadworks that will tar Old Stoker Road and Brennan's Dam Road, and is in addition to, I might say, highly complementary to the 160K that's allocated in this.

Seconder at this point? Yes, we're starting to debate. Thank you. Is there a seconder?

Mr Mayor, can I just ask a question? Oh, okay. It's all right. I'll

Let Councillor Zambrogni finish speaking and then I'll come back to you

No, it was to do with getting a seconder, but it's okay because that's done there. Okay.

Okay

I have a seconder. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I make no apology for banging on about this and roads in this end of our city for the last four and a half years. I know that we deal with finite resources. I know that we can't do everything that we would want to, but I have contended over and over again that the state of this particular road is a disgrace and badly lets down the expectations of the Oakville community and other people that use that road as a means to access Oakville and access Windsor Road. And in an attempt to find a compromise here, what I've requested staff do is to stage the works and to tell us what it would— do what it would take to get the ball rolling. And stage one, I think, goes an enormously long way to keeping faith with that end of our city and its community, and I seek the support of the Chamber. Thank you. Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I just had a question just at the start of this that I think just might help the public to understand a little more around it, and that was a question regarding the impacts on the roads from the floods and how our rehabilitation of those roads and our repairs of those roads will be funded. Is this likely to be grant funding? Is it going to have to come out of a budget? How are we actually going to do that? I'm just drawing attention to it so that the public understand if this is specifically allocated funding for specific things, it's not going to deprive us fixing the roads that have been damaged.

Okay, I refer that to the Director of Infrastructure Services

Through you, Mayor, yeah, this is additional funding. The best way to describe this is actually a COVID-related stimulus program, and it's got some specific rules around it in terms of getting money spent out there quickly. In terms of the damage to our roads, that will need to be addressed through the Natural Disaster Funding Agreements and Arrangements, where we'd be seeking to carry out immediate works within the next three weeks, and then the other works then be claimable under that. So a lot of these roads would also benefit. A lot of these ones would also be affected by the recent storms as well, wet weather as well as the flooding. So again, this will go some way to assisting in some of those other streets. But the rest of the funding would be going from, with the blessing of the state and Commonwealth, from the natural disaster funding agreement.

Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. I just wanted that to be understood.

Thank you. Councillor

Wheeler.

Similar questions, I suppose. So if we withdraw this funding from Wyalane, how much does the remaining funding get us in Wyalane, and why is Wyalane on this list as a priority at the moment? What's the, I guess what I'm really asking is what's the impact of withdrawing this funding from that pool at this point? Through

You, Mr. Organ. Again through you, Mayor. Wyalane, there's one section of it, the Spinks Road end, which is significantly deteriorating, and there was some urgency in bringing that work forward. We took the view in putting together the initial list here that it would be good to complete a larger section of Wyalane, rather than just potentially attract criticism that we're only doing one small section. However, in parallel with that, we also have the VPA for Jacaranda, which also identifies that as one of the potential projects. So again, we can also look at bringing that work in from that area.

So what would the delay to the rest of, so is this enough to do that area that's particularly problematic on Wyalane?

Yeah, that's the stage one, which is the 180,000. Okay

And what sort of time frame are we then looking at to do the rest of that area?

We would continue to maintain that area. Obviously, if there are significant failures, we can accommodate that through our general rehabilitation funding. Alternatively, it depends on the staging with Jacaranda as to when full reconstruction of that widening would occur. So that would

Take some time. That's correct. Thank you.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a quick question about Brennan's Dam Road. Was there any damage sustained to that road from these heavy rainfall and flooding that we've just had?

Through you, Mayor, I would hazard a guess that there is. However, there would be one of the issues under the Natural Disaster Funding is generally there's a no betterment clause. So we could restore it back to what it was immediately prior to the flood event and drainage, but there's no betterment can be done out of it. Okay. Further

Discussion? Councillor Rounds. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Organ, you just said then that any damage to Brennan's Dam Road from last week's flood would be funded from a separate disaster relief grant. Is that right

Depending on what the damage is. So what we bring it back to, what they will fund under the Natural Disaster arrangements is bringing it back to the condition it was in immediately before the event. Okay

So the item we're discussing now is the infrastructure program extension for local roads. When does this work have to be completed?

The $2.4 million worth of works needs to be completed by 31st of December of this year. So

This has to be— okay, so the 31st of December this year, is it likely that Brennan's Dam Road will be restored to as was condition before— Will before the 31st of December. What I'm wondering is, we're talking about upgrading Brennans Dam Road, but if Brennans Dam Road has deteriorated because of the recent flood, then the remediation works on that deterioration must be done before we spend money, spend this money. And if we're going to run out of time to do the work that's covered by this particular grant before the remediation works are done, then we're in a kind of pickle.

You see what I'm getting at? If we have to spend— if we have so much money that we have to spend in a certain amount of time to upgrade Brennans Dam Road, but Brennans Dam Road has now become in even worse condition, we can't do that upgrading until the repair work is done. If the repair work isn't done in time, then we'll be in— I'm just wondering, so is it likely that Brennans Dam Road will be restored to pre-flood conditions before the 31st of December?

Hand on heart, I probably can't say with absolute certainty, but the issue, knowing the experience of what would generally be required at Brennans Dam Road is simply grading and the filling of any scours and so on. So it's a matter of a few days' work to get it back to the condition it was in. If there were significant damage to the culvert, we'd be looking at drainage works there as part of that stage one work, which we believe we could still accommodate within the time frame of this 31st of December. But the grading and bringing it back to the condition it was in is not seen as problematic for us. Can I ask the question on that? There's been no major damage out there.

So there hasn't been any major deterioration out there, is that right?

Not that we're aware of at the moment, but again, that would wait until waters have fully receded and we'll assess the culvert down there. But at this stage, we've had no reports of significant damage to that as a result of the flooding.

Is it underwater at the moment,

Do you know? I don't know off the top of my head.

Okay.

Okay ,

Thank you. Just a follow-up question on that line of questioning. If we were to adopt this schedule and any of these projects we find in the next month or two look like they're not going to be finished by 31 December, we still have the opportunity to identify different projects that we can get done?

Yes. What we would need to do is, I think we've got until 1 June to put a revised program together and have that altered. The process for this is that we would submit this list of works to the Commonwealth. They would endorse those fairly quickly. But if there was any amendments to that, we would need to go back to them, I think by 1 June. Okay.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. Just a final question, and then I'll speak, if that's all right. My biggest concern with the Brennans Dam Road proposal has always been about the longevity of works, given that it is an area that has been washed out in the past. Are we satisfied that this staged process will last, or is it likely to be something that we do and it's damaged? Over

To Mr Organ.

So Council had allocated funding this year to carry out significant armouring and protection on the culvert itself. So those works are designed to protect that, as well as the gating of it to prevent vehicular access whilst the road is underwater, which is probably the major, apart from the scour at the culvert itself, most of the damage occurs as a result of vehicles trying to get through there in wet weather.

So

The gating is already covered. The gating is covered in the initial council allocation. Yeah

Good. And it seems to me, in fact, that given that this road isn't in good condition, but is likely to be impacted by future natural disasters, there may be some benefit in having this road in a better condition so that we can then claim to get it back to that condition down the track. Whereas by maintaining this in a fairly poor condition, we leave ourselves open all the time not only to that road being further damaged, but not being able to claim anything for remediation works. So I think there is some— I've not been a fan of this proposal in the past, I'll plainly state, but I think this compromised position is probably more palatable for me than one that got rid of footpath works. I think there's a real need to get more footpaths in the LGA, particularly in heavily populated areas like McGrath's Hill, and in areas with young families where we're trying to encourage active transport and encouraging people to walk around in their town centres to the shops and things like that.

So I'm glad to see that this proposal maintains the footpath works in McGrath's Hill. I am a bit worried about Wye Lane because that has been really impacted by truck, by heavy vehicle traffic due to landfill going in at various properties in the area accessed by Wye Lane. And I know that we've had lots of correspondence from residents about the state of Wye Lane. So I would like to see that prioritised with any further funding allocations. I suggest it might be a good idea for us to develop a short list of priority roads in case we have to move quickly if there are changes to what we can do with this funding. So I think we might be best to, if Councillor Zampronio is willing to add an additional point to the resolution that council develop between now and the 1st of June a priority list of additional roads that we might use to supplement this list if required.

All words that actually form a sentence, which I'm not sure those do

At this point. I am amenable to that. So what exactly are we doing?

Just adding an additional point. I can't see the end of the motion, so that, between now and perhaps the end of May, Council develop a secondary list or an additional list of priority roads for works, should either funding be available or funding need to be reallocated.

Okay. While we get that typed up, we might move on if that's all right. Yep. Is there any further speakers? Oh, sorry, Councillor Reynolds. Yeah

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just another question. I'm too concerned about Wyalong, especially now as Itch and Kerman-Willow Forest Road are going to cop a real pounding because Freeman's Reach Road is out of action. So I'm just wondering if Mr Organ could give us a rough ETA to see Freeman's Reach back in use.

Mr

Organ ? A little bit raw still. I guess our first assessment was there was going to be a significant amount of time. We've had some discussions with the adjoining property owners, and we've got probably some interim arrangements can be put in place to get that road open in a matter of probably a month, all being well. So getting some approvals for that, again, had some positive discussions with the adjoining landowners next to some of those slip areas. About how we might get that road back operational, at least, with more extensive works potentially to take place later on. So

By that you mean like a diversion around the damaged section of road?

No, probably to reinstate the damaged section of road with backfill those areas with compacted road base and embankment works to get it operational. So

Just to get it to an operational state

Get it to an operational state .

So that then would take the load off Wyalane and Kermond Woolworths Road once that happens. That's correct. Yeah, okay, thank you.

Do we have that? Getting close. Okay. Deputy Mayor

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just following on, and it's a little bit off track of this, and I echo very much what Councillor Zambrano and Councillor Wheelers said about getting the stage one. I also did have some concerns, and I just wanted to clarify that the stage one would deliver the improvements that Mr Ryan spoke of in terms of the exit traffic from Arndell College and moving off away from the Pitt Town Road intersection. That's correct. That's enough work to enable that volume of traffic to go on there?

The only constraint in that option is that the culvert would still remain a one-lane, single-lane culvert at this stage. We did contemplate putting together, in terms of the staging, the widening of that culvert. That can be done at a later date, but that would be then probably done in conjunction with the commercial road work.

Okay. Yeah. So again— Okay. So if Commercial Road was sealed, I would have concerns over leaving the culvert as a single-lane culvert. But if Commercial Lane is not done, then we can reconfigure that intersection of the two to have— Old Stock Route Road and Brennan's Dam Road as the dominant link

Okay. Thank you. And just while that was on topic, what's a bit off topic is just with regard to Y Lane, more with regard to Terrace Road and the hole near the bridge, is that still meaning the road's still closed there? And when might that road be opened again if it still is?

So, Terrace Road at North Richmond. Yes.

Yeah.

So the section at North Richmond there, so we'll have crews there tomorrow starting the repair of that. So that's probably a week away from completion. Okay.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Are we happy with that form of words, Councillor St Progno and Councillor Richards?

Yep. Okay. Oh, Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to direct some questions in regard to the Director of Infrastructure. So, did I hear you correctly to say that the 160,000 that you've got allocated in this year's works program included armour guard on the existing concrete structure crossing the Kalani-Chinaman's?

I'm not sure what you mean by armour guard, but basically improving the pavement across the culvert and in the approach areas, so that was sealing and constructing that area. Not a

Guardrail. Not a guardrail?

It wasn't contemplating guardrail because we're looking ultimately at widening that

Would you further agree that the condition of the surrounding roads, old Stock Route and Commercial and even Brennan's Farm and Brennan's Dam Road, are adversely affected by the structure which is used to cross Killarney Chaina Ponds at the moment? Is it not totally inappropriate in that situation?

I'm not entirely sure to answer the question this way. The part of the works, the $160,000 was allocated this year, prior to these proposals, was to carry out a range of drainage improvements to align the channel armour , the culvert crossing itself, and carry out works on the approach slabs and approach, the causeway, I guess you would call it, for want of a better description, on the approach to prevent some of that damage to the roads at that point and to the culvert. In terms of the size of the culvert, it is probably still only a one in three month culvert. It will flood frequently regardless of these works here. The intent, though, would be to try and protect that from damage from those frequent events.

Thank you. You would subscribe to the thought that with a rain event of even 50 or 75 mil. That that area is likely to become inundated with the current structure in place as it now stands. Would you agree?

As indicated, it's probably got a one in three month recurrence interval before that overtops the waterway area that's currently there. As I've drawn to Council's attention in the past, the same creek at Boundary Road is a 32-cell, 90 metre long box culvert bridge, essentially. So that's a one in five year. So it's certainly undersized in terms of, you know, having daily frequent use of it during storm events, hence the reason for the gates

Thank you. Would you then agree that if work was done on Old Stock Route Road, for instance, as you're surmising, that because of the high frequency of flooding in that area, that any work done on Old Stock Route Road is going to be subject to a high probability of failure because of the environmental consequences flowing from the flooding?

The intent— so, as I said, the road rises up as you come up Old Stock Route Road. The frequent flooding, as I said, would depend on the magnitude of the storms and what occurs in the local catchment. However, sealing of the road and the associated drainage works that would go with that would be designed to— Protect the pavement that was put in.

Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Very right of reply, Councillor Zampogna.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Excuse me, Mr. Mayor. I haven't had the opportunity even to be able to express a viewpoint. I've sought questions and not expressed a viewpoint. Are you unable to do that?

No, no, but just when I say, is there any further discussion, you would say, yes, please, Mr. Mayor

Thank you very much.

Councillor Ross, you may have some discussion.

Thank you, sir. I'm totally opposed to this proposal because it is the wrong solution to the problem.

The only way to approach this in terms of efficiency and use of resources, of which this council has limited access to, is to, at the moment, withhold this program until the whole situation of Brennans Dam Road is addressed in full, including removal of the current culvert because of its inadequacies and the building of a proper fording of the Killarney Chain of Ponds, which will also allow, because of the development in the hillshire beyond Boundary Road, we don't have a full understanding of the hydrological effects of the hard surfaces that will be there once those houses are built on that property. It will reduce the capacity of the natural environment to absorb water in any form of downpour or rain event.

The current structure is just not capable of handling that situation. It was badly designed 40 or 50 years ago when it was built. The problems with the road, purely as a— significantly as a result of the design of that ford , it needs to be removed , and the whole project needs to be done as a full project of five or six million dollars, whatever it is, with proper planning and access and so on, and including commercial road, because in the next two or three years, we're going to see quite a significant amount of traffic using that area because of the Vineyard Stage One development. And all we're doing at the moment is throwing good money after bad. We're going to have to ultimately spend that money, but it would be better to hold off on that and get on with these other improvements up around McGrath's Hill, which have been wanting for 30 years, and approach this in the full knowledge of what we're about and where we're headed, and it will be an everlasting benefit to the community, with great respect to Pitt Town.

Thank you. Thank you. Is there any further discussion? Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. I appreciate the arguments put forward by councillors and the address by Mr. Ryan, but I can't support this either. It is a diabolical section of road, Brennan Dam Road, and I can't see how it won't be damaged again. In the future, and more money have to be thrown at it. Admittedly, you know, if it's natural disaster, that could be funded by various disaster relief. But the roads west of the river, especially Kermond-Wilberforce Road, is absolutely diabolical. It cops state road traffic. The section of road, I mean, we have scheduled in a complete rehabilitation of Kermond Road between Blacktown and Locke Roads, but I know that it actually extends much further than that up to Voller Lane. And that's not pencilled in for any works here. And so people on the other side of the river have a major corridor

Which is in incredibly poor condition. They don't have any other real road to use, no alternative, unlike at Oakville, and I sincerely believe the money should go where it's needed the most, and I think that is west of the river, especially Kermond Road. Thank you. Thank you

Any further discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just a question regarding the likely time frame of the additional work at Byer Lane, if it were the work that would come out of the Jacaranda. I

Think we had that question already.

I think we probably did, but can you refresh my memory?

I believe—I might have mis-stabbed the answer—was that it depends on the timing in the...

That's what I thought. So would there perhaps be any other opportunities to bring that forward? So if we were to prioritise that on top of our list that Councillor Wheeler has suggested adding on, that could be for some other reallocation of roads. Correct?

That's the idea, I think, yes

Yeah. Okay, thank you. Thanks.

Any further discussion?

There definitely not being any, we have right of reply, Councillor St. Progne.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and briefly. Thank you for the frankness of the debate around the Chamber. I certainly agree with Councillor Wheeler when she points out that if we upgrade this road and it is damaged as the result of a natural disaster, then effectively we're bringing it into the fold of funding to bring it back to that condition, which I think can only be a good thing. I'll be very gratified if Stage 1 can be supported this evening, but in parting I'll say that that then will impose on us or a future Chamber a moral obligation to return to stages 2 and 3 and to complete those works in future operational plans. I commend it to you.

Okay, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor St. Progne, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. Against? Councillor Ross, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Rasmussen and Garry being absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item on our list for public addresses is item 58, but I don't believe the speaker is here. I do have a written submission that I'll be happy to read on when we get to that item. But because we do have other speakers here, our next item will be item 60. I understand Mr. Strogan wanted to correct a couple of errors in the report prior to moving on with that one.

Yes my apologies to the community and the councillors. Gremlin's got into the report and fortunately it was a cut and paste in four places. Need to indicate that the location—just get to my page—in dot point 3 in the recommendation, where it had Hall Bathurst to Johnson Street, Johnson should read Hawkesbury Street. That's repeated in three other locations in the report, unfortunately. Okay,

Thank you. So our first and only speaker on this item is Mr. Peter Ryan.

Thank you very much for affording me the opportunity to speak on this matter. Jeff, there was one other small error in there regarding, on page 99, planning studies. You've got 21 million for planning studies. In fact, I believe it's only 21,000. That's correct, yes. Yeah, okay. Just thought we should get everything correct. Again, I'm speaking on behalf of the Pitt Town Progress Association. I thank you very much for listening to me and affording me this opportunity. I'm speaking in favour of the report to deliver the roadworks at Pitt Town. As you're aware, these roadworks form part of the approval of Pitt Town and were included in the 2008 Section 94 plan. In 2008, the development work commenced and since— At the time of its commencing, a large amount of the development has been completed, and there is approximately 3,000 residents living now in the development area.

Much of the road work remains uncompleted and in poor condition. In the sections of the roadway, Section 2, which is on Bathurst Street just north of Buckingham Street down to and past Johnson Street, was required to be delivered with stormwater drains, kerb and gutter. The cost of the delivery of the stormwater kerb and gutter is expensive, and if these works were to go ahead at the time, there would have been a shortfall in funds to delivering works for the other roads. During the consultation period with Hawkesbury City Council, the residents were asked for an opinion and for their opinion on two options. Option 1 was to have the stormwater piping, kerb and gutter installed in Bathurst Street from Buckingham Street down towards Johnson Street.

Option 2 was to forgo the installation of the stormwater piping, kerb and gutter on Bathurst Street at this time so that the funds could be then directed for roadworks in streets such as Johnson Street, Hawkesbury Street, and even some of Hall Street. The survey came back in favour of Option 2. I'm requesting that Council consider adding a recommendation that the stormwater piping and kerbing, kerb and guttering works on both sides of Bathurst Street between Buckingham Street and Johnson Street be undertaken at a later stage. These works were approved and were voted on by the Progress Association, and I ask you people to move along those lines.

Thank you. Have you take questions?

Councillors have.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So, Mr Ryan, am I correct in divining that your intent here is to seek some affirmation or promise that works not contained in the recommendation tonight are nevertheless addressed at a future time? Is that the nub of it?

That's the nub of it. That's it, yes. We don't need it to fall by the wayside.

I acknowledge that desire, and I want to honour it. But there's very little that Council can do by way of a statement that will tie the hands of a future operational plan or a future chamber. I think all any of us can do is to give a personal undertaking that it will remain a priority and that we would advocate for that. So I'm not sure what you feel we're able to do to fulfil that desire.

I believe that we should. These funds all came out of a Section 7.11. There wasn't adequate funds in the 7.11 to do this work, but as those funds build up again, and as they should because there's still further development to go on there at Picton, this kerb and guttering and stormwater draining should not be set aside. It should remain current and in the 7.11 account, in the 7.11 project, and not be removed from there until it is installed. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Ryan. Has the community been given a timeline or expectations as to when the road upgrades would be delivered?

Yes, Deputy Mayor. We actually met with the general manager, staff, and even Councillor Zombrogno was with us. Probably two-thirds of the way through last year. We're given an undertaking that Council would use their preferred contractor to start some of these works, and we were under the belief they were supposed to start probably the end of January, February. But at this stage, nothing started, and we really do want a firm, hard commitment that these works are going to start, because people of Pitt Town, believe it or not, are very sceptical about promises. In fact, if you come out there and promise someone, you'll be quite quickly reminded of previous promises that have been given. So , yeah, we really want perhaps Mr. Organ can give us a day, not a week, a day when this will start.

Okay, thanks. And speaking of other things out there, regarding the toilets for Bonavista Park, the Progress Association was successful in getting a grant, I think of $80,000, is that correct, towards the construction of the toilets. Can you give us an update on the delivery of that? Yes

We were fortunate to get an $80,000 plus GST with the Community Building Partnership through the state government. And we are also, Hawkesbury Council are supplying $40,000 to construct these toilets. They're double unisex toilets with change rooms in them. That was what was agreed for to be delivered in the building partnership. But to date, we haven't received a lot. Actually, our secretary only yesterday received a reminder from the Community Building Partnership wanting to see such things as plans, photographs, estimates, and that. And look, we're a bit concerned that we may be in the situation where we're going to lose these funds. And that was the thought our secretary got. We've asked council on a number of occasions, the staff, to supply these items to us, and we haven't received them as yet.

Okay. Thanks, Mr Ryan.

Any further questions? Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. Thanks, Mr Ryan. You did mention that the people of Pitt Town have been waiting a long time for works to be done out there, and there has been issues with the developer contributions, I understand, with some of the funding being wiped. Is that true?

Our developer contributions through council, the 7.11 account, appears to be going quite well, and we can't find any problems with it. The 7.11 account also covered things such as the Mulgrave railway station upgrade, the bus system, and one other thing. In fact, I think it was 2013, Mr Hazard, the then Minister for Planning, returned what funds were being held here by Hawkesbury Council to the developer. I'm sorry, he what? He returned funds, or bank guarantees, that were held here by Hawkesbury Council. He gave an order to have them returned to the developer and stated that these works would be carried out by state government.

And they haven't?

No, they haven't. We've been fairly vocal about them. And to date, we have not been able to get a result. There is considerable other works, and you may be aware that in 2011, the developer went into voluntary administration The planning department permitted the developer prior to that to collect the state government funds for infrastructure . He kept them in his account, and when he went into voluntary administration, from what we found by the person who did the administration, there was $26.43 million Pitt Town was removed when he went into voluntary administration. I've since spoke to our local member, and she's informed me it's more like 36-plus million that was lost out of the Pitt Town account.

Now those funds were to do road shoulders from Pitt Town to McGrath's Hill on both sides of the road, and these were requirements set down for the approval of this development. They were not things that the locals thought up. These were set down by RMS. There were five intersections to be done. One was Wolsley Road, which they said they've done, but I cannot see any works there, and RMS had said they'll come out and show me, but that hasn't eventuated yet. They have done one intersection at Saunders Road. There was also some of the Section 94 funds were to go to the Pitt Town bypass, and there was a number of other intersections. They haven't been delivered. The road shoulders I don't think we'll ever get them.

And I've warned our local member that you are putting people's lives at risk because we get in excess of 500 heavy vehicles a day carting sand. From Maroota to other infrastructure projects in Sydney. So we're quite frustrated with it. The people that live on this route, they're woken at 5:30, if not earlier every morning, by empty trucks going past, rumbling through town. And I think it's time you people got behind us and sent a strong message, a shot across the bow of the state government, that things are dangerous out there. Someone's killed. Who's going to be responsible for it? Me personally, as a police officer, I fronted the coroner's court on a number of occasions, and I made it clear I will put a brief of evidence together to the coroner's court in relation to these funds, A, gone missing, and the non-delivery of what should have been done.

They lost the money. We didn't. If you lose someone's funds, you have a right to replace them, don't you? You have an obligation to replace them. They haven't been replaced. All we're getting is runarounds from the Department of Planning. Our state member now, Ms Preston, she's, not taking my hat off, she's having a go, but she's halfway through her term here and we haven't seen a shovel other than the Saunders Road intersection, which does aid the people from Oakville and has made it quite safe. So that's where we stand. We're still angry out there. People have multimillion-dollar homes, and they have paid a lot of money for it, and we have not been given what we have paid for.

How much did you pay, like each? Is that a—

The first 300, 400 homes approximately paid $42,000 each per lot. So that came to 16-plus million, and that was to cover those works, and those works were part of the approval process of the development. And that was put in that we should. You can't go ahead and this is proof these works are delivered. So the first 400 people delivered them, and they were delivered by 2011 when the developer went into voluntary administration. In other words, went and stood in the naughty corner for 30 days. And now we are left with nothing. We made a submission to Mr Roberts when he was readjusting this, and he brought it down to roughly $10,000 a lot. And my quick calculations, that didn't even cover the interest on the funds that were removed from Pitt Town.

So the developer paid roughly $10,000 a lot. He donated $2 million of land to the school, and a few of the other things were discounted. And I'm not saying out of school, Mr Schubridge from the Greens asked him a number of questions in a Senate inquiry about this, and the answer we got was, Next thing, you'll be blaming me for starting the Vietnam War. So they're the insults we've had dished up to us out there. So please, when you're looking at these works here, please think about that because people are angry, and they have paid far too much for far too long. They've got multi-million dollar investment homes out there, and they are not getting what they have paid for. Okay,

Thank you.

Thanks, Mr Oren.

Thank you.

Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to propose to move the recommendation in the business paper, but with an additional point, but I'll need the assistance of the Director of Infrastructure to formalise that wording. So through you, Mr Mayor, if I could put a question. So it's the recommendation, and the question for the Director is, Mr Organ... Would Mr Ryan's desires be satisfied if we added a dot point to this recommendation that said, for example, that the stormwater piping, kerb and guttering works on both sides of Bathurst Street between Buckingham Street and Johnston Street

Be costed and presented for prioritisation to Councillors in the 2022-23 Operational Plan.

So I believe that—I'll just check, my understanding was those works are in the Section 7.11 plan. Is that correct, Ms Perrin

This is precisely why I'm asking. Yeah

Linda may be able to add further to it. I think probably the sentiment would be achieved because nothing that Council can do without going out and changing the schedule of works in the Section 7.11 Works Program would have the effect of removing—that's the only way to remove something from it. So I think probably the sentiment that's there would be probably a second dot point there, which would simply say, Council note that the Bathurst Street works exclude the currently proposed works, will exclude the remainder of the works outlined in the Section 7.11 plan, including drainage and kerb and gutter.

All right then. So what I'm looking for is some mechanism that forcibly brings it back to our attention if we're not going to proceed with them now.

So just—we don't have a motion on the table, so we won't address that. But I guess my comment would be there is a Section 7.11 plan. These works are in it. Nobody's proposing to change it. There's really no reason to resolve anything further. We have a plan. It's in the plan. I don't think there's much logic in pulling out specific things out of that plan and resolving to

Do— No, I'll concede that point. I'm just wondering whether— The lack of firm wording makes it a very open-ended commitment, and we could do something to bring it back to our attention sooner. That's what I'm looking for.

There is a section 7-11 plan. It is in there. We can only use those funds on those works. I don't know. Did you want to comment, Ms. Bree? Seemed like you want to comment.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, so essentially the work is listed in the plan, so therefore we don't need to do anything in that respect. But the real issue will be when funding is available. But noting that within the plan there are a number of projects listed to be done. The projected amount of money to come in doesn't necessarily mean we'll have enough money to do all the works that are listed in the plan. So ultimately that might be a decision for Council to make in the future.

All right then, and forgive me for labouring this point, but if that were the case, then how could we have an assurance that this

Will come back to us so that we can prioritise what could be done with the 7-11 funds as they accumulate?

I think the answer is that this report before you, for example, is to vote for that funding, even though it's coming from the plan. So future works will require a vote from the fund to vote the funding to do the work.

All right then, I'm satisfied with that answer, and if that's the case, then I'll keep myself to the recommendation in the business paper.

Is there a seconder? Second, Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

I think it's important to note the information that's been raised here, and it has been raised before. It came out in a budget estimates hearing that— That basically the people of Pitt Town have been diddled in terms of their developer contribution. They made these contributions in good faith, and those have, and the state government chose not to honour that commitment. And that's pretty breathtaking when you think of the investment that these people have made in their properties, but also in the community, and the faith that they put in this process. And it has meant a real loss of faith, I think, from the Pitt Town community. It's also meant a great loss of faith from the Pitt Town community in council.

And we've worked, I think this council particularly, and under the previous general manager, worked particularly hard with the Pitt Town Progress Association to try and restore some of that loss of faith. And the fact that the members of the Pitt Town Progress Association can come in here and address us, frankly, and have these discussions with the Director of Infrastructure, where they come to some compromised position about what we can do now with the money that we've got to improve the function of these streets in Pitt Town. And they are dangerous. They are narrowing. They take a lot of traffic, and they particularly take some significant heavy vehicle traffic. I don't know if you've been stuck with one of those trucks behind you, but they are formidable as they thunder through the middle of a residential area.

It behoves us to make sure that Pitt Town does get some of these services as quickly as possible. I think it would be another gesture of good faith that we did note in this resolution that these works... Haven't dealt with the kerb and guttering and drainage on these roads. And I think that could simply be done with an addition to point one that just says, Council notes that these works do not complete Council's commitments to kerb and gutter the above areas. Because we're about to, we will hand over this Council to another Council in less than six months' time. And I would hope that this would come up as a resolution that the next Council can look at and acknowledge that work needs to be done.

So I think that that's probably a fairly simple step that puts this on the record for both the residents of Pitt Town so that it's been acknowledged, but also for subsequent actors in this space, so that Pitt Town does get some justice in this matter. This is a matter of deep injustice, I think. What also concerns me is that when we don't do these works in Pitt Town under the 7-11 contribution scheme, they will eventually be done. I really don't want to see them done using other ratepayers' money. That's what the 7-11 contribution is from developers. It's for the developer who has profited mightily in this case to pay for the amenity that that community should have, not decided by the people who've moved there or this Council or a previous Council, but laid down in a contract that these people have honoured through their payment and the developer is expected to honour.

The rest of the ratepayers of the Hawkesbury should not have to honour the developer's commitments while he has moved on. That is completely unreasonable. And I think we need to make sure that there is a really auditable trail of what has happened in this space and how we expect that it is dealt with subsequently, because I don't want Pitt Town to miss out, but I also don't want other residents of the Hawkesbury to miss out because we've had to pay for this. So if we could have an additional—just, it's just a few extra words—note that these works do not cover the kerb and guttering commitment under the Section 7.11 contribution, and that those works must be addressed at a later date.

I am amenable to that, Mr Mayor.

So can I ask a question? Because I guess the— sorry, have you finished, Councillor Wheeler? Yeah. The only thing that I don't have a problem with, the only thing that makes me a bit uncomfortable about that is we've just heard from the Director that there might not potentially—we're not going to collect enough contributions to do all the works. So we're effectively making a decision here on which works we will definitely be doing without really identifying which works we won't be doing, or having given a proper and considered process to make that decision. And that does concern me slightly that we would do that, but happy to hear the debate. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think I'm pleased that Mr Ryan came and spoke to really tell us about what's going on out at Pitt Town. It seems a long time ago since some of us went on a bus tour around Pitt Town and we looked at the various outstanding works that had not been delivered under the development that occurred out there. And I think that what they are asking for is some sort of certainty and some sort of time frame, particularly, I would think, as a priority on the toilets, which I'm not quite sure if someone could update me on what the delay actually is around the toilet amenity block being done. Is that possible? I think we can probably

Take that on notice, given it's not anything to do with this matter. Okay

Well, it's sort of is because, I mean, there's limited funds, and they've managed to get a grant to do some of it. So I guess it comes to the real core of the question of them having some certainty and having some idea of what they're going to get and when. And I think that's not an unrealistic expectation. Just as Councillor Wheeler just said, it's, you know, it's been a long time coming, and they have had that big loss of an enormous amount of money that has disappeared, and that means they will miss out, as you just identified. There's not going to be enough money for everything that they were supposed to be delivered, and therein lies why the community has such a distrust in both developments and voluntary planning agreements, and that is exactly why.

I hope that this work can be done and can be given, that a timeline can be given to them of when the road upgrades can be delivered. I know it's hard to give it to the day, as Mr Ryan requested, but I would hope that they could be informed as soon as possible as to when they might expect to have this actual work done, and also some clarity around the other amenities and the other works that are being done. Thank you.

Thanks. Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to seek clarification on a number of points, please. We've heard from the speaker tonight that there was a contribution plan in 2008, and we've also got here a document which relates to 2013. Was there a revision to the 2008 contribution plan made at a later time, and was that promulgated, please? Refer

That to the Director City Planning.

Thank you

Through you, Mr Mayor. So yes, as outlined on page 100 of the report to Council, there was an agreement that outlines the costs that would be charged to go towards local and state infrastructure, and that was later amended, which is the attachment that you're referring to in September 2013.

By that, do you mean the document which appears as AT1?

On page 103, yeah, the attachment 2.

102 and 103?

Yeah.

Right. So the 2008 plan stands as being the sole instrument in terms of developer contribution.

Well, that ultimately, that was the document dated 2013 superseded, or basically surpassed the earlier document in 2008.

Right, but not in terms of works and so on.

It did amend works in terms of state infrastructure, but in terms of local infrastructure, no, they weren't amended,

As

Far as I know. Yeah In terms of Council commitments?

Council's commitments in terms of the project, right. Okay. Now, I also note here that we're talking about the Fernadale site, which I gather is the recreational area, open space or something. That was, am I correct in understanding that that was part of the contributions plan, that Council would buy that land from a particular developer and further embellish it?

Yes, so that's listed in the contributions plan,

Yes. Right. And do I take it also that Council is now the owner of that property?

We own the Fernadale land, yes . Yes , we do.

Right. Okay. Would it also be true to say that, given what appeared to be, as I understood it, some

Haggling about the value of lands that Council was to acquire under the contributions plans with a developer, and that meant some accretion in the costs of those lands to Council, that a similar situation would have arisen with Fernadale?

Sorry. Yes. So based on the report, yes, the assumed cost of acquisition at one point was one thing, but ultimately when we came to acquire land, it had, you know, increased or was above what was anticipated. And that's the nature of any contributions plan. You make an assumption about land acquisition, and then it may change over time based on when Council actually acquires the land. But in terms of Fernadale, I don't know off the top of my head the exact cost of that acquisition.

Sorry, I'm interested also in the what appears to be a deficit at the moment of, what, 2.9 million or something . That last year we were informed. Initially, that there was a deficit of something like 4.1 million on the contributions plan. Does that mean that there's been a rework and/or a further consideration of the contributions plan and the deficit that is standing in Council's way?

I refer that to Mrs. Galea.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. The deficit, or the shortfall of 2.3 million, relates to the funds borrowed from the Section 7.11 Pitt Town, which is within the scope of this report. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.

Council reported in an open public meeting last year that there was a deficit of 4.1 million on the contributions plan. Could I have some understanding, please, as to what has transpired in the meantime to change that? Is there additional income coming into the contributions plan or not?

Refer that, Mrs. Galea.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. What this report is referring to is the funds that were borrowed from the Section 7.11 Pitt Town, which is 2.3 million. The 4 million dollar figure that's being referred to is referring to the other sources of funds that were used to fund the acquisition of the land. So the scope of this report is limited to reinstating the funds that were borrowed from the Section 7.11 Pitt Town. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Does that mean that there are, in fact, other borrowings within other elements of the contributions plan of which we're not aware?

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So there's two aspects. So there's been repayments done , and I don't have the amount here, but also there was amounts borrowed from other Section 94 and 94A funds, not related to Pitt Town. Thank you.

Well, I'm rather disturbed by this whole report, frankly. And if I could go on to make comment about this, I find that this report is totally untenable.

The accounts of last year, in my humble opinion, should have been qualified. That is the audited accounts. And the recommendation to clear these so-called borrowings should have been done a long time sooner . And one might refer to an Auditor-General's report in about August last year, which indicated that each contributions plan has to stand on its own two feet.

There cannot be borrowings between contribution plans unless it is covered within the scope of the documents within a contributions plan. There cannot be any pooling of funds either unless it is covered in the scope of the terms of the contributions plans, and that any deficits or shortfalls along the way must be met by Council out of its other reserves or funds. In other words, that each contributions plan must stand on its own two feet. This report does not indicate that, and frankly, it is just totally untenable and contrary to the law. And if you want to go and have a look at the Auditor-General's report, the Auditor-General relied upon the Crown Solicitor of New South Wales for opinions in these regards.

And they were quite firm. This whole matter of the Pitt Town contributions plan and the funding of things is a disgrace to this council in former times, and it's going to come home to roost. It must be cleared up, and I would hope that this council takes the matter with all the seriousness that it deserves and clears the slate this year at whatever cost to the other reserves that the council holds, so that we have a proper understanding of where things are at and what the cost is to the overall community. Because it appears that developers have just, at one way or another, have had a field day, so to speak, with the contributions situation at Pitt Town, and the rest of the LGA, apart from those folk in Pitt Town, who are already suffering with the lack of infrastructure, are going to have to wear all of this, and we just have to be told what it is and get on with it, please.

Thank you. I'll vote against it.

Thank you. I'll just address some of those comments briefly. So the reason we're reallocating that 2.3 million from the multi-year reserve is, as we discussed last year, this matter was raised and I brought to council that I think we should, rather than just have a commitment to having those funds returned, we should actually just return them, restrict them now, take that hit in this year's budget, and have it committed to the people of Pitt Town that that money is back in the reserve. I did at your request, or your instigation, I would say, contact the auditors and put that direct question to the auditors as to whether or not this was allowed, and the auditors confirmed there was no issue.

So note your opinion that the report should have been qualified, where it was specifically raised with the auditor, just for the public's knowledge. Our financial statements are audited every year by the Auditor-General, who did look specifically at this issue, and so on that basis, I'm confident that the accounting treatment is correct. And I think, you know, it would be a shame to vote against this when, as you said, you'd think it should be cleared out and cleared up now, and that's essentially what we're doing with 2.3 million that was borrowed from general funds. Notwithstanding your comments about other reserves, I think this is, you know, if nothing else, surely it would be better than not doing it, I would have thought .

Further discussion? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to get a bit more clarification on the part that we've added 2.1, if I could . The last sentence notes that these works do not complete works to kerb and gutter. Would it be prudent to just say, notes that these works do not complete all of the works that have been, were negotiated or at least

Agreed to in the plan, in the amended plan? I mean, that gets us out of what you were just referring to, because at the moment that sentence, I don't think really, really gets us to where we want to be. Councillor,

Do you have

A comment on that? Look, I'm amenable to a further change that strengthens that wording if Councillor Kotlash can be specific.

I think the suggestion was that, notes that these works do not complete all the works listed in the Section 7.11 plan. Yes,

Thank you, Mr Mayor, for putting that more succinctly. That's, I think, a much better outcome, and I think that that goes to address the curb and guttering situation as well

I'm amenable to that, Mr Mayor.

Thanks.

Councillor Wheeler? No. No, that—it's too general. The point of point 2 is that it highlights that these roads are not complete. It's not the whole Section 7.11 plan isn't complete. I think that's quite obvious. It's that these roadworks isn't complete. I can live with removing, and those works must be addressed at a later date, but the point of point 2 is that it covers the fact that we have compromised here on the curb and guttering to those roads in order to get them done at this point. I

Think that's a good compromise. If we remove the words after Section 7.11 plan in point 2, then it's a bit probably superfluous, but I understand the point. So if you're happy with that, Councillor Zamprogno. Yes , Mr Mayor. I

Don't know if you wanted to discuss again, Councillor Cutlash, or—no. Any further discussion? If not, we'll go right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno. None needed, Mr Mayor. Okay, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Cutlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds. Against? Councillor Ross. Absent for the vote were Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Gowrie. So we have—

One item on— two items on block.

No, that speaker is not present, so we'll just do that when we get to it, I think. So items 61 and 64 on block. Moved Deputy Mayor, seconded Councillor Potlash. All those in favour? Carried.

So then we go to the Mayoral minutes.

Lots of paper. So the first Mayoral minute is around additional river height gauges. This came primarily from discussions with people in the McDonald Valley when the flood started a couple of weeks ago almost now. I did reach out to make sure that they knew that we hadn't forgotten they existed and to see what they needed and if they were getting everything they needed from Council and from other agencies. And one thing that was brought to my attention both by those people in the McDonald Valley and also by the SES when I was out at their control centre was that they don't get enough information on the river in the McDonald Valley. Those people therefore don't get enough time to evacuate. They have to rely on each other.

And whilst they're a very self-sufficient and resilient community, it's not really an acceptable situation that they don't get the river height information that everybody else is getting regularly. I understand from the Bureau that the reason they don't is because they're just not resourced to look after everyone, and they focus on the most populated places, which is a reasonable enough position to start with. But, you know, this is 2021, and there's no reason we can't have a river height gauge anywhere that people are living, I would think. So then I've done some investigation and with some help from the staff, there's also a number of other gaps and other work that's already been done on this matter as well, addressed by both federal and state representatives and no outcome at the moment.

So I think we need to add our voice in and push hard on this, given that we might have people paying attention to us for the next 10 to 15 minutes until it's over, from their point of view. So this is our chance, and we need to make the most of it and try and get this for our community. I'll commend it to you.

Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I have also observed that the Bureau of Meteorology is restricted to, I think, the village area of St Albans and no further afield. So, in addition to the recommendations which you are submitting here, I would propose that it might be also wise for us to seek further coverage by the Bureau of Meteorology in view of the changing circumstances within the area and the recent events that have occurred, please.

Thank you. At any specific location, or

I believe the catchment for those rivers out in that area are just not being monitored by the Bureau at all, and that must constitute a shortfall in data from which to make prognostications, sir.

So do you think it's necessary maybe at point one, McDonald River upstream of St Albans and at other relevant places?

Yes.

I'm happy with that.

Any further speakers? Councillor Carbett. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm just wondering, when you spoke to the SES recently, did they give you any feedback on our dashboard, whether it proved to be useful, and if so, what was, and if not, can we see if we can get some feedback?

Didn't get any feedback from the SES, no. Lots of feedback from community members about things that they couldn't see or wanted to see better or faster, but no, nothing directly from the SES, so we can seek that out.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I agree with this. Obviously, we've been calling for the ones in South Creek and Yarramundi through the Floodplain Committee for some time. I think just simply calling is maybe not strong enough. I think that how are you intending to do that? The recommendation is that the Council call for them to install it. Can we put a bit more pressure on them? And my biggest fear is that we will face another flood event, possibly even this year, and that given the intense rainfall predicted and also the level of saturation, that's a reality, and we really need to be ready. The people of the McDonald Valley feel forgotten. They don't feel they were included. They don't feel they were reached out to, and they didn't have the information that they believed that they needed to be able to access. So can we be stronger on the call? Can you Ramp it up a bit to insist.

Yeah, we can pick anywhere we want. It's more about having an established position so that we can go ahead and lobby.

That's right, yes. And we already did have an established position for a lot of this, and that hasn't been followed up on. I'm just wondering if we have a date for our first Emergency Disaster Management Committee meeting, which I thought probably would have been held reasonably soon after the floods.

I don't have the date. We don't have a date?

I did have an amendment I wanted to move in that regard. I'd sent it to staff already. Well

We'll just wait. Okay

All right. Well, that would be good, because I would have thought that would be a priority to be looking at those things and also hopefully to reinvigorate the emergency management review that started and was stalled last year. It's almost, I mean, it's months since we've had any sort of meeting about any of this, and yet we know our vulnerability and we saw what happened, and we saw the gaps. There were so many gaps identified in all areas around the flood disaster that need to be discussed so that we can fix those, particularly with the risk of another imminent flood, if not this year, then in the future. We all know this intense rainfall is not going to go away. The impacts of climate change are here and they're going to really change our weather patterns to the point that we're going to be facing either flood or fire or really big storms quite regularly as time goes on.

Well, I'll be happy if you use your strongest methods of convincing to have those gauges put there, and in particular the South Creek one I think is really important because the infrastructure in New South Wales, although they were beginning to, they have not done the overland flood studies, and we really need those to complete the whole picture of the catchment and how that is impacting on the flooding in this area. Do we have an update of when the Macdonald Valley flood Study might be commenced.

Refer that to—who would like that? Director City Planning? Yep.

It's due to commence soon, so we're hoping in the next month or so. Okay. And would that have a timeframe, an approximate timeframe on its completion? That will be subject to a discussion with the consultants, really, which we'll have at the exception meeting, and then be able to work out from there. Okay,

Thank you. And one other thing around that is, will we be forming a specific committee, including community members, around that flood study, which of course is dictated by the floodplain development manual, that we should have a risk management committee to deal with the implementation of any flood studies and to be involved in those flood studies as we've done in the past?

Whether it's a committee as such, there will definitely be engagement with a range of stakeholders, both internally and externally, to inform the study. With

Specifically with local community members, with the flood knowledge? Yes, that will be good. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I did want to add a point too that has just been touched on briefly by the Deputy Mayor, and it has been sent to staff, if that could be brought up on the screen, please. Essentially, after reading this mayoral minute, I did believe that after what our community has experienced in the last week and a half, that it probably was the best time to actually activate the Disaster and Emergency Committee as part of our new committee structure. And if everyone wants to have a look what is on the screen there, basically to activate that committee and provide advice to Council by the 4th of May regarding the key learnings from the floods we've just had in 2021, the scale of the damage to Council's assets and sources of recovery funding, and while that committee is in process, an update on the progress of our review of Council's policies, plans and procedures for disaster and emergency responses as resolved in a previous motion on the 18th of February 2020.

So I did believe that it is our duty and obligation as a Council to ensure we engage that committee process that we've gone through and address those issues up on the screen. So that was my point too, Mr Mayor.

Happy to incorporate that in the motion, yep.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Any further discussion? Councillor Reynolds. Yeah, thanks,

Mr Mayor. I support your mayoral minute. As the Deputy Mayor mentioned, the Floodplain Management Committee has been calling for gauges on South Creek and Yarramundi for some time. The nearest gauges on South Creek are at Debrincat Avenue over at Whalan, and between Debrincat Avenue at Whalan and Windsor, of course, is all the development on the South Creek floodplain. I don't know whether you saw them, Mr Mayor. There were some quite startling satellite images of the flooding in and around Windsor, and you can quite clearly see the flooding in South Creek. It was quite staggering in its size, and the difference in colour compared to that flooding in the river, and it showed clearly that it was runoff from development.

And the people in Windsor, for example, down around North Street and the Peninsula, were actually impacted by the water from South Creek, the runoff from South Creek, not the river. You can see that in the images. The other thing that's quite concerning from the images of the flooding is the amount of flooding east-northeast of McGraths Hill that was never really of that great concern in the past. It was, again, a large amount of water, and it appears to be coming from Kolani Chain of Ponds and the development in the hills area. And again, the colour was consistent with runoff from development. And I think that that is going to be— A big problem heading into the future. I know that Vineyard Mark 1, or Stage 1, has various detention ponds and flood mitigation planning involved in it, but clearly what's happening from the development further upstream in the Hills area shows that that sort of thing isn't really the answer.

So I think in the future, I'm glad to see that you've got South Creek mentioned in the Meryl Minute. I think that's great, and Yerramundi. I think in the future we might have to ask for gauges on Kalani Chain of Ponds as well, and that stream, so that the people at McGraths Hill can keep an eye on it. Because as I said before, McGraths Hill was always regarded as high ground, but now quite clearly it's not. Thanks. Thank you. Councillor Cutler.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'd just like to say that with point one, I think one of the reasons why we didn't have much success via the Floodplain Management Advisory Committee on getting these gauges is possibly because we didn't articulate how these gauges would be used. And I think that, I think it'd be a really good idea if when we called for, or asked, or requested, or begged for these gauging stations, that we actually put them into some context about how they will be used in our flood studies, how they will be used in our dashboard, how they will be, you know, incorporate them into a plan. Just asking for gauges is a sort of maybe falls on deaf ears, but when it's— Put into a context that we desperately need this data for these reasons, I think we will have much better success.

And we really do need to get these, and we have to insist and cajole and do our best to do that. So that's just a comment. And I agree with point two. I think that's a very important addition, and I look forward to that first committee meeting because we desperately need to get that up and running as well. So thanks. I'll support your mayoral minute. Thank you.

Thank you. Further speakers? I'll bring an input the motion. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Collash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen and Gara absent for the vote. Declared carried.

Next item is the Mayoral Minute 2 about the Rural Boundary Clearing Code. So this has come about because I've had some representations to me from residents in our rural areas who were advised by state government via media releases there would be changes to the Rural Boundary Clearing legislation, and the state government was out sort of marketing the changes that it had made to allow these people to have better hazard protection of their properties, but never actually got around to adopting the code, which is required to actually enact these changes. So despite having announced significant changes that were fairly well received, the work that's required to actually implement this has not been done or released.

Not calling for Council to support it, because I understand there's probably going to be a range of views on this. You know, it does represent significant clearing potential, and there's a whole lot of concerns around that. You know, there's a lot of factors that need to be considered. What I'm calling for here is that we acknowledge this is an important issue, given they have announced it and that they're going to change it, and we're calling for the release of the draft Rural Boundary Clearing Code so that we can make our own assessment of it, have time to feedback into it and take a position, so that they get the information from Council and from our community about what people think about the changes they're proposed.

So simply for tonight, asking for Council's support to call on the state government to release that draft code, given that they've announced it some time ago.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I fully support this Mayoral Minute, and I thank you for bringing it to the Council's attention because I also have been contacted by various members of the community, especially up in the Bilpin, Berambing area of our LGA who experienced the bushfires of the 19-20 summer, and There were significant concerns that a lot of residents have raised with me about being able to protect their properties in the way that they want to, but of course in accordance with the law. And I think that our role as councillors, when we're not making the legislation that governs that, we certainly need to put the strongest case forward to the New South Wales Government to release the information they're intending to put together under this code so that we can go back to our residents and say that whatever the code ends up encompassing at that point, that we can go and say this is our position on that from there.

So I think it's vital that with the potential of bushfire that we have in our LGA and what we've already gone through in the crisis there, that we push the state government to release this information as soon as possible so that property owners know what they can do with their land. Thank you.

Thanks

Councillor Calvert. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm just wondering that when this code is released and then we work out our position, whether we could refer this to our environment committee to assist us to work out that position in discussion with the community. I think that'd be a useful way to get the community involved in this and for us to decide what our position is. So would you be interested in adding that to your recommendation?

I'm certainly happy for it to go to the committee, but I'd rather wait to see when it actually gets released, because that could be the timeframe might impact my thinking on that, depending on how long it takes them to get around to it and what they're asking for. If they take another six months and give us 28 days to comment, maybe that's not an option. Yes. But I broadly support the idea there, absolutely.

All right. But I'll let you broadly support it. Yeah, thanks

Further discussion? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr Mayor. I can't support this mayoral minute. Firstly, I don't think it was urgent enough to come to us as a mayoral minute. It could have come as certainly not in a supplementary paper. My understanding is that this is waiting on internal government regulations, that it's caught up in a New South Wales Government department as they try to make sense of how this works within the regulations. So I don't know that they're actually waiting for Council. They're not interested in Council's position, quite frankly. They have made up their mind in both the upper and lower house that a recommendation that—sorry, that a piece of legislation that has no basis in science, that has no basis in protection of property, that did not come out of the inquiry , that the RFS did not recommend, that in fact—I'm not sure where this came from, apart from the erroneous idea that if you continue to clear property, then the houses nearby will be safer.

And what we saw resoundingly in the 1920 bushfires is that that is not the case. The instances of fire running across lawns on the Central Coast shows that it doesn't matter when these mega fires come. It doesn't matter how much you clear. And in fact, properties that were spared were ones with vegetation on them. So what we are looking at now is a piece of legislation that will have catastrophic impacts on biodiversity, on climate change, on heat, and leave a scar across the middle of one of our prime tourism areas, that we are calling for this legislation to be brought on, I find frankly staggering.

It's already assented. They're not interested in our opinion. They weren't interested in the public inquiry's opinion on this either. This is an ideologically based piece of legislation that will do irreparable damage to areas like Bilpin, and I can't support anything to do with it.

Further discussion?

The only thing I'll just say before putting it to a vote is that, just to reiterate, that this is not calling on Council to take a position in favour. This is saying that there is legislation that's already assented to that's waiting on a regulation, and that regulation has been significantly delayed. And as of right now, people have been told that they can do things without being given any idea of what the guidelines are around that. The State Government has come out and said that they're going to allow people to do things, but not actually enacted the regulation that will allow it. Not asking for Council to take a position in favour, just saying that on behalf of our residents who do want to know what they can do in terms of hazard reduction, that we call on the State Government to release the code so we can have a look at it and feedback into it.

And I think just because somebody's not asking for our opinion doesn't mean we can't seek to give it. So put that to a vote. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Treed, Councillor Zempronio, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Bucket, Councillor Reynolds, against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen and Garrow absent for the vote. Declared carried.

So the next item, therefore, is item 51.

Moved the recommendation, Councillor Richards, seconded Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Sorry, I'm just finding the right page. There is some really useful content in this report, but I'm not sure that it's ready for exhibition at this point. It needs some serious proofreading and editing. There are some areas that could be much more concise than they are, but there are some significant typos. There are some sentences where the noun is plural and the verb is singular. We've got a word integrated. This isn't good enough to go on public exhibition. Some of the content, I think, is really useful. Page 19, for example, I'd really like to—where it talks about levels of communication, I think is particularly exciting and something that I would really like us as a council to discuss, how we could employ some of those ideas.

So, for example, where it moves through far less consultative measures. I can't navigate the business paper on my iPad, as it's one of the downsides of being in the chamber. It's not as easy, thank you, to flick between the levels of engagement where we start at inform and move down to empower, and the idea of citizen juries, I think, is particularly exciting and would have been really nice in... Earlier in our term, I think we're running out of time to engage in things like that at the moment, but I know that's been used in Brisbane in one of the wards, particularly in Brisbane Council. I think it's also been used in some of the councils in Victoria, where you, particularly with budget decisions or where you're trying to prioritise one thing against the other, you bring in a citizen jury to make some of those decisions.

I think that would be a really exciting way forward. It's a real grassroots empowerment of people, and I think it's a real show of faith that— and it removes us as the gatekeeper of decision-making and discussion and puts the decisions back into the hands of the community. It's a really nice model, and one that I'd love to see us explore, and I'm really pleased to see that in this document. I think that's a real step forward for councils. I think we do have to note that some of these things require us to act at different—excuse me—at different levels in this table, but it's a really useful reference. I may have missed it because I was trying to read a lot this afternoon. Is there an access—have we dealt with accessibility in terms of our communication in this document?

Manager Communications.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, that's one of the actions. So there's actually, there is an action plan that sits behind this communications strategy, which has detailed actions which we'll be implementing over the four years, and that is one of the actions about accessibility. Just like the website was made accessible, we'll be working towards making all of our documents accessible.

So, and that goes down to things, I think, like videos. So we've been using some videos to communicate during the floods, but none of those have transcripts or captions with them at this point. That's something we really need to, I think we need to prioritise and put some resources into. So I'd like to see that reflected in this document. I think this is a good start, but I would like to see a serious edit before it goes out to the community.

Thank you

Mr Mayor. I agree with that. I had noticed that as well. I do like the format of it and how it's delivered. I particularly like the acknowledgement on this page, but that's where I did notice the spelling of Hawkesbury. But I thought that was a really good affirmation of our commitment to working with our Indigenous community. I think that the public feedback on this document is essential because obviously it's the two-way dialogue we want to have with the public about how they receive the information that we can give. And I think that there's some really good stuff in there. I think the guiding principles are really good. I think that the emphasis on building trust in there is really crucial.

I think that's a really strong point. For us to be a trusted source of information is really our ultimate goal, because we want that. But just one thing I noticed that I think could be something that either could be misunderstood or something that might need a bit more around it is the information about becoming our own newsroom. And I thought that could be perceived to be that we would be moving into an area where we weren't necessarily open to the scrutiny of our actions and our decisions, that if it's only council's perspective, we might lose some of that trust if we're going out and we're saying, you know, this is what we—you know, I know it's not to just say what we think, but I just think just perceptions from the community-wise, I thought that could have been a bit of a problem.

I think the other thing is too around the emergency delivery of information. I think it was really well done in the floods, but I do still think that there's an immediacy that people expect in terms of getting information. Do we have Twitter? No

We don't have Twitter. I think it's time to tweet. I just think that, and it's really difficult to keep it up, and I understand, and I think that there was a great job done around the floods. But there's, sometimes there's navigating the dashboard or going to even the other services and so on. Sometimes somebody's in a panic and they just want to know, and this happened with the people at Upper Colo, they just wanted to know, do we have to get out by 5 a.m. or do we not? And it's really hard when we don't have someone doing it 24 hours a day and things always happen overnight. But I just think that's something, if we're going so well in the digital platforms, that I think if we expand to Twitter would be really good because we can do that quick link and we can get that— Sorry, Suzanne, go. Again , I was just going

To say that is one of the actions in the action plans, that is to explore, you know, as many avenues as we can to communicate, and that is definitely one of them, Twitter.

Yeah, I think that would be wonderful. I like the quote particularly on page 15. I don't know whose quote it is, about wanting the community to understand that we're more than roads, rates and rubbish. I mean, at the moment we're pretty much about roads and rubbish as we come out of this sort of crisis. But I think it's really important that behind that there's, once we come out of that, it's the planning and strategies around that that are so important, and I think that that's a really good way to have delivered that sentence. And I think that, I agree with Councillor Wheeler, there could be a bit more, and I gather it's also a thing that, of course, if it's got actions attached to it, that we'll be reviewing and reporting on, and I think that's a job well done. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I acknowledge I have been critical of Council's digital strategy and our communication strategy in the past, but in saying that, I also want to acknowledge some really productive and heartfelt conversations that I've enjoyed with Ms Stewart in her role, because the reason we contend is because we're passionate about the same things. When I came onto Council, I thought that the area that we could do the most to improve on was the way that we communicate and engage with our constituency. So for that reason, at the beginning of this Council term, I asked for some statistics relating to how we even know those people are out there. I note that one of the key initiatives in this document is to connect people with the information they need.

We cannot do that if we don't even know who they are or how to reach them. So at the beginning of this term, we had email addresses for only 11% of our ratepayers. I asked for an update for that figure. I can now report that we have email addresses for 25% of our ratepayers, and that's ratepayers, which says nothing about people who tenant a building and who operate a business but do not pay the rates, or people who rent a dwelling but do not pay the rates. So there is a significant shortfall still, despite the progress that we've made in identifying people with something as basic as an email address. Similarly, we had mobile phone details for only 26% of our ratepayers in 2017, and that's now lifted to 30% of ratepayers.

Although that represents progress, I think we still have a long way to go. Furthermore, I'm concerned about the way in which Council silos data, and I asked for some statistics and learned that we have Over 1,896 residents who ask for their rate notice by email, but because of the way we've structured our terms and conditions, we don't send them any other information, despite the fact that we might even have those people's addresses, and that we have 6,490 email addresses in our library and gallery and museum databases, which is totally siloed off, and that we never tap to be able to contact people with information that they might want and find useful, and will enhance their degree of participation in Council's processes.

So this criticism is not so much of the communication strategy, but I've made it clear to Miss Stewart that there's certainly work to be done on the action plan that sits behind that, so that we can continue to gather that data where we can, that all of our customer interactions, when a person comes to the desk or makes a phone call, includes a prompt for people to update their contact details with Council, that we use electronic newsletters and other ways to geographically target people and to perhaps send them the kind of information that might be relevant to them where they live. So if we can micro-target a newsletter to the people of Bilpin because there is some new information relating to a road program or a park or a social initiative in Bilpin, that means that when we send that information, it's not being drowned out in a sea of generic information, but it's targeted to their community in a way that they really like .

And rather than just be critical, I just want to acknowledge that Miss Stewart has taken on many of those comments and that this will be an ongoing project of Council, and this does not go far enough, but it is a step in the right direction, and therefore I'm prepared to endorse it. Thank you. Any

Further discussion? Councillor Potlatch. Thank you

Mr Mayor. Could I propose an amendment to point 2 in the recommendation to read, it says the draft communication and engagement strategy be placed on public exhibition for a period of 28 days following a thorough review and proofread. Sorry, better spell it out , because it has—I should have actually started by saying I thought it was a fabulous document. Just it does need a bit of a review. Yeah, really happy with it. The layout's great. It's a really lovely piece of work, so well done to the staff that were involved in it . But it does need that proofread. So if that's okay, Mr Mayor.

So just include that in the motion then. Thanks.

Any further discussion? Councillor Tree.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have to say I agree with Councillor Zambrano about the emails, because it is a much more immediate form of communication, and everybody usually walks around with their phones and they'll see things. So if there are important messages, it is a really important future step, I think. I was just wondering if we could change the idea of citizen juries to deliberative democracy model, just because I don't like the sound of citizen juries, but I really do like the deliberative democracy model, because it gives members of the community the opportunity to make really meaningful contributions and to be engaged, and in ways that they're not ordinarily or normally given access to.

It's a process that gives us as a council, as councillors, access to a broad range of views and hear new voices. And the model itself, the people who are selected to take part in this model, it's— You have a, it's a really good model. It's quite balanced. So you'll have a group of people who agree with whatever the issue is and a group of people who don't agree, and then varying things in between, which means then those people are then given the opportunity to hear all of the arguments, factual facts about the particular issue or the proposal or whatever it is on hand at the time. And then once they've been given all of the information, then they can arrive at an agreement, and that is the agreement.

So it's not something we would decide. It's something that if we were to adopt that model, the community members decide. And the thing that I like about it best is that you have a group of people where I mean, I'm not saying that not all voices are important, but I just feel as though you have a broader cross-section of voices that are going to be a more genuine reflection on what the broader community might think and feel, but wouldn't ordinarily have the opportunity to come in and get access to, you know, being engaged in that sort of process. So I was just wondering if we could get rid of citizens' jury and put in the idea of deliberative democracy. I'd really like that

Or

Something. Do

We have to get rid of anything? I mean, because I think ultimately this is a strategy that—

Well, can we add it?

Yeah, I think we could probably just add it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you

That's

All.

I don't think we— I'll just take some advice. I don't think we need to put that specifically in the motion. We can probably just take that idea and stick it in there as part of our proofread, if everyone's happy.

Yeah

Yep.

So I could suggest we could put it in here under, on page 19, and also what sits behind this is a community engagement toolkit. So it can be something that can be included in there as one of the options as well.

Perfect. Any further discussion? Councillor Ross.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to inquire first, was this report drafted or formulated upon work done by Micromex on this occasion, or was this entirely a council-initiated report?

Through that to Mr

Stewart. Yes, through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, this was prepared by council staff, this report. Some of the information that Micromex found from their 2008 community survey was included in here, but it wasn't done by Micromex. It's just used as a basis for some of the outcomes.

You mentioned 2008

08? 2018. 18. 18.

Thank you. Just

Your

Microphone, sorry.

Sorry. Just like to offer the comment that this would have been a great policy for Windsor Council in 2007 or whatever. Sorry, 1970, prior to amalgamation. This policy, so-called, is suitable if you get a set of protractors and put the point here and run it around the former Corrie towns, you've done it

We heard earlier tonight

That the consultation in the McDonald Valley is lacking, and we've just heard another situation of people up in the Bilpin area.

We have not addressed, and I know it's jolly difficult, to address the situation of these outlying areas who have all of the problems of communication, apart from anything else, in terms of facilities being accessible, but consulting with them and actually involving them. And I don't feel this addresses that element of our community adequately at all. And I further believe that our community services arm, which I call peppercorn, or I describe as peppercorn . suffers to a degree from the same restriction. So I think we need to associate a little bit more with Papakura, and I think we are going to have to find ways of communicating and being able to communicate with our more distant neighbours.

What further adds to the complication, of course, is that the nine-group newspaper, the Gazette and the Courier, are both now mere shadows, almost skeletons of what they were. There is scarcely anything of any local news or interest, possibly apart from sport if you're into that. It's not a good situation, I would see, in terms of building an understanding of the community as a whole and calling ourselves Hawkesbury, or the brand, if you like . And I'm very concerned that we are not winning on those scores at all. And I don't believe this is the— I think we have to find and work harder at finding other ways of doing that, whether it be local representatives who have got a feed into things or whatever.

There has to be some further trying to tie in together the outerlying areas with the more densely populated areas. Thank you. Thanks.

Councillor Richards.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just briefly, I think it's a great document as well, and I'm very happy to endorse it, and thank you for the hard work you've put into it. I think what we need to remember as well is it's a very delicate balance when we're talking about communicating with the public, because we have to, and we have an obligation to have that information out there among our various information streams. But we also have to balance not being intrusive into people's busy lives, and we've got to admit that while we all very much live in the council bubble, pretty much most of the community don't, and they only care about council when, you know, they either need it because they put in some sort of a DA or an application, there's a local crisis on.

I think Suzanne would show that our Facebook stats jump during a natural crisis, when they pay a bill like rates, or basically when we have a contentious proposal that the council's putting forward. So those are the sort of times that the public really engage with council. Other than that, you know, they've just got their own lives to run, and I think we have to really be careful in finding that balance. But I think what we do now is great. I think that as councillors, the fact that this is the first term of council ever that we all have the freedom to have our own councillor Facebook pages and have that ability to communicate other than just the one central Hawkesbury City Council Facebook page is great .

I'd like to think most of us have behaved on our councillor Facebook pages. I'm sure there's times we haven't, but I think it's a— yeah, you have. I think it's a very good way that we can communicate and also show that council has a bit of a personality, not just the standard sort of information that needs to come out there . I've been on the record as saying I think engagement with the young people of our LGA is vitally important because there's so many people who don't even know where council is as a building, you know, in this LGA. And I think the more we do our council morning teas, which I know have just been put on hold because of the floods, but the more we teach our young people what council is and what council's role is, the more they're aware that we exist and where to find information from us.

So well done on the document. It's a really good one, and I hope the public endorse it as well. Thanks.

Question, Councillor Wheeler

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just— Sorry

Councillor Reynolds. I just keep forgetting.

Further to Councillor Ross's point, is it possible to do some quite direct consultation with those outlying areas, so Upper Colo, for example, and the McDonald Valley, and just say to them, ‘Will this work for you as a strategy?’ And maybe they look at those action items, and we get some really, really direct feedback from them about whether they feel like they're covered by this document. And then, because this is going to come back to us after we have that consultation, then maybe if it is, as Councillor Ross suggests, that it isn't meeting their needs, then hopefully they'll give us some ideas of whether—to me it appears that it would, but I'm from, I guess, a generation that is heavily reliant on digital platforms, and there are issues with that in some of those places at different times.

So I certainly don't want to speak for that end of the community. It would be good if we could get some direct information from them and then act accordingly, and then maybe that helps Councillor Ross's—Councillor Ross's—that we have got that done. Yeah

I think we can commit to getting some direct feedback from those communities. Councillor Reynolds.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Mayor. I just wait—

One of that was one parked in the hangar earlier on. Anyway, a couple of questions to start off with. On page 15 of the draft strategy, it mentions, in community engagement, it mentions town meetings and— I think we all remember we started the town meetings back in 2017, and they were quite successful. And, you know, they gave council a human face and an opportunity for the community to actually come and talk to councillors and staff, because people need to be heard. And I think that's probably, this relates back to the comments just made about people in outlying areas being detached. And, you know, we went to St Albans and we had town meetings, and we went to Colo, Bilpin and other outlying areas.

Now, I know that the former GM was a big advocate of town meetings and, you know, despite the amount of work involved, and COVID mucked up things last year. And I'm just wondering if town meetings are going to be a part of the communication strategy, because I couldn't find them in the document at all . Mr Stewart

Yes, so what we tried to do in the document was to identify a whole range of communication , ways we can communicate with the community, and town meetings is definitely one of those that we will be pursuing, just along with, you know, the use of digital media and the website and flyers and all those sort of things. So, yes, we have had a lot of success with town meetings. I think we started back in 2016, and they were, what we worked out with town meetings is that they were the most successful in our outer areas. So we didn't get the level of interest and engagement in areas like Windsor and Richmond, but out in the areas of St Albans and Bilpin and Colo Heights, they were very successful, and we've recognised that.

So last year during COVID was the first year that we hadn't run town meetings since 2016, and there was even, I think, two in the year of 2016. So we recognise that they are very successful, and even the meeting that we held at Jacaranda recently was quite a good model for future town meetings engagement. So now that the COVID restrictions have lifted, we've already had discussions about how we can begin holding town meetings again. And sorry, I should add that, again, there is an action plan and an engagement framework that sits behind this that will detail in more detail those strategies

Would it be possible to have that included in this document? Because as I said, there's no mention of town meetings in there, and that might provide reassurance and comfort for those community outlying areas. The other question is. .. The term army of ambassadors, and, yeah, I know it's a bit of a buzzword, and you read through it and it mentions councillors, but then councillors are then follow on in 2.6. I'm just a bit confused as to what you mean by army of ambassadors, because then further on in 3.1, towns and villages, it talks about community champions. And does this, and it mentions again various towns within our LGA, including the outlying ones. So I'm hitting you with two questions here, I realise that. Army of ambassadors, are community champions, do you mean by that the Progress Associations? Through

You, Mr Mayor. So army of ambassadors is a term that we've been using quite a lot lately, and it relates to just really building a bank of knowledge of our staff, but also our councillors. So what we've been trying to do just in the last three months is send out newsletters weekly to our staff, and then also we've started that quarterly newsletter for our councillors, building on some of the other information that you used to get previously. So that's how we're aiming to build our army of ambassadors. And so I think then you talked about having community champions, yeah ? So that is about those community leaders and identifying those people and working with them. So whether they be RFS captains or heads of Progress Associations. So we've had quite a lot of opportunity to work with those people, especially when we have town meetings. Sorry

I would just like to say I think this is a good draft document, and it's something that is radically different to a strategy that we would have seen come from the previous council. As we know, the previous council operated pretty much as a closed shop. There was very much an us and them mentality , let alone from ropes and security guards and lack of being able to talk at meetings. It was just like everything was locked down tight. And those of us that came to this place wanting to open it up, open the doors and open the windows, and return council to the community, I think this is a, it's quite heartening to see this document. And I don't even think council had a Facebook page before the last council

So we got a Facebook page in 2016 as well. Oh

Right. So ,

Yeah. So

I think it is, as I say, it's radically different to something that we would have seen four and a half years ago. And I think, yeah, it's spit and polish and mention of town meetings and stuff, and maybe some spell check. It would be really, really good. Yeah .

Okay. Councillor Calvert. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I also would like to thank the staff for this document. I think it moves us very far ahead from where we were before. I just wanted to ask a question about, on page 19, the bottom of the table, it talks about town representative groups, and this sort of follows on from what Councillor Reynolds was saying. Are we talking there about hooking into the existing groups, such as Pitt Town Progress Association, or are we talking about trying to set up what you might call precinct committees in some of our far-flung villages? Are we looking to go down that road of setting up a formal group, or are we just looking to plug into the existing local groups?

No, I think at this stage, especially as we're sort of, we're starting from a fairly low base at the moment, that I think we would use the champions that we have in our communities at this stage, definitely probably in this first four years of the implementation of this document, and then we can go on to explore other ideas as we progress. But, I mean, it can be something that can be fleshed out and explored in our engagement framework. So there is still more work to be done there. So I can come back to you and we can explore those things in more detail.

That would be very useful because a number of people from Bilpin and St Albans said to me last year that they would like to see the precinct committee style brought in. Precinct committees are not new; they exist in many parts of Australia, especially Victoria. And in fact, I brought it up as a notice of motion in 1999. It took me a while to get around to it, I suppose. It's been around for a long time, and communities are talking about that kind of model to have someone in their local area that they can go and talk to who then will report to council. The difference now is the precinct committee would not necessarily have to be people sitting in a town hall. It could be done through social media instead.

And I would just like to see us consider that because that's what the community said they would like us to look at, some of the community. Maybe those people are the exception, but I think we should try and find out what the community thinks about that, because if it is a popular way to do things, then we should approach it. And I think it's something addresses what Councillor Ross was saying about our far-flung villages. Give them a point of contact. I would like to see it investigated. Thank you. Thanks.

All right, I think everybody's spoken. So, right of reply, Councillor Richards. Okay

Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogna, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lanesbucket, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmussen and Gary. Absolutely vote. Declare it carried.

Mr Mayor, could I move a procedural motion please?

Sure.

Just that we hear item 54 ahead of 52 and 53. It's just some of the young people who have put a submission into the public feedback. I'm just aware that there's school and university commitments, and we might be a bit longer. Sure.

Yeah. Oh, well, yeah. Everyone in favour of that? Need to declare it carried. Yep. So move to item 54.

I'll

Move it, Mr Mayor.

Second, Councillor Kotlash. Speak? Yeah.

Yes, thank you. I'd like to thank the people in the members of the public who put in their submissions and the groups and organisations. I think it shows there's overwhelming support for the strategy having been done, and there were some really good points raised within the submissions that came in. There was another plan that was awaiting review, which I just wanted to get an update on the adaptation plan, which I would think would sit side by side with this, and because it's designed to deal with the adaptation to the impacts of climate change on critical infrastructure, communications, health services, the local economy and the natural environment, I think it would be very complementary to this.

It is an outstanding resolution to update that plan, and I'm just wondering, I know we have so many plans to do. I'm looking at Ms Perin and she's thinking, not another one. But it is an outstanding resolution, and I'm just wondering if it is in the foreseeable future to be upgraded, updated

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, so we have started looking at that plan, and we've started firstly with engaging with staff and with the view that we'll be bringing that to council, but I can't say at this point in time when that will be. Okay

Good. But it's going on, because I think that what this strategy shows is how much it's part of a bigger picture, and of course that also includes our waste strategy, which is also essential to tie in and deliver consistency with this. To this strategy, I think we've still got some work to do, and it would tie in with the communication strategy around how we bring the community along with us on this journey. And there's room for increased educational and incentive-based actions to be undertaken to assist with this. I think on the list on page 41, where the primary matters were raised, I thought an additional one that I think was raised, and I saw it in a few things, and it's definitely a very important point to note, is the protection of existing stores of carbon.

I think we really need to make sure, and I think that also appears in the rural land strategy submissions as well. I think that's a really important factor that we have to take into consideration while we're reviewing our planning documents, and we have to be mindful of that. And the other thing that isn't there as well—it is, but it's not worded overly sort of defining it—is the support for increased sustainability provisions for new and existing development. I think more specifically, we've heard a call from our community for legislative and regulatory amendments to cover this. They want us to have it in our DCP, not merely at strategy level, but actually within our planning documents. And I think the time is coming up, and I hope we can do it at some point, and I gather it will be around the LEP process, that we should be lobbying the state government to actually legislate in this regard, to open up the legislation to really enable more possibilities in this area.

Again, I'll say it, and I've said it since I've sat here since 2012. I think we should prioritise installation of electric vehicle charger facilities. I think waiting for the town centres is too long. I think we're being held back as a destination on this basis. People are aware of that. Electric vehicles are increasing in sales. You can see them in a lot more places now than before, and we've got numerous council sites where it could be suitable. So I would be hopeful that that could be, I think that hopeful that that could be included somewhere else, anywhere else along the line where it could be included as something, as an action that we could have. I was surprised to see that there were some submissions.

Of course, everyone's opinion is valued and we take them on board. But I was surprised to see that anyone would think that we don't need some action around this space, particularly if you didn't allude into renewable energy. I think water efficiency is something that is so paramount and really, really has to be a priority for any organisation, any council, any individual. And I think that, you know, a zero emission target isn't an unreliable economic strategy. We know that the market's driving the transition, and we know that that is what's happening, and that we've even had our government, you know, do a big turnaround on that and actually finally agree, much to those who've been promoting it, finally agree that there is a need to reduce emissions, and we need to do it soon.

Particularly the transport sector is somewhere where we really need to work hard, and hopefully it will take the same line that the solar uptake has gone down, because solar uptake has ballooned over the years, and I think a lot of people did that for economic reasons, not necessarily environmental reasons, but it certainly had quite a big benefit to us that people have had the dual benefit of assisting in emissions reduction and also in having some economic benefits for themselves. I just had a couple of questions, if I may, Mr Mayor, to include in there. I'm just wondering if there is a time frame on the BASIX review that the government is doing.

Director C. Planey?

I don't have a time frame at this point in time.

Okay, that will be welcome when that's done. At what point in the DCP would we be considering inclusion of tighter controls around emissions and water efficiency? Is that something that's being incorporated from the onset, or is that going to be a specific task ?

So at this point in time, there are a number of sustainability initiatives that we are considering as part of the DCP. It will be a point of discussion that we'll have at the, whether it's the upcoming workshop or the next one. But it is, but as to how far we can go at really, while we're also looking at what the state government's doing, it's a bit unclear.

Yes. Okay. With the PFAS, there was a submission around PFAS, and I note that it was said to be out of this strategy, which it would be, but which council policy might we have that could best enable us to address something like that as an ongoing problem? What would be our policy that would contain something about contamination and our water health generally?

We're working towards a broader sustainability framework under which there will be specific plans, so I'm not quite sure where that would best sit, but it would ultimately sit under a broader framework that we're developing. Okay,

Thank you. And another , can we have an update from someone on our cycleway plan, where it's up to? I haven't heard anything about that for some time. The last, I think, was we were having the Bligh Park to Windsor one done. It doesn't have to be now. I'm happy for that to go on notice, but I think I would really like an update on that in conjunction with this. And my final question was about, can we ask Wentworth Housing, even though we know that we don't have any control over them, can we ask them to make the change to the LED lighting that was included in the submission? Can we at least say, could you please consider it? It's such a benefit for them.

Yes, we can follow up with that on that issue. Okay, thank you. That's it.

Thank you

Thank you, Councillor Reynolds. Yeah

Thanks, Mr Mayor. A couple of questions to start with. In the document somewhere, it says that Council will monitor operational usage of water, electricity, fuel, gas usage, and methane flaring via our utilities data platform. I was just wondering what this platform is, what does it record, and is the information publicly available at all?

Director, Steve.

So through our property department, there is a whole range of information that they collect. At this point in time, that's not all public information because it's really about our monitoring of our buildings. There is a broader discussion that we'll be having around what information that we do gather a lot of data around a range of matters, and internally we're beginning to have that conversation around what can we make public. And it will also form part of the broader environmental sustainability strategy.

Thank you. I've noticed that there was a good submission from Western Sydney University, and they're actually targeting 75% of their vehicle fleet to be electric vehicle or hybrid by 2025. There's no mention in the document about Council's plans to convert its fleet to electric vehicle or hybrids. I'm just wondering if this is planned, and I'd just like to make the comment that one of our conservative friends across the road has converted to hybrid, not out of concern for the environment, I think, but because it saved him money. So I think that it would be good to see something about that.

So that is included on page 28 of the draft strategy, point 6. Okay

I'm

Terribly sorry.

That's okay. In ,

Point,

I think it's point 2

The greener suburbs and better design, it says, I abbreviated it, basically it says, ensure the proposed housing new developments are delivered healthy and cooler communities. Is there something in place concerning this for Vineyard Stage 1?

So in terms of the, there is a control plan for Vineyard, yeah, and there would be outcomes in relation to trying to, you know, keep areas cooler, more liveable communities, and also throughout DCP review we'll be looking at those actions as well

Okay. It mentions in the document, you know, the downfalls of black or dark-coloured roofs and the fact that they're known to be heat sinks. And while there's acknowledgement there, there's nothing really in the policy to address, you know, what is now an almost uniform use. How do we encourage the non-use of that? Does it require something in a DCP for something like Vineyard, or can a caveat or something be applied to new development applications?

Interesting question. It's, as you know, we've got that reference group that has, you know, a range of people on it. We actually haven't tackled the discussion around sustainability yet, particularly around new release areas as yet. What I'd be anticipating is we might be posing them a series of questions because I suppose I'd be wanting to see what, from their point of view, what they see as the barriers to considering, you know, alternatives or, you know, other options around sustainability or colour of roofs. Ultimately, we will have whatever controls we can within our, you know, planning controls, but to some extent, you do need to understand from the developers' point of view what do they see as the blockages.

And one more question. In the document, the community engagement processes, there's a request in there to focus on tree planting and also the use of light-coloured road paving material to reduce urban heat. I know, for example, Los Angeles helps cool itself by painting several streets in a light grey colour and reduces the temperature of the road by as much as 5.5 degrees Celsius. And there's other studies done where they used a thin layer of coloured asphalt that was coloured with pigment and measured the ability to reflect the sun. And they found that very light-coloured pavement or roads, you know, reflected as much as 55% of the heat back, whereas black asphalt reflects only 4%. And we know that if you have a look at an aerial picture of any of the developments that have gone into the northwest.

About the hills all down around Alaro, all you see is black roofs and black roads. And if it was a much lighter colour, then that's surely going to benefit. You know, the people who live there. And it's a bit of a bugger that that isn't really mentioned in the document. So could something be done about that?

So there is a document that WestROC have created in terms of core suburbs, and within that document there is a range of actions and strategies to reduce urban heat. So ultimately, we've made reference to that within this document, that we've referred to that document in terms of, you know, a source that we can draw upon in our engagement around mitigating these issues.

So you don't think it would be a good thing to actually put it into words or something? Because I know that there are people, as we saw from our submissions, who are, you know, concerned about that. And I think if it was just put into words in the document and people go, Ah, they're onto it, rather than refer to another document and then go through the process. Just an observation. Okay,

Thank you.

Okay.

Further discussion? Councillor Calvert. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm just wondering whether we could send a copy of this report and the attachments to WestROC so they can include it in their research. They, as the director was just saying, WestROC has already done a lot of work on urban heat and continues to do work on reducing emissions, including just last week we started talking about electric vehicles and whether there's some way WestROC could coordinate the introduction of electric vehicle fleets on a regional basis. That's early days, but they are looking at these sort of things and we— The other thing that came up just last or this week is the solar energy that the government has put out a statement that it plans to charge households for putting solar power back into the grid.

And I, as president of Wesrock, I put out a press release just yesterday on that matter, that that is counter to everything that we are trying to do in councils and communities . And rather than charging people, they should be giving us a greater subsidy. And that the, what I suggested was that what could happen is that those of us with solar panels send our excess electricity into the grid and it gets stored by batteries, and we send it for free and it comes back for free. And the electricity companies may charge us for storage and transfer of the electricity, but not sell back our electricity at an inflated rate. So Wesrock is looking at all those things, and they're gathering as much information as they can.

And yes, urban heat has been one of our big things that we've been working on. There are a number of documents on the Wesrock webpage that I urge people to have a look at about urban heat, and just little things like down at this Solara Estate, they put in synthetic grass in some of the parks, and the Wesrock team did a measurement down there and found that in some cases the synthetic grass was up to 15 to 20 degrees hotter than ordinary grass, and in some cases it is hotter than concrete. And people think that, oh, well, it's grass, but no, the urban heat problem is just getting worse. And if we can send this to Wesrock, add it to the research, I think it all goes to help on a regional and a state basis.

So I wonder if the mover could consider adding a point to send all this to Wesrock, please.

Yes, that's fine. Move that to the motion. Councillor Kotlash? Yep.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I think it's clear that many of these submissions probably need to be referred to the LEP and DCP review process as well. There's a lot of crossover here and a lot of really helpful information, I think, that needs to go forward. There's also some, again, and we see this all the time, this isn't new, clear confusion about what council can do and the intersection between council's powers and the state government powers. But there's also great support from the community for change, and I think that's really exciting. That represents a moving forward, I think, for us. We've got some good offers, I think, in this document that have come through from the submissions, particularly from Western Sydney University.

I think we need to take up all of those offers. The same with the offers from Sydney Water. It's very clear here that we need to educate the community around what they can do, and that's not just to save—I don't think that the pitch for most people is that you reduce carbon emissions. I think the pitch is that you save money and that you improve your quality of life and your comfort at home. I want to particularly commend the Hawkesbury Climate Action Network for their submission, and I agree wholeheartedly with them that carbon sequestration can't be relied on. I think we need to make sure that any measures that we use to reduce our emissions aren't just accounting tricks. So I know there's been—we've had things like offsets in the past.

I fear that carbon sequestration will become another trick of accounting that actually doesn't make any change and allows polluters to continue to pollute, and we need to make sure that we don't go down that path. I would like to see— Further work done on reducing the impacts of our sewage treatment and how we can use that, in fact, to enhance carbon sequestration. I think there's that interesting comment from Sydney Water about a whole-of-water-cycle approach, and I think that fits in nicely with the closed-loop economic principles that we've been talking about with regards to waste. We will need an adaptation plan as an LGA. We have seen that climate change is hitting us and hitting us harder.

We've seen that that's been very clear in the period from 2018 until just this week. I think we have really seen what the future is starting to look like. Again, I'm very pleased to see the Sydney Water comments. I think it would be useful to meet with Sydney Water to discuss the collaboration suggested. I think there's challenges here, and one of our challenges in dealing with climate change has always been that culture of individual, and the idea that action leads us down the path of the dehumanising instruments of collectivism. But we have to act. We see again and again that, from the events just in the last few weeks, that we're really vulnerable, but we're also in a really good position to use our land and vegetation and water uses to transition quickly to not just a net zero position, but a net positive carbon community, so a net negative position where we're not just We're not just not producing, we're actively withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere.

We've got the potential for regenerative agriculture, increased vegetation, this whole of water cycle and circular economy principles around waste and water. We've got a lot of low-hanging fruit because we haven't done as much as our neighbouring councils like Blacktown, for example, who have worked really hard in educating their communities around sustainability, which has improved people's capacity to save money, but also to live more comfortably. And we simply haven't been as active in that space. But we've also got really big challenges, and I think we're acutely aware of that looking at some of the data that we've got in front of us. We've got residents who are often responsible for their own power, for using power for their own sewer and treatments and water pumping.

That makes our emissions greater because our residents simply use more. We've also got the impacts of heat and air conditioning use to reduce that. But then we've also got the big problem around transport, and that's a huge issue for us. You know, I'm pleased to see that we've allocated money for footpaths tonight, which will hopefully increase our active transport. But just the distances that we cover and the lack of public transport means that our transport emissions will always remain high. Electric vehicles and plant is one way forward, and I think we need to acknowledge that that has a significant knock-on effect into the community because it produces a second-hand market, and it behoves organisations that buy fleet and buy fleet regularly to start moving into that second-hand market and facilitating that transition for the rest of the community.

Thank you. Further discussion?

If not, we'll go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just briefly, thank you for those contributions. And yes, I would also like to thank the Hawkesbury Community Action Network — is that correct? Resilience Action Network — for their submission and the other submissions. I really thought it was a climate action network. I thought it was a really good submission process where we actually got a lot of ideas out of it from the community, which was great. And I hope that we will also persevere with particularly the community battery storage model. And I know that the discussions are starting. And of course, this has the additional benefits, and it was something I was thinking a lot about during the floods when there was the potential for the power to be cut out.

And of course, it has the additional benefit of giving us an emergency storage of electricity in areas where otherwise we might not have them. So looking forward to further of that and really looking forward to the adaptation plan being updated. It's pretty old. It was done in 2015. It's just called adaptation plan because climate change wasn't a term used back then by the majority of this council. But I'll look forward to that being updated and being utilised. Thank you.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour? Raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Richards, Treese and Progno, Calvert, Kotlash, Lyons, Buckett, Wheeler, Reynolds, Ross. Councillor Rasmussen, Garry absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Given that we've been going for quite a while, we've got quite a bit left, I might suggest just a 10-minute adjournment, if everyone's okay. So we'll come back in 10 minutes.

Okay, so next item is item 52, the event sponsorship program.

Do you want to move anything? Move the recommendation, Councillor Calvert. Second, Councillor Kotlash. Any discussion?

No. All right, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Richards, Tree, Sempragno, Calvert, Kotlash, Wheeler, Reynolds, Ross, Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Rasmussen and Gary absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

So the next item then is item 53.

I'll move that, Mr Mayor.

Moved, Deputy Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash.

A discussion, Deputy Mayor?

Yes, I did, I had a couple of questions. I think now I can't find—here it is. I'd just like to say it's really wonderful to see the work being done in this space, particularly the partnerships that are being built. I think that it's really good that there's so much of this is being built that, as we've seen, we've had multiple circumstances where we've had to adapt and adjust in the business recovery sector, and I think it's good that all this is coming into shape. My questions were mainly around, mainly from interest's sake really, and it was around the various studies that we've had specifically done for the Hawkesbury. I'm wondering if these are publicly available or at least available to councillors, because I'm really quite intrigued by the raw data of the impacts of COVID-19 here.

Okay ,

Forgive. So thank you. Yes, so we did—yes, we'll be able to supply that information to the councillors,

Or a report. I was just intrigued by which area of agriculture actually was the, you know, the area that really flourished in COVID and so on, and I'm assuming it was around vegetables or something like that, but I don't know. But I'd just really like to see that, and I think I'm really pleased for it to go out to the public to get feedback because I think it's an area that we haven't really been to the public with this sort of information before, and I hope that they, you know, embrace the opportunity to give us the feedback on that. So thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, probably just a question to begin with. Do we think that this document needs any changes following the flooding in the last couple of weeks? So I think we've got flooding there. Flooding's mentioned, but it's last year's flooding. We've had a bit more flooding. I think we have to be careful that we don't look insensitive when we send this out. Yeah. Yeah. So

Obviously, in terms of the drafting of the document, this all happened before the flood happened. And so, Mount and I were just talking about the fact that we'll just amend that section to reflect the current situation.

Thanks. And I guess the only other query I had, have we done anything to deal, or do we have plans around the town centres beyond Richmond, Windsor and South Windsor? So I know we've discussed it as a council before, that there's a need for some works in those smaller town centre areas. I suspect that when we send this out, we will hear more of that need to put some resources into areas like Kermonde, Wilberforce, Freeman's Reach, Glossodia, Pitt Town, those smaller, and also then the outlying areas as well where we rarely do anything in those. We really even acknowledge that those centres exist in some of these documents. And yet, what we've seen with COVID, I think, is that they are really starting to punch well above their weight in terms of attracting visitors because they provide that day trip and close enough to go back home again at the end of the day.

So, how have we dealt with that, or how do we plan to deal with that as we go forward?

Okay, so there are several elements to that, really. So as you'd understand, liveability is taking up a significant amount of time because, you know, we're doing the detailed planning and we want to roll out those works. In terms of the business recovery, this is targeting all of businesses across the local government area through the business newsletter. We've got businesses across the whole spectrum that we get information to and are participating and will participate in any network functions that we'll organise. Obviously now that COVID is relaxed , we'll be looking at how we'll be engaging with local business operators on a more regular basis, not just through the newsletter, but through, you know, business-to-business opportunities.

We're also doing some master planning for the other centres, which will obviously give us an idea of what's going on and what we can be doing. And we will be doing a broader economic development strategy. This really is a stopgap measure to say we are in a recovery mode. Let's acknowledge that, and let's not, you know, set our aspirations too high. But I suppose within the next 12 to 18 months, we will then focus on doing a broader economic development strategy that will also be more encompassing. But in the meantime, we are doing master planning, which will come to Council for discussion, which will also then link to other economic initiatives that we can do in the other centres.

Thanks, that's really useful.

Further discussion? No I'll put the motion then. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor Carbutt, Councillor Cotterlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillors Erasmus and Ngaria absent from the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is 55 , Rural Lands Strategy.

Do you want to move the recommendation there, or something else?

Moved, Councillor Calvert. Seconder? Councillor Kotlash.

Any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks. I'll buy some time for the Deputy Mayor, who's hunting for hers. Again, there's some really interesting things that have come back in the submissions. The Department of Primary Industries Agriculture, I think, is—that's a particularly interesting submission. It's clear that they don't support additional residential development in rural areas. And if we've learnt anything from the past fortnight, it should be that the push out into rural areas really does leave us spread far too thin and those communities very vulnerable, not just from the impacts of flooding themselves, but from the isolation that comes with that flooding. The other thing that I think is particularly worth noting is the need for buffer zones around agricultural and rural properties.

And we heard this very clearly from farmers at Glossodia when we went out to the information session that Council ran out there, where a number of farmers were concerned that the increasing development in Glossodia was going to lead to conflict of use complaints around smell and noise, and in particular one family who were really concerned that their harvesting of lucerne, which has to be done at midnight because it's a crop that's ready in summer when it's hot, if you harvest it in the middle of the day, you lose the crop. And so they're really concerned that their new neighbours, who've just bought a lovely new residential house, will be complaining that they're out with the harvesters and the trucks at midnight and 1 a.m.

We really need to consider buffer zones around all of this land, I think, and we've seen this before in this council. I think we saw it at Freeman's Reach a few years ago as well. We also need to consider buffers between watercourses and agricultural properties, and that, I think, needs to go beyond the scope of the LEP and DCP. I think also we can't rely solely on innovation and, frankly, hope and optimism, which we often do. I think sometimes we need to have a bigger stick at the ready, and I think we need to be clear when we put out documents like this and the subsequent documents that hinge from this that we are aware of these conflicts and these impacts on the environment and that we are willing to act when we see them.

We've got some really fragile areas here, some very important areas, particularly our wetlands and some of our watercourses, the tributaries into the Hawkesbury that we have here in abundance. They're very fragile, and many of them are already damaged, and we need to limit any further impacts on them. We also need to get better at mapping significant vegetation, and we need, as an organisation, to allocate the resources to do that. We can't protect what we don't know about, or we can't protect what we don't document, and we don't have evidence for when it comes to pulling people up on impacts. I'm a little bit concerned about the response to submission seven about rural areas being underutilised and used for offsets.

I don't think this council should be buying into the offset game. We know that there are scientific nonsense, and while we're seeing at Jacaranda that it does allow us to retain some of our bushland, and that's lovely for us. In the broader scheme of things, it's not a responsible activity for this Council to be engaged in when we know that they don't make a material difference to the protection of vegetation and to flora and fauna. And we know, in fact, that they facilitate damage in other LGAs, and we shouldn't be a part of that, and in letting people off the hook for the damage that they've done. I'm also tired of seeing the airport used as a justification for things. It's going to have a very significant impact on the quality of life of a large segment of people living in Western Sydney.

And again, it's not fair to trade one against the other. I am, however, really pleased to see food security being raised in these submissions. We've got a key role on the last fertile land surrounding Australia's biggest city to feed a hungry populace high-quality fresh food that reduces food miles and transport costs and time delays. And I think the evidence that shows that COVID got people eating fresh food locally is a real positive for Hawkesbury and something that we really need to capitalise on.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I think Councillor Weiland must have taken my notes because I couldn't find them, and she basically said many of the things I was going to raise. I also think the main thing is, of course, identifying in the start that there's not current alignment of existing land use zones in the rural areas with the actual uses of those lands, and that's an historical thing that we've had various land use in some areas that is no longer. We've had zones in areas where that's no longer the predominant land use, and I look forward to some of those anomalies being corrected down the track through the LEP review. I just had a question around, I think it was in the Department of Planning...

Submission, around where it says Council should establish a clear strategic direction for rural residential development in the LGA to avoid ad hoc proposals that are not guided by either the rural land strategy or the housing strategy. And the answer is that as part of the implementation of this strategy, we're preparing an updated DCP that will address this issue. Is that the DCP is going to have controls specifically for rural land in that regard?

Mr Cairns. Thank you, Mr Mayor. So, yeah, the DCP will have chapters that deal with rural land and, I guess, trying to minimise the potential conflict and issues there. But we've also actually been able to, as part of the draft strategy, amend the strategy to be more consistent with the Sydney Region Plan and the Western City District Plan in terms of its metropolitan rural area context and its references to rural residential development.

Just your microphone, Deputy Mayor.

This came up in the last item around the Sydney Water. I'm just wondering if there's plans to have discussions with them regarding this opportunity of the energy, waste and water hub being in Richmond specifically. I'm assuming that means it would be at the university.

Yes, I can. The director's just out of the room at the moment, but those conversations have already started, yeah.

Okay, that's wonderful. And the other thing that just came to mind while I was reading through this, and given that we have a lot of planning reviews underway, a lot of strategies coming out and so on, is that still we probably need some form of education around our planning system to the public, because I think there's a fundamental misunderstanding about how a standard template is used, how we're constrained by, you know, the various criteria that have to go into our planning documents, even though we can tailor them somewhat to our own needs. So that's just an observation, because I noticed in some submissions it was quite clear that people, you know, were sort of wondering why we weren't doing something when obviously we're constrained by the state legislative controls. So yes, thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Reynolds.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll get myself sorted out here. I found it really interesting that it was actually in an item we discussed before, and I think Councillor Wheeler, the Deputy Mayor, touched on it, that in that business recovery plan regarding COVID-19 and the impact on the local economy, it says, ‘Remarkably, the overall performance of the local economy was largely offset by the strong performance of the agricultural sector.’ And had the Hawkesbury not had such a strong agricultural sector, the impact to the local economy would have been much worse. And I think that goes to the heart of the need to protect our rural lands.

Again, it's been touched on, but COVID again really pointed out the need for food security. When everything was shut down, you know, nothing was coming in, nothing was going out, we could only survive on what we could grow here. And I've been talking to local farmers, and they've actually suggested that the Minister for Primary Industry at state and federal levels should actually also be the Minister for Food Security, because, you know, it is likely that lockdowns will occur again. Again, food miles. It's part of getting fresh food to the new airport, getting food overseas. Again, we're in the prime position to take advantage of that. And of course, if we lose our rural lands, then we lose that economic potential.

Just a question for staff. In a comment made, I think by the Department of Primary Industry, they mentioned state significant land. I was wondering, is that a thing yet, or is that like a possible future classification?

Is it a thing, Mr. Cairns?

So, councillors may recall that there was a position paper put out by the New South Wales Agricultural Commissioner relatively recently, and there was mention about a classification of state significant land in that position paper. So we provided a submission in that regard. So not aware that that's come into force as yet in a position paper yet.

And so if land was, I mean, we all know about state significant development and infrastructure, but a classification of state significant land, does that- Is it then protected, you know, forever, or, you

Know, what kind of protection would that allow, you know? Is it like at SEPP level?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yeah, that's our understanding. It would be at that state environmental planning policy level, so it would have higher weight than Council's local planning provisions. Okay,

Thank you. I know that, you know, some of the community and local farmers, again, have concerns surrounding, you know, the sale of Hambleton Estate up at North Richmond, and apparently it can already be subdivided down to 25 acres. The farmers tell me that, you know, 10 acres can still be profitably farmed. So I hope that, you know, they're big players and whatever happens will happen, but hopefully whatever happens to Hambleton Estate will be done mindfully with regards to the need for food security and protection of our rural lands. So thank you.

Further discussion?

Right of reply, Councillor Calvert. Put the motion. Those in favour? Raise your hand. Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Cotter, Councillor Lanes-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Rasmusson and Gary absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is 56.

Moved,

Mr Mayor. Moved by Recommendation by the Deputy Mayor, seconded by Councillor Wheeler. Any discussion?

I just, I don't have any issue with those reappointments. I mean, it's obviously the logical thing to do, as suggested. I was just wondering if at some point, or if the government has given any direction of any evaluation around the planning panels, and if there has to be like a report done on how the planning panel function for us, or if they're gathering data or anything, and if there's any momentum to be restructuring this whole system after, you know, they altered it a couple of years ago. It's almost like it was just done and it hangs there in a void, and I would think you would be monitoring and evaluating a change like that to see if it was a workable system or not.

Do you think we're aware of, Director City Planning?

So yes, I think when I first started, I was aware that there was a report that had been done. I can't remember exactly who did it, and they are gathering, you know, information, but I'm not aware of a more formal review that's coming up at the moment. But I would anticipate that they would do a review and they would seek input from the councils that participate.

Thank you. I think that's something we should perhaps, you know, be addressing at some stage, because I think that I don't know how people feel it's going. I don't really know how it's going because it's such an obscure type of sort of setup. But I'd be very interested in any evaluation process that's set up around that into the future that we could participate in. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just wondering if we could get some indication of how many and perhaps what percentage of applications have gone to the planning panel versus those that have been handled by council staff, and how much the planning panels have cost us as a council since their introduction. Director City Planning.

I'd have to take that on notice and provide a report to Council.

Councillor Ross. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Director's question to staff.

I understand the panel arrangement is constituted by a chair with two alternates. There is a group, as I understand, of four expert representatives, a pool, and likewise there is a pool of three community representatives. Could you inform me, please, as to,

Given that there will be a chairperson or an alternate there, who selects the experts and the two experts at a particular hearing and the community representative at a particular hearing, please? Director City Planning.

So you're talking about when we have a planning meeting, how is it determined? Well, essentially the chair is generally the same unless she's unable to make it, and it's sometimes around availability. So, you know, but at the beginning of the year when we're planning the panel meetings, we'd be seeking the availability of other panel members because... A lot of these people might be on multiple panels, so they might say, yes, I'm available for, you know, the July meeting or the September meeting. So we get an understanding who's available, and obviously we're trying to spread them out so that we're not using the same experts for each meeting. So we do use them, you know, spread the, I suppose, access accordingly. Although at the same time, we're not actually having meetings every month, unlike other councils.

Microphone. Councillor Ross.

Sorry, what I'm seeking to clarify, is it the chairperson who will preside over a panel meeting who decides the expert representatives and the community member to participate, or is there an alternate arrangement, please?

No, it's not the chair that's determining that. It is actually—we're seeking, we seek, when we set the meetings, we're saying these are the meetings and we're seeking to find what dates they might be available, because they're not necessarily available for each day, each month. Steve

Just maybe drill down on the question. Who has the authority, though, to choose who those members are? If everyone's available on a particular—if everyone came back and said, yes, we're all available on every day, is it up to council to tell them who's going to be on which meeting, or is it up to the chair or somebody else?

I actually haven't had to deal with that, so, yeah. So, but if we needed to find, to some extent, if there is a particular expertise that we would find very useful to deal with a matter, we would actually like to have that expert involved. So to some extent, you do want to try and match. You know, and we never know what matters are going to what meeting. So to some extent, there's a flexibility that we would then liaise with the chair to say, okay, well, these experts may all be available. However, these matters are particularly pertinent for, and we might need an architectural perspective as opposed to an urban design perspective. So, yeah.

Would it be possible, because I think potentially what Council wants to know is legally where that authority sits to choose those members. Could that be taken on notice so we can get an answer around that? Absolutely. Thanks, Councillor Ross.

Any further discussion

Being no further discussion, I put the motion. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillor Grasmusson and Gary absent for the vote. Declared carried.

So next item is item 58, and I might just start by reading out the written submission I have. Oh, interest,

Sorry, just read that first. That's okay. It's pecuniary conflict of interest. My home is within the precinct being discussed, so I'll leave. Okay, thank you. Do you have that submission?

So we've got a written submission from Patricia Swartz, who had intended to be here but wasn't able to be, and I think we should just take the written submission, if everyone's okay with it, and I'll read that onto the record. So, Defenders of Thompson Square is speaking against the acceptance of recommendation 2 and asking for a deferral until Council, engineers and Transport for New South Wales have had the opportunity to fully assess the damage caused by the recent flood. The area around the wharf has been scoured by flood waters, and part of the wharf is washed away. The estimated values of works may have changed dramatically since the flood event. The amount of $250,000 may now be insufficient to complete works in the wharf reserve and an integrated program of improvements through the Thompson Square precinct.

It is important for tourism and business viability that the wharf is made functional again as soon as possible, and that the funds are there to achieve that. Money spent on improvements in the Thompson Square precinct is of vital importance to Windsor because with thousands of cars passing through Thompson Square every day, there is no better way to attract people into the town than through the appeal of Thompson Square. Defenders of Thompson Square is speaking against the acceptance of recommendation 1 until there has been an inspection of the old bridge artefacts after the flood. The information on these artefacts may have changed since the flood, as many of them were stored on the northern bank of the river, which has been badly flood affected.

Hopefully all elements are still in place and intact, but until mud and debris are removed this cannot be known for sure. It is appreciated that future community consultation regarding these artefacts is planned by Council, and that the community interest in both the bridge artefacts and Thompson Square precinct has been acknowledged. Thank you, Patricia Swartz. So that was the written submission. Does somebody want to move anything? Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move to defer until we can assess the site and the impact of flooding on the site and the artefacts. I'll second that.

Councillor Lyons. So, Councillor Wheeler moved to defer consideration until there's been an inspection of the artefacts, seconded by the Deputy Mayor.

And the site as well, Mr Mayor. And the site We may be up for much more than we thought.

Might just ask a question, Mr Organ. Are our parks — it's not really a park yet — but our public spaces like that, if there's damage there, is that also covered by the Natural Disaster Agreements?

Generally public lands are not covered by that, although there will be some items that the Warfy would, I believe, is insured under our insurance policy. But generally public areas are not covered under Natural Disaster funding. That's something that's better our council's own resources.

I imagine the RMS is likely to consider this a reasonable position and not be too pushy for us to wait. Would that

Be your expectation? My understanding is they're after an answer fairly quickly to be able to finish this off. Obviously the floods have probably delayed their completion of the project to some extent. I don't believe that would be a problem probably to refer to the next meeting. Okay,

Thank you. Any other discussion? Councillor... Well

I'd go even a little further. I lament that we appear to have totally forgotten the idea of site inspections. I understand that we left off doing site inspections when DA powers were effectively taken away from us. But this is a good example of where I think we would make much better progress by agreeing to meet at a particular time and go down there and point at things. And maybe we'll come to a better sense of what we could do with that money, or whether that money is adequate to the need. So I only offer that as a suggestion rather than an amendment, but I don't mind waiting.

Yeah, I think the issue at the moment, I think that's a good point, but I think the issue at the moment is that an assessment of damage is, but potentially when we get to design, I think that's quite a valid point. Any further discussion? No. Oh, Councillor Ross, sorry. Feel free to call out. You're sort of outside my line of vision.

All right, I'm Sam, Mr Mayor, thank you. Could I direct a question through you, sir, to the Director of Infrastructure? In regard to the natural disaster claim scenario, would you indicate, or could you indicate, what might be the situation were there actually, if you like, an item or a piece of infrastructure there of an heritage nature within that area about which we are now speaking? Would that be covered, or would that just be at Council's happenchance, shall we say?

In terms of loss of that asset, if it was in a public reserve, it's not something that's insured by Council. That would be unlikely to be subject to an approval for— Under the natural disaster funding arrangements, it's there basically to restore infrastructure, not to replace items that could or would have been otherwise insured by council.

Thanks

Okay, no further discussion. Right, oh, Councillor Willoughby.

Just quickly, Mr Mayor, I think one of the issues that we've got is that currently the stuff that we're thinking of as artefacts and wanting to retain in some sort of, for some sort of interpretive purposes, are actually at the moment just considered the waste products of a demolition. And so, for us they have value, but in the current scheme of things they don't. And I think what we've had so far is, and I want to thank Mr Organ for his part in this because I think he's worked quite hard to secure some of these items and also to recognise that the community needs some closure around this issue. And I think we had, I

Wouldn't call it a discussion, but we did at least have an item come to the Heritage Advisory Committee around what council has been able to retain. And I note that some of the things that we think are on this site currently may have washed away, and that's because they're not particularly large. Some of the stuff that we're hoping that we can use for some sort of engineering heritage interpretation may not be there anymore. I think Councillor Zampron's point of going onto the site and having a look. It may be valuable, but I think it's—but this is a demolition site currently. It's a construction zone, and I think us accessing it is really problematic. There was a whole lot of stuff that had to be organised to get the Heritage Advisory Committee on the site to look at the drainage system.

I think it will be even, probably even more difficult in this instance. But I think we've had a good record of what we think is there and what we think we would like to get from that site. But I think we have to be realistic too about the damage that has probably been done and to the things that were left there . But we do need to involve the community in how we go on to interpret this. But we also need to make sure that we're not taking—if an offer looks too good to refuse, it very often is, and I suspect in this instance this one might be. So I think we need to get more information before we commit to something that will cost us money in the future.

Thank you. Councillor Cutlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was just wondering, I agree with deferring this because obviously the situation has changed, or we suspect it's changed. Who's going to do the evaluation of the damage and the assessment of what that might cost us?

Councillor Jack, Councillor.

Mr Alderman.

I guess the first part would be the council would do that assessment of any damage as a result of the flood and make some, in conjunction with transport, as to what's— Part of their liability as part of the construction project, as opposed to the improvements necessary. I would add that the $250,000 is not there to carry out repairs or as such. It's there for Council to, in lieu of transport undertaking various works. So if the works that they've to completed have been damaged whilst it's still in their control and not handed back to Council, we'd be asking them to repair those. But if there are other damages which are not a result of their works within that reserve, that's going forward with Council.

Okay, well, I'll just clarify that. So the $250,000 we could take now, but also assess damage to the site and then negotiate with Transport for New South Wales about the damage. I'm just trying to see whether it

Might be prudent to take that money and then start another process.

Mr. Alden. As I've indicated, I think Transport would be forgiving of having this matter deferred for two weeks whilst we can do that assessment and come back with a report. As I said, I know they are keen to finalise their responsibilities under the planning approval, which would require them to make that payment to Council. But I think the current works down there and the damage, they'd be forgiving of a two-week delay on everything.

Thank you.

Further discussion? In the form of reply, Councillor Wheeler. Not necessary, Mr Mayor. Okay, put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Carver, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Ross. Absent for the vote were Councillors Rasmussen, Garo and Reynolds. So we're going to get Councillor Reynolds.

Okay. Next item is 59.

Move that, Mr Mayor.

Moved, Deputy Mayor. Seconded, Councillor Richards.

It's good that this will be going out. I was interested in the feedback already given around the park, and it's obviously a popular park used for multiple things, and people are obviously, and hopefully, will be putting in some submissions. I think that's the time to go through all the content of it. I'm just wondering, is there any idea of any damage sustained at Colby Park during the floods? I heard that there was some, the amenities block may be underwater, or— Mr Alden?

Yeah, I haven't been down to Colby. I've been to a number of other parks, but understand quite clearly that the amenities blocks down there were flooded and there's significant damage internally to those. We're trying to get those assessed and made for safety. As I said, I think they're still tagged out from electricity, but extensive damage at any of the amenities blocks that are, and change rooms that are down at those levels. We'll have a full assessment of those over the next couple of weeks.

Sorry, go, no, your microphone again. Sorry

I think we'll probably get some good submissions, you know, probably lots of ideas of what people think about the plan. Thank you.

Okay. No further speakers. Put the motion. All those in favour, raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Richards, Trees, Zampogna, Calvert, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler, Reynolds and Ross in favour. Councillors Rasmussen and Gary absent from the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is item 62, draft procurement policy, moved to Councillor Wheeler, seconded Councillor Calvert.

I'd like to just preface this debate by strongly endorsing the policy. I think it's something we've been calling on for a long time, and it's certainly something that I've got a lot of feedback from, both from general business community, but specifically from Windsor Business Group and the Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce, and a lot of other people strongly supporting the idea of having a local procurement weighting. So, you know, we've still got to consider all the other factors, but putting a weighting in there that, you know, if you're local, that counts for something as well. And we've also got a whole lot of guidelines in there around sustainability, which I think aligns with the values of Council. So I think that I'm really happy with this policy, and I think it's a good step for Council, and I strongly endorse it. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor, and thanks for that endorsement. I think policies like this are a real balancing act, and I think many of us bring different positions to the table where different things are important to us, and I think it's very difficult to get a policy that manages to cover, and it's one of those things, very difficult to keep everyone happy, I think. And this policy, I think, treads a really nice middle ground in achieving that. So I want to thank the staff for pulling this together. It's concise, it's easy to understand, and hopefully then it will be easy to implement. I've got a couple of things that I wanted to just pick up on. Under the definition of local supplier, I notice that there's , I think, three clauses to the definition.

I was hoping that we could prioritise within those clauses. So there's obviously a difference between the local supplier who is resident, either, say, a business owned within the Hawkesbury that resides in the Hawkesbury and employs local people from the Hawkesbury, perhaps producing goods in the Hawkesbury, to a large organisation who employs local people. And so I think that within that definition, those three points of that definition, there seems to be a natural ranking where, so to use an example to illustrate the point, something like cleaning products, Bunnings is a local employer, but it's a major company. And spending council's money with that major company, while it will keep people employed, doesn't necessarily mean that that money will stay in the local economy.

It goes to the shareholders who are outside the Hawkesbury, and it goes to profit a major company which is headquartered elsewhere. That's not the same benefit to the community and the local economy as purchasing from a family-owned Windsor-based business, for example. If you're buying a similar product and the cost difference isn't huge in between. So if we could perhaps rank those so that that better reflects the fact that when you spend money with a local supplier that is locally owned, it's much more likely to keep funds in a local economy. One of the other things that I wouldn't mind exploring, and this could perhaps be done during the submission phase, is the, and I know it exists in a couple of other councils' procurement policies, is the capacity for smaller businesses to come together to put in a group tender to make them more competitive with a large external organisation.

So, for example, around roadworks, where a number of small groups would come together, small companies would come together to put a group tender. Something, a large tender in the order of a million dollars would be outside their scope, but five businesses joined together to put in a large tender is possible and allows us then to keep that business within local companies. And I think that's something that would also work well for us to explore, particularly in some of our outlying areas where we've realised that the employment of local crews has given us significant advantages. But all in all, I think this is an excellent policy. There's one other point, and again I'll ensure that there's a submission on this, and that's around the use of organisations that employ people with disabilities, where I think we need to have a clause that very specifically mentions that there is pay equity and support for disabled people, as well as career advancement pathways within those employment organisations, so that we are not simply allowing businesses to profit from the very poorly paid labour of people with disabilities.

In order for them to be ethical businesses, the people who work in them must be paid a living wage, and we need to make sure that we are not part of an exploitation cycle . Presents itself as being either a social enterprise or an ethical enterprise, when in fact it fails to pay people enough for them to live on. So I hope that people can endorse this policy. I think it's a really good way forward. It's something that I took to the previous election, and I will be really pleased to see local procurement along with ethical and sustainable procurement front and centre in Council's business dealings. Thank you.

Further discussion, Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm just seeking some clarification. My understanding was that this policy wasn't going for community consultation.

So, yeah, but aren't we endorsing it? So can I just get that clarified? Should we make changes now?

Yes, well, that's a good point. I guess you've got the option of— I actually probably prefer— sorry, who moved that one? I mean, I think Councillor Wheeler was of the understanding that it was going on exhibition. It's not the actual recommendation, but I actually prefer that method as well, with no reason we can't put it on exhibition. Perhaps that's what we should be moving, if that's— yeah. Yeah, thank you. Good point. We would have just gone ahead and adopted that.

Any further discussion?

Councillor Calvert.

Oh, just a question, Mr Mayor. We are also members of various regional groups. We used to have a relationship with— Penrith and the Blue Mountains, and we found ways of sharing procurement. Those arrangements are not mentioned in here, but I'm assuming they will still be able to continue. But even though that group may not access someone from this particular area, it means that when we work with, say, Penrith and Blue Mountains or any other group, as a group they may access people here, so it all comes out in the wash. So I'm hoping that this doesn't preclude those kind of arrangements, and I'm assuming because it doesn't mention them specifically that it doesn't. Would that be correct? I refer that to

Mrs. Galea

Acting Director, Support Services. So the question is, adopting this policy wouldn't preclude joint procurement with other councils and being able to use local suppliers in that process?

No, I suppose where it would make a bit of a challenge is in the definition of local. So whether local becomes whoever you're sharing with, or whether it's just our LGA. So that's what we found when we were in those combined sort of procurement positions. It was difficult then to focus on our own LGA.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you

Mr. Mayor.

Any further discussion? If not, put the right of reply. Councillor Wheeler, put the motion then. All those in favour? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Sanprogno, Councillor Carver, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds. Against? Councillor Ross, how did you intend to vote? In favour? Okay, Councillor Ross also in favour. Councillor Rasmussen and Gary absent for the vote.

So our next item.

Is item 63.

Anybody wants to move anything there? Move the recommendation, Councillor Kotlash. Seconded, Councillor Zanprogno. Discussion?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you. I had a look through these. I think, and I know that we get them regularly and we've done so since 2014, and then in 2018 we added a couple of columns. I'm still not really feeling that we necessarily have all the information to— not so much, we're getting the information, but I'm still concerned that there's a number of outstanding items. Some of them haven't been updated since obviously the last report, and I had a few questions. They're mainly of, I think, the older ones. There was just a few things in the detail of what's happened that perhaps could just be either answered now or answered at some point. I'm understanding from the report in the business paper that there are some guidelines around how they're to be updated, and I think that's good.

It was while reading through them that I realised that the adaptation action plan had been resolved to be updated quite some time ago.

So we've had an update on that. I was just looking through the various things, and I know Councillor Wheeler had one on unapproved dwellings, which was also done around the same time, the same meeting actually. And I just don't know that the updates have given us enough information to really know when we're going to get some resolution of this. And likewise, with some infrastructure motions around heavy vehicles, which of course goes to the point I think that Councillor Reynolds raised about the condition of Kermond Road around there. And we've still, I know we've sometimes got some funding to assist with that, but I'm just a little bit more seeking some more clarity around some of the older ones.

I mean, I'm happy if there's a decision that there's no capacity to ever do these, like if that's the point. I would rather know if they're unachievable or unattainable or if we simply can't address them. But it's just that I find that they're hanging there, and I just really want to know, are we ever going to do them or not? The same with things like the Warragamba Dam issue. We requested certain information from the government around a number of things, as well as asking if we could be involved in the EIS. And it's almost like that just we just got an answer and then that's it. I really just want some follow-up and continuity around that. I think that the information we were seeking is quite valid for a council to have been asking.

And with so much debate around this issue now, I think that we should be provided with that material by the government. And I think we have a resolution asking for it, that we need to have a mechanism for following up. And dealing with that. Also another one was, another example was the outcome of the meeting that you had, Mr Mayor, with the local member around illegal dumping, for example. And it's like it just gets to that point and then that's it. So I'm after some, I guess, some resolution further down the track from those various announcements . And, for example, the RFS control centre and the new Wilberforce shed. I think whatever it said there was just, it just needed some more clarity.

Like, has it ever progressed to the stage of plans or design or more discussions around the actual location? I just don't feel like, if we're intending to use this as a tool to update us, I'm not sure that it's providing us with sufficient updates on what's happened on things that many of them are really quite important motions that are resolutions that have been made over the term of this council. We've addressed the emergency management review. We'll be having that as resolved earlier. And I think that that was just really my concern. I'm not being critical. I know it's a job that staff have to do something, but I believe they update it as they do these various actions . But it's almost like if we were to read this, there's many things that I look and I still think, but what has happened?

I think that's what I'm saying. Now, if this is what we're using for that. Then that needs to be changed. Otherwise, perhaps we need another mechanism where we have a regular briefing or something, as we've had once, where we actually go through what's outstanding and re-evaluate what's achievable and what's not, so that we can maybe cross some off if they're not going to ever be done.

I was going to suggest that, Deputy Mayor. Perhaps what we should be doing is, in asking for a briefing, we go through these. We did do it once, but I don't know that we ever came back into the chamber and actually rescinded anything or resolved anything. We sort of got an update on where things were at. But potentially we need that next step of what's closed these off if we're not. Yeah,

Well, it's, I mean, this is a great document to have for that purpose. Then we could go through and we say, well, we can't ever probably get the funds to do that, or that's gone to something else or whatever. Yeah

Okay. So should we add that on to this? Councillors, are you happy to add that we're going to a briefing to review this report? Okay.

Thank you.

Any further discussion? No. All right, put the motion. All those in favour? Favour, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Richards, Councillor Tree, Councillor Zampogni, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Reynolds, Councillor Ross, Councillors Rasmussen and Garrett absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

So everything for open session? Yes. So if I want to move, we go to confidential. Moved, Councillor Richards, seconded, Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Declare it carried.

Confidential.

W, given YMCA NSW has managed the Oasis Aquatic and Leisure Centre for a number of years, charging a reasonable service rate to Council. C, the proposed extension, as outlined in Part 2, is not for a lengthy period of time, which will allow Council to test the market for the provision of the relevant services within a relatively short space of time. D , based upon the recent tender undertaken by Council for the services, Council does not believe that a satisfactory result would be achieved by calling for tenders for the proposed extension, as outlined in Part 2, in the current climate. 2. Council extend the current contract with YMCA NSW for the management operation of the Oasis Aquatic and Leisure Centre for a further 12 months commencing 1 July 2021, as outlined in the report.

3. The General Manager be given delegated authority to execute any documentation associated with the final agreement between Council and YMCA NSW. 4. Council authorise the affixing of the seal of Council to any documentation in regard to this matter if necessary. Voting in favour of the resolution were Councillors Conolly, Richards, Tree, Zembrogno, Calvert, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler, Reynolds. Voting against the motion was Councillor Ross. Not present for voting was Councillor Rasmussen and Councillor Garrow.

Thank you. That being no further business, we will declare the meeting closed at 10.41. Thank you everyone for your attendance.