29 March 2022 - Ordinary

Okay. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to tonight's meeting. It's good to be back in person. I'd like to start by acknowledging the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury, and pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First People of the country. And I'll hand over to the General Manager for the procedural matters.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.18 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting of Council meetings. The provision of any information that is recorded is voluntary.

If any person does not wish to be recorded, they should not address or request to address the meeting. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting. This request relates to both your address to Council and in any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Finally, it is also requested that any person participating in or attending the meeting has a mobile phone, that they turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. We have apologies from Councillor Richards. I'll just hold while

We fix the audio issue. Give me a moment, I expect. Okay, we

Have apologies from Councillor Richards. We also have Councillor Kotlash attending by audiovisual. Somebody wants to move the apologies? Yes, I'll move the apologies. Moved Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Veigel. Let's declare that carried. Any declarations of interests? No.

Okay. Councillor Kotlash, you're just going to have to call out if you ever do have anything, because I'm not going to keep remembering to look, probably. In which case, move on to the confirmation of the minutes. Somebody wishes to move the minutes? Moved Councillor Veigel.

Yes, I'll second. Seconded Councillor

Reardon. All those in favour? Declare that carried. We have one item.

Married. We have one item subject to public address, which is item 68. We have two speakers, Ms Cheryl Ballantyne and Mr Grant Gerrish. So we'll start with Ms Ballantyne.

Yep.

That's okay.

Mr Mayor, councillors, I'd like to start by acknowledging and paying my respects to the traditional custodians of this place, the Darug people, and extend my respect to any First Nations people participating in or watching the meeting this evening. Councillors, I acknowledge that you've had a lot to think about lately with the flood and its aftermath, so I appreciate your attention to the matters outlined in this motion. I'm speaking for the recommendation on behalf of Defenders of Thompson Square, a community advocacy network committed to preserving Windsor's heritage. I put it to you that in the revitalisation of Windsor Town Centre, the place must be considered as a big picture in which the features mentioned in the recommendation are distinctive parts of the whole.

Windsor has a rich heritage, of course, and the George Street shopping strip between Thompson Square and Fitzgerald Street, including Windsor Mall, have an old town feel, enhanced by historic buildings, sandstone curbs and gutters, the water wheel, gas lamps, rotunda and Wisteria.

Over the years, these features have become icons in the space, along with the Sunday markets, unusual businesses and diverse cafe offerings. These features add to the charm and unique character of them all, and have kept Windsor alive as a destination over the years. The future vision for Windsor must recognise the contribution of these features and aim to respect, enhance and build upon what is already there. Any additions to the space, such as new furniture, signage and tree planting, need to be carefully considered to add to the mall's character by enhancing these iconic features, maintaining a heritage look and feel, protecting heritage gutters and building foundations, and not obscuring views of individual buildings.

It is pleasing that the water wheel is to be retained in situ. However, plans to relocate gas lamps and remove the rotunda and wisteria pose a risk to diluting the mall's character, a risk to reducing the tourist appeal that the place currently enjoys, and of course associated economic risks. Councillors, you would be aware of considerable community angst about the fate of the gas lamps. The final design package for Windsor on Council's website includes the relocation of most gas lamps, 19 to be exact. Our organisation has received advice that Windsor's gas lamps are likely to be the only remaining gas lighting system in New South Wales, with cultural significance under the Burra Charter for Australian heritage conservation.

I put it to you that the gas lamps are worthy of preservation and retention in situ. To properly acknowledge their cultural value, I suggest that advice from gas lighting experts should be sought to inform their future use. In regards to the rotunda and wisteria, repair, cleaning and ongoing maintenance, as well as careful management of the wisteria's root system, would beautify these features and enhance the character of the southern section of the mall. Community members have suggested exploring the potential of the rotunda as a designated performance space for buskers and the like, with the possible installation of a power point for equipment. We must resist any temptation to think of relocating or removing elements of the mall as decluttering.

The features I've mentioned give the mall the distinctive quirky charm that so many value, and they are certainly not clutter, nor do they appear to impede vehicular access. At certain times of day, vehicles can be seen readily entering and exiting the mall, and community members have reported observing on rare occasions police vehicles driving through. In closing, councillors, I invite you to think about why people come to Windsor. I suggest that they come here to embrace the village feel and the quirky charm, that they enjoy meandering through the space, zigzagging around the gas lamps and flower pots, stopping at the rotunda to listen to a busker or watch their children bash out a tune on the vintage piano.

They purchase goods that they can't find elsewhere. They admire the heritage buildings, perhaps reflect on Windsor's colonial past, and they are very appreciative that Windsor offers them such a space. Councillors, you are custodians of the precious gem that is Windsor Mall. It deserves respect and careful conservation.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions, councillors? No. Thank you for that. Thank you. And then Grant

Ten seconds.

I know the clock starts now. As you see, I have an accent that I used to speak like the Kennedys, but it was pummeled out of me. So what can I say? I want to congratulate you and also give some protection in terms of advice. What does that mean? First of all, the congratulation is the catenary lights, catenary lights as pronounced, are gone. And thanks to the council's diligent research for that. In my six months here, which we're condensing down in five minutes, that's why I'm going to ask you to follow along in the handouts. You'll see that first, the 45 jurisdictions that I've talked to, from Chartres Towers to Richmond, to beautiful WA's historic places said, We are so glad you did this, because it is completely disrespectful to a heritage character area or one that pretends to have that.

Or as someone says, and I had success with the largest council in this country with regard to this, catenary lights in a heritage district are as suitable and as relevant as a cat to a bicycle.

It's a non sequitur.

So we're happy with that. We continue now, if you can very quickly here, this is the example of, it's in order in your folders , the beauty. This place can be god-darn beautiful, as Cheryl mentioned. You know, the music can come out and everything, and then at night with three grand's worth of lighting, it'll be a jewel box, the small jewel box of the mall. So we move right along, and I'd like to throw out three thoughts. Insta-worthy. Australian best practice. World standard. What's that? Insta-worthy is, when you have kids, that's the new word. Is this stuff Insta-worthy? Do you care about this generation or the next? Insta-worthy means that I do this with every aspect: the pergola, the benches, the this, the that.

That's Insta-worthy. We either do it or we don't, pregnant or not. Australian best practice. Now we move on to some protective criticism. As worthy and as gigantic as Urban says, it had a giant oversight, which should be clear, and it is to me as somebody from— I could have brought nine of these, but this is the world. You know, this is the world. We're getting these people coming in, hundreds and hundreds, thousands of jurisdictions like ours. So what do we say? They neglected to do as Sydney does. Here's the list of other comparable places around Australia, much less the world. What do you think? Now, if you don't do that, 100, 1,000 hours of community consultation, frankly, has a hollow ring to it.

The basic fact is not a chapter, not a page, not a paragraph, not an image, not a sentence referenced other cities around Australia, much less the world. That's a grievous failing. And so what it means is, is that if you go to Australian best practice, but before we do that, we just think about the block. I can tell you, if you were on the block, Sydney Council would, We want to protect you now. That's what it's about, would say, You know what? You've spent in the wrong place. In big time, you're spending over half the budget on digging up pavements. That's not going to win you the prize on the block any more than ripping up the driveway and ripping up some pavement around your house. You'll note from the, as you look at and follow along with this, more—it's three times the amount of money spent on Olive Richmond, three times the amount of money spent on South Windsor.

Not a good balance. There are alternatives to that. And someone who has their finger on the pulse of what more people want to see and be attracted to Windsor is here tonight, possibly, and he may expand on this. And if you're lucky, he has some amazing, amazing research, which I've calculated is worth 15 grand. As we move right along, how about this? Insta-worthy or not? Your next page. We have the finest heritage benches in Eastern Australia, better even than Katoomba, better than the Southern Highlands. You'll look on the detail and you can see that because we've got a zip along with the time, but this is a good condensation. They must be protected, enhanced. They must not be diluted—diluted, you say degraded, we'll lean away from that—by what is in the lower right-hand corner.

Protect yourself. Don't do that. Do I come into your house and say, I've got a great thing from Salvos. I think I want to mix it in the middle of your furniture. Second to the last images. The sandstone legacy—I come from granite country— is incredible. Two hundred years of sandstone. Now that can be, and you'll see there's one square metre, but that's been cleaned and it's like it was cut from a quarry. Just go to the pergola and see it. It can be like that. It can be sealed, and you don't have to constantly maintain it. It's a treasure. Dig it up and you will come under criticism. Then we go to the next one, which is the brick heritage. We have the best claim to brick heritage in the whole world in Australia because it links St Matthew's Church with Francis Greenway, with the oldest pub.

And so we don't lose it is the idea. Please do not

Lose it. That's time expired.

I get to finish

On this thought.

As I close on this point with gracious, um, Patrick, I ask you to look in the envelope. Look in the envelope as a conclusion. Sometimes Americans have use, and I urge you to not choose second best. Thank you.

Thank you. Any questions for Grant? Thank you for that. Thanks. Now, I didn't have Darren is speaking. Were you expecting to speak, Mr. Peat? Yes. No objections, councillors? No. If you want to speak next, yep.

Good

Evening, councillors and Mr. Mayor. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. A lot of you already know who I am, but for those that don't know who I am, I just want to let you know I've had a business in Windsor for 15 years. Myself and my wife and my family, we work tirelessly for Windsor. We currently have three retail shops in the Windsor Mall, and we believe so much in Windsor that we did have retail businesses in other towns and— Over the last 18 months to two years, we have disposed of those businesses, and the last one is actually departing this Sunday. So as of this Sunday, my entire business will be in the Windsor Mall. So I wouldn't do that if I didn't believe in the future of Windsor.

And Windsor has got a lot of things good going for it. And I think I hear a lot of things about Windsor that aren't good, but most of what's in Windsor is actually good. It's just that it has been let decline over the years, and it hasn't been maintained as good as it should. Way back in 2017 was the first time I was invited, I think by Danielle Wheeler, to come and talk at a council committee about what Windsor needed. So back in 2017, I put forward 17 suggestions of what I thought Windsor needed to bring it back to the level and make it a tourist destination and make it a must-visit place in New South Wales and Australia. Over the last five years, which that was almost five years ago now, we have continually worked with—I have continually worked with the council, with councillors, with council staff like Amanda, and I've come up with the five must-do things for Windsor.

And one of them is what we're here to talk about tonight, which is retaining some of the historical—I know some of it's not historical, it's from the '80s—but it looks historical. It fits the look of Windsor, and that is maintaining the things in the Windsor Mall, like the water wheel, the gas lamp, the rotunda, the sandstone blocks, the paving that we've got there. There's nothing wrong with all of that stuff other than being a bit run down. So I really encourage that we get all of those things fixed, maintained, and make them a tourist destination that they should be. Three weeks ago today, I was in the US buying stock for one of my shops and I found out that there was a town called Charleston in South Carolina that had done exactly what we want to do in Windsor, or what I think we should do in Windsor.

So I drove to that town, and I'm going to give you some handouts when I'm finished. And some of the photos that I took in Charleston, South Carolina, three weeks ago are in this presentation, and they include everything that we're looking at in Windsor, which is heritage, the gas lamps. And some of their gas lamps are actually gas lamps, not just LED lamps. And I think that we could even get four of the gas lamps in Windsor actually working as gas lamps. And the other place I went was San Diego. And San Diego markets itself as the gas lamp capital of the United States, and they promote that they've got thousands and thousands of gas lamps. So I drove to That town expecting to see thousands of gas lamps, and they do have thousands of lamps, but there's four lamps in the entire town that are connected to gas.

That's it. On one main intersection in the town, there's four gas lamps that actually work on gas. Every other lamp in the town works on LED lighting. But those four gas lamps are enough to promote San Diego as a gas lamp capital, and it attracts thousands or millions of tourists. So we've got the gas lamps in the Windsor Mall, and I don't see why four of them, possibly the four located around the water wheel, or the four located around the rotunda, could not be reconnected to the gas and actually be operating as gas lamps. I know there's net zero emissions targets and stuff like that, but four gas lamps could put Windsor on the map as a gas lamp capital. And extending the gas lamps all the way down from Thompson Square to the Windsor Railway Station is one of the other proposals that I put forward, that we could put replica gas lamps, have them working on LED lighting, and have them stretching from the Windsor Mall, from Thompson Square, all the way to the Windsor Railway Station.

And that will help overcome this issue that a lot of people think the mall gets all the attention, the rest of Windsor gets forgotten. But we should be looking at an overall whole of Windsor approach. And the heritage trail is the other one that's in my presentation and my suggestion, is that we've got the pavers in the Windsor Mall. Like in the budget that's going to be spent on Windsor, I've seen that there's over $10 million to be spent replacing pavers. I don't think the $10 million should be spent replacing pavers. A fraction of that should be spent repairing pavers and putting a... Heritage walk or a heritage trail right through Windsor from Thompson Square all the way to the railway station, like has been done in other cities

Time's expired there, so if you hadn't— yeah, yeah. Any questions for Mr. Peed? Councillors then, Pragnell.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Peed, you've been more active in the upkeep and heritage and advocacy for the mall than almost anybody I know. So you would have been more engaged than most in this extended process of public consultation. One of the things that I suspect we're about to debate is, you know, why it needs to be a notice of motion coming from a councillor to save some fairly substantial, significant assets in the mall. So my question is, in that extended process of public consultation, are you aware of the status of the gas lanterns or the rotunda ever being raised in the way that we feel that we need to tonight?

The gas lanterns, yes, definitely. It's been brought up many, many times, and the council has agreed to retain the gas lamps in some format, not necessarily as gas lamps, but that's why I raised tonight. Four of the gas lamps could be connected to gas to make

That—

What

About the rotunda?

The rotunda, look, I guess there was a lot of big issues. Like when I first got involved in this project, the decision was to whether to even keep the Windsor Mall or get rid of the Windsor Mall. So I think there was a lot of big things that I focused on, and the rotunda probably was not one of the things that we had as— was one of the key items that should have been discussed. It was mentioned many times. I had meetings with Patrick, Amanda, other councillors, and— Strongly , I'll use the word begged, begged for the rotunda to stay. So I have been voicing my views, and if anyone wants to see my original 2017 presentation, I have a copy of my original 2017 presentation, which one of the key items in there is the rotunda. So the answer is yes to both. Okay, thank you.

Thanks. Any further questions? Thanks, Mr. Peat. Okay

Is it okay if I just give everybody a copy of this? Yep, no worries. Thank you, everyone.

Okay, Councillor Djuric.

I'll move the motion with the amended changes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, so we can have the motion with those changes that were circulated earlier. Is there a seconder for that? Seconded, Councillor Dogramaci. Discussion, Councillor Djuric.

Yeah, well, I would like to start by acknowledging the massive effort that's gone into the Livability Project, and I want to thank everyone involved. I'm certain that there's been a lot of work put into the design in regards to the beautification of the Hawkesbury within the three key areas of need. I also want to thank the community for their ongoing passion and championing for the protection of our assets and the features that make the Hawkesbury unique. On that point, I want to make it clear that everyone concurs that the gas lamp precinct of Windsor needs a refurb and a refresh and a new lease on life. However, there is community concern that there is a risk of adding elements akin to sterile features that would be more at home at Parramatta Mall.

No one thinks that shiny modern stainless steel bins and bunting style seating is indicative of nor kind to the colonial feel of the third oldest settlement on mainland Australia. Further, the community doesn't want to lose features that they feel have become standouts for tourism. In bringing the water wheel and the gas lamps into the notice of motion was due to community feedback that the information surrounding these items seemed ambiguous. Some information contained an asterisk with a comment that the end result may vary. Some information showed an incorrect number of gas lamps or the gas lamps weren't fully visible on the plans, which raised concern. Some information may well have just been a misinterpretation or a simple misunderstanding.

In being asked to submit those two items, I think what the community is asking for is the formal commitment or a statement showing that these features are definitely safe and to remain largely in situ where possible. The community wants to know how many gas lamps are being retained. Is it all of them or most of them? And in what capacity the water wheel is being kept. Is it as it is now with the sandstone edges or is it going to be totally revamped? For me, moving the rotunda is a mistake. It's wanted, it's needed, it's a part of the gas lamp precinct and needs to remain where it is. I door knocked every open business up and down the mall and I struggled to find a single person that didn't speak passionately in defence of its retention.

And this was reflected last week in an online survey where 1,200 people voted for it to remain. And that was in just one day, with a lot of people declaring that it should receive electricity to expand options for its use. On the matter of the wisteria, many regard the main section as being part of the rotunda. I understood that the issues surrounding the need for its removal were centred around pavement damage due to root expansion. Many councils around the country combat this with rubber matting around the root base, giving allowance for movement without damage to pavers. I have since come to learn that the pergola structure supporting the wisteria is rotted and subsequently finished. I did meet with community members last Friday to inform them that saving the wisteria might not be possible.

I was subsequently schooled for about the next two and a half hours, and while that might not necessarily be the case, afterwards I walked away with the knowledge of three very important things. Firstly, don't attend a two-and-a-half-hour meeting by parking in a two-hour zone, because our parking officers do a very good job. Secondly, we will not get away unscathed with removing the rotunda, as people love it where it is. And thirdly, if we can trim back the wisteria, replace the wooden pergola structure supporting the wisteria without impacting or risking or compromising the funding for the main project, then I think we should try. In closing, I would just like to say that when it comes to such a major project, something that will be a legacy for future generations, that at this stage, I don't believe that it's too late to make sure we get things as close to community sentiment as possible.

Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor. Much is passed to the Director City Planning to answer some of those questions at the beginning there around the water wheel and the lamps.

Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. So the water wheel was always going to be retained, and the sandstone pavers will also be retained around the water wheel. They were never going to be removed. In terms of the gas lamps, they're all being retained. But what we've explained to people when we've been consulting, the four gas lamps that are near the rotunda, if we're going to put any lighting in them, they actually need to be taken out, lighting and conduits put in. And through that process, the location might be adjusted slightly. We do have to take into account access for emergency vehicles, and we've also been advised by Heritage NSW to make sure then they're not intruding on actual heritage buildings because they note that these are not actually heritage lamps.

And in terms of the seats, just to pick up on a comment, again, it's been explained the wooden inserts need to be replaced because, you know, splinters. But the actual side... outside arms or the, you know, the iron ends are being retained and just being cleaned.

Thank you. Further discussion, councillors? Councillor Wheeler.

A question, if I may, Mr Mayor. What sort of condition is the rotunda in at the moment?

I'll go to the director.

Thank you. At the moment, it's, well, like all of them, all fairly worn. So if it were to be retained, we'd have to look to make sure we're addressing any safety issues in terms of trip hazards and those kinds of things.

Can we paint it?

I wouldn't go there.

And is it—are we able to do that work within the budget constraints that we've got?

I think at this point in time, we would just take that offline to understand what needs to happen and understand how that affects the budget, because I couldn't answer at the moment.

Okay. And the comments about the paving, that we're basically doing a do by replacing it, could you speak to that, please?

Well, in terms of any maintenance in the mall, it has been largely around paving trip hazards, and we would— we've basically done a piecemeal, you know, fix a few pavers here and there. And I understand it is a fairly costly exercise. It's not going to cost ten million, that was for the whole of Windsor, not the section we're talking about, but I couldn't tell you exactly how much it will cost. But essentially we're looking to replace with cobblestone locking-like pavers, which will reduce overall trip hazards, will address disability access issues that we also have to meet, and generally, you know, make the area look a bit neater and tidier and cleaner.

And so how far down are we planning to redo the surface with paving and other things? How far down into Windsor beyond the mall are we looking at? So from Thompson Square

Through to the two sections of the mall

But we're not going beyond the mall. So that will stay with its— The whole of George Street. The whole of George Street, sorry, I'll go. Yeah, that was— sorry. So the site boundaries basically from the station all the way through to Thompson Square. That's the entire project for Windsor.

So the paving starts basically where the retail core starts, so down just before the Riverview Shopping Centre, and then right through to the section of the mall. And then as a part of the conservation management plan, we have to revert to the brick paving for the Tops and Square end. Yep. So hence the big price tag. Correct, because we're doing such a— such a— Thank you. That was my understanding as well. I appreciate that I have been probably more involved with this project than lots of many of the other councillors. I'll speak now if that's all right, Mr Mayor. But I think this is one of those difficult issues, I think, where what we're seeing is really the community's deep love of this space, and a real concern that— and we've known this from when we first got the funding for this project.

And I think on the town centre's working group, we talked about this. That working group was formed when we thought we had three million, and then all of a sudden we had the 18 million from the federal and state governments. And I think that it almost made the project harder, having that much larger scope and taking in the two other towns as well. And I think we've— There's some things that we could have done a lot better. I think disbanding the Town Centres Working Group when we did was a mistake because we lost our direct connection with the communities that we were trying to work with. And that has meant that we've had more back and forth probably on this project than the staff would have liked, I guess.

It's also meant that we keep hitting these blips where we have to go back and re-discuss what we've already been decided on. And I think really the only big change that's happened here is the retention of the rotunda. The water wheel was always staying. The gas lamps were always staying. The street furniture, the chairs, were always staying. They were just being fixed so that they were back in working order. One of the key points in the report that's come to Council, and I think it's something that we have to be really mindful of as we set our budget for next year and into the future. There's a line in this report that says that Windsor Mall was upgraded, was made between 1985 and 1988, and no money has been spent on it since apart from a bit of maintenance.

We need to take that on board as a Council because what we've done is, and we do this all over the place. We're doing it in Wilberforce at the moment. We come in, we tart something up, we ignore it for a decade or more, and then we have to pour money in to bring it back up to standard. So it's nice for a couple of years. It's ordinary for a decade. And then it's really awful for so long that everybody gets really antsy about it. I also understand that the other level of angst is seeing the destruction in Thompson Square. And I don't think anybody wants the rest of Windsor to be reduced to that really bland space that we now see in what should have been and was the most extraordinary piece of Australia's history that we have now concreted over.

So I understand fully why the community is concerned about the outcomes that we'll get out of this project. And I want to thank them for continuing to engage with us in good faith to get to this point. Sometimes this feels like a nuisance to us. Sometimes we feel like we've done all this before. It's really helpful for us to be able to keep this dialogue going. I think, I don't think there's anything in here that's too hard for us to work with. I think the wisteria might be a problem child, but it's very easy to lift it. It'll be dormant in three months' time, and you'll be able to cart it wherever you like, frankly, and do whatever you want with it. We do have to be mindful that one of the key purposes in this whole project, for both, for all three towns, is accessibility and livability.

That's why it's called the Livability Project, and getting it so that it's a much better, more livable, more usable, more walkable space for everybody is one of the key reasons that we're embarking on this project. Because what we know is that when people stop in a precinct, they open their wallet. So as well as enjoying the space that they're in, having fun with their family, being happy in that space, and coming back, they spend money. People don't spend money when they're sitting in their cars. We need people to engage with these spaces, and to do that has to be accessible to everybody, but it has to be a pleasant place to sit in, and it has to provide places to sit and engage with. And people aren't engaging in the same way now as they did in 1985 when the mall was redesigned, and we need to be mindful of that.

That's why we hire experts like Urbis and Place to design these spaces. Please keep talking to us. It's really helpful. I want to thank the staff for being willing to rejig this, but I also want to make it really clear that we can't keep rejigging this. It's now got to go to the Heritage Office to be signed off on, and we have to spend this money now or they'll take it away. It's do or die now. This is it. We can't keep going around and around. I also want to congratulate Councillor Durick on his first notice of motion and on taking such a consultative approach to it because I think it's often easier to just bring something without spending that two and a half hours, and congratulations on your first council-related parking fine.

It probably won't be the last. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll just be brief. I would just echo what Councillor Wheeler said also, and congratulate Councillor Djuric as well. I just had a question around the rotunda and what exactly, with retaining the rotunda, what exactly would be the proposal around that? Is that just leave it there, or are you going to spend money on it now as part of this project, or just leave it?

I think the proposal's sort of come from us, so it's—it'd like to be discussed after this resolves is how it happens. Oh,

Okay. Well, I'm just—it was just that I was going to say, if it was some sort of delay in doing that or whatever, it would perhaps be a project further down the track for, particularly when we know there's various—there's other projects like McQuade Park has its plan of management with the removal perhaps of an ironbark tree, a couple of ironbark trees. I'm thinking of the future reuse of maybe incorporating it as a future thing to do down the track where we could reuse some of the timber from something like that or something to keep a connection going rather than spending a lot of money on it now. But of course, you're not going to want it just sitting there looking out of place with what else is done.

I can understand that. But I just wanted to flag that, that I think that when we're looking at these things, if we bear in mind that always we can have reuse from other parts of our Hawkesbury or things that are reflecting something that's happened that we could incorporate, if not now, maybe later. And I'd like to thank the community members as well for their diligence, particularly Grant, who has been very persistent in

Getting this information to us, and

It's really valued by the councillors . It's really helpful . Thank you. Thank you. I've had three in favour. Do I speak against, Councillor Zamprogno? No, not speaking against, but I do have a question. It's just to take up a point of complaint from Council staff that maybe we shouldn't keep the rotunda because of issues with emergency service access. We all know that the mall has four different points of vehicular entry, and nobody's ever raised the issue of emergency service access or vehicular access to the mall before. If that's the case, why are you suggesting now that the rotunda is an impediment to vehicular access? Refer

That to the Director of City Planning.

At this point in time, I'm saying that Maceria might have more of an issue around access for emergency vehicles. Up until this point, because we've not touched the mall for so many years, we've actually not had to address issues like disability access or emergency vehicle access, which have changed over the years since 1980. I can't tell you off the top of my head what those changes are, but through the work that we're doing, we must make sure we're addressing any relevant building code or compliance activities and compliance action.

Because it's certainly been the case that when business owners in Windsor Mall... Talk to me about issues with vehicular access. It's not— there being not enough vehicular access, there's way too much vehicular access, and that we have been, we've been slack in enforcing prohibitions on vehicular access, and there are people enjoying the cafes and then vehicles just feel that they can go and deliver material in the beginning of the, you know, at any time during the day, which is a separate issue, I appreciate. Look, I just want to echo the previous comments. I'm very supportive of this. I want to thank Councillor Djuric for bringing this, and I suppose just flag a concern that council staff have been strident in saying, but this has been the subject of very extensive public consultation, and I'm not belittling that.

And I do think that the work that Urbis and Place have done to develop the plan to this point has been excellent. But for us to need to respond to an upswell of community sentiment to preserve a significant item of what we think of as heritage, I don't care how old it is, but locals think of it as part of our landscape and it's worth saving. The fact that it hasn't come to us before, when it would have been perfectly obvious that we as a chamber of community representatives would have had a strong view on this, I think just reveals perhaps a flaw in that process. So I'm glad that we've caught it in the way that we have, and I support the notice of motion. Thank you. Councillor Sheather.

Question, Mr Mayor, and it's along the line that Councillor Zembrogno just spoke of. What was the communication between staff and the relevant groups that are involved with this, communication-wise? Throughout— sorry,

Throughout the two years of doing the work on this project and the master plan to the detailed design, we've used a range of activities to engage with community and businesses, from one-on-one conversations, focus groups, surveys. Information on your Hawkesbury, you’re saying, and we’ve, you know, and essentially we’ve received a lot of feedback. We’ve continued to have lots of one-on-one conversations with businesses, particularly as they want to know what’s going to happen in front of their business specifically. And I appreciate that you may not be hearing—you’re hearing some views today, but we’re also hearing other views through those one-on-one conversations with businesses that are giving us other, you know, perspectives around the work that’s planned in the mall.

I think we did start director city planning with working groups in each town centre. Yep. Yep.

Thanks for the question. Yep, thank you. Okay. No one’s spoken against, but did you want right of reply, Councillor Djuric? Well

I don’t think so. I think everyone’s on the same page, so.

Okay. I’ll put the motion then. All those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. Favour of Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Feigl, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Richards is absent for the vote. Declared carried.

Our next item, our next is the items on block. So moved, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour? Carried.

And then we go to item 66, the code of meeting practice.

Mr Mayor—

A Deputy Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I'd like to move that we adopt the recommendation in the business paper with one change, and that is that an item called matters to be referred to committees be added to the order of business for ordinary council meetings, which is point 8.1 in the attachment.

Thank you. Is there a seconder for that? Seconder, Councillor Veigel. I'd just actually refer to the General Manager. That wouldn't require that to be re-notified, would it, that change?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I wouldn't consider that to be a substantive change that would warrant re-notification of the plan.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor? Thank you, Mr Mayor. It's quite straightforward that we've been talking for quite a length of time now about how to promote our committees, and I think that one way we can do it is here in our meetings to make sure we're diligent so that if anything comes up during the meeting, we can say this should be referred to a committee. It's really just to remind us that the committees work that way. It's not a big change, and I'm hoping the rest of the councillors will see it for what it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Mr Mayor—

Sorry, Councillor—

Can you hear me?

I can.

I'd like to add another point, if that is okay with Councillor Calvert.

Okay. What is it?

It's to do with the pre-meeting briefing sessions. So I'd like to— I sent some words to staff.

It could be attached to point two because it is an amendment. So it could be that Council adopt the Code of Meeting Practice attached as, yep, with the amendment to clause 3.39 to add the words ‘to’, and I’ll just, while the staff are bringing up those words, the pre-meeting briefing sessions. 3.39 says pre-meeting briefing sessions are to be held in the absence of the public, and I’d like to add the words ‘and persons must not livestream or use audio recorders, video cameras, mobile phones or any other device to make a recording of the proceedings of a pre-meeting briefing session.’

Okay. Deputy Mayor, would you be happy to include that?

Happy to include that, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Vargo, are you happy with that change? Yes. Okay. We’ll proceed on that basis. I had called Councillor Wheeler, so I might let her speak first and come back to you, Councillor Kotlash. Sure,

Thank you. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I’m just curious if Councillor Calvert could just— sorry, I’ve jumped off the clause that he referred to. I’ll just go back there.

Hopefully I’ll just go back there. So 8.1 that Councillor Calvert refers to is a list of the order of business. Is there a suggested spot where the matters to be referred to committees would go, and how would he see that working? Would we have that as a matter of—would we flag that as it happened during a meeting, or would we have a particular section in the meeting where we then went back and said, during this meeting these things came up?

I just might refer to the General Manager. I don’t believe you’d be able to have any business without written notice still. Is that correct? But it would be a spot for essentially known as a motion to that effect.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, I think that's correct. The code precludes business being tabled at the meeting, so that would need to be tabled in advance, yes. I guess that wasn't—

Maybe it would be better if

Councillor Calvert

Answered it. Yeah,

Answered it. Councillor Calvert.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Councillor Wheeler, I was suggesting it could be added between points 12 and 13 in that list, which is 8.1. And my thought was that what would happen is that if something came up during this meeting, we would mention it there as something that we would discuss in future meetings to go to committees. I know that's complicated, but it's because of what we just said. We can't just move the item on the night. It needs to give notice. But if something is coming up tonight and we think, oh, that should go to a committee, then we put it in there, and next meeting it'll appear in there, and then we decide to send it to a committee, unless you've got a simpler way to do it.

Well, I guess what we've had through you, Mr Mayor, I guess what we've had so far as we learn to rejig this process is that something's come up and we've said, well, let's refer that to a meeting, and it's become part of the motion. So from my understanding, Councillor Calvert is flagging a particular section in a meeting where we would be able to say, this item that we have discussed tonight, could that go to a committee? Is that— am I understanding this? No

More than that. Any item that we thought should go to a committee, we could bring up. At this meeting and say, for the next meeting we will discuss whether this goes to a

Committee. The issue is we can't introduce new business without a written motion. Therefore, anything that came up in the current meeting, you would just, as you indicated, Councillor Wheeler, you would just add that to the motion to refer it. I guess it's anything that's come up within that seven days' notice that you don't want to lose track of, you can mention it at that point. It would be part of the recording and staff could follow up with the councillor to make sure a notice of motion was submitted.

So it almost would. It's a bit of a proxy for questions on notice in some ways, except that it goes to a committee. Now look, I've got no objection to it. I'm just trying to work out how it works so that I can get my head around it. Thanks.

Could just say that it's sort of like a safety mechanism. As items are discussed here, yes, councillors will say that should go to a committee, but during the night some other items might come to mind and you think that should have gone to a committee. So you've got this point there where you can put it in and say, next meeting we'll decide whether to send it to a committee. I would have liked us to be able to do it at the time, but of course we can't.

Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just on that point—

I'll now come to you, Councillor Kotlash, sorry.

Just on that point, I think that I raised a similar thing around questions that were asked during debate that required staff answers and that that has become a section now. I would have thought this would be the same because I think that this is going to delay anything going to a committee. We've only got one meeting a month. If we say something on a night, then it comes the next month to decide whether to go to a committee, and then we pass that and then it goes to a committee. I would have thought that just having a similar thing where if we've said during debate that we wanted something to go to a committee, that could be done similarly as with questions. Otherwise it's very delayed. It's a lot longer delay.

I think the issue with that sort of system would be that we've agreed as a council that when we direct a community to go and spend council's resources on something, it should come from a resolution of council, not from one person's idea. That's

What I mean

So it's come up during

Debate

That's right. So if it comes up during debate, you can just resolve to send it to a committee. But I think this is more of a catch-all. If something's come up, you haven't had seven days' notice to put it in in writing, you can mention it there so it's tracked and recorded, and there'd be a motion brought to the next meeting. I agree. It's not ideal. It'd be ideal if you thought of it before seven days before the meeting and put the notice of motion in, but it's for

Those things that come up later. But then would that just say, I'm just trying to think, how is it different from then that councillor just bringing a notice of motion, in which case you could put something around it, whereas it would just be a statement about, I want something to go to a committee. So then we would then again have to debate and come up with something of what that would be. Yes . I just really don't see a point to it, to be quite honest. I've got no problem with it, but I think that we would be better to consider when we're debating things whether something's going to a committee then, so we don't have a two-month delay going

Forward. I think that's the intention. I don't think the intention is that you wouldn't resolve to send something current to a committee. It is very similar to what you pointed out there. It's like questions on notice. It's a way of recording something from the meeting that you want it to not get lost. It's not proposing to transact business at that meeting.

Okay, so it just means that the business comes back the following meeting. Okay. All right

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you. I understand the point that Councillor Calvert has made, and I guess it is just a catch-all, and I think it's a good idea. I don't think it's going to be the main mechanism that we use to capture information, I doubt. On the point that I've added, I just think that our briefing sessions need to have the same

Restrictions around them that we have with council meetings. And I just thought that bringing this into the non-mandatory parts of the code was appropriate. So not a big deal, but just while we're revamping and re-adopting our code of meeting practice, I thought I would polish it up. So yeah, nothing major . Thank you.

Thanks. No further discussion required. Sorry

I've just had a question about that particular clause. It's just really around the definition of pre-meeting briefing sessions. Are they restricted to particular material that will be debated at a meeting?

That's just how the code refers to briefing sessions.

Okay, so my issue with that is that now that we're wanting to, now we've only got one meeting a month and we're going to be doing workshops and briefings and so on. I wouldn't want to see that. I would like to see some scope of some of those perhaps being public, you know, like broadcast, for example, if we're looking at a particular topic or something in the future. I thought that was the idea of having less meetings was so that we could do some more things. I don't know that all of those should be forever confidential. I think there's some transparency around some sort of debates. For example, if we had something around like Windsor Mall again or something and we were to hold a briefing with some experts or something like that.

I'm just flagging that, that I don't— I'm not quite sure with what we... were intending to do with the rest of our time, but I think that if we were having some workshops, I think workshops that sometimes aren't necessarily entirely confidential would be a good thing to have. I think that's a good tool we could have, but I'm not sure how that fits in with the current code and the definition of pre-meeting briefing. I understand if that's something where we're going through what's not confidential or whatever, but I just wouldn't like to see something change and then we want to have something webcast and we can't do it because of our code, that's all.

So the current code says, that clause 3.39 says pre-meeting briefings that'll be held in the absence of the public. All we're adding is that if they're being held confidentially, that nobody should be recording them because they're confidential. If at some point in time we wanted to change and add a new kind of meeting that's not a pre-meeting briefing, I guess that would be at our disposal to do so. I do note that it is a breach of the code of conduct for us to be debating or making decisions in those meetings anyway. So there's no requirement for transparency in that sense. It should just be the transaction of information rather than any decisions being made.

That's why I was getting a definition around what it was, so that that wouldn't prevent us having a particular public workshop that's not called a briefing and having that webcast Okay.

Councillor Wheeler.

Mr Mayor, could I offer a potential fix , I suppose, for that? Could we, where it says in 3.39, could we add a where the meeting is not open to the public, or closed to the public, or whatever the wording is? Sorry, I'm on the wrong page yet again.

It says that all pre-meeting briefings that'll be held in the absence of the public.. .

So if we, would that preclude us having a workshop that the public could access, or would that be considered a different matter?

General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor, we would simply call that a workshop. So that would get around that. We're all accustomed to the standard briefings where we would introduce matters to the Council that will be the subject of, at a Council meeting. That would be something different. And if Council wanted to open that up to the public, we'd be more than happy

To do so. Great, thank you. So that deals with one of my concerns. My other concern with this clause is that it precludes, in its current form, I understand what's behind this. If we are to have frank discussions in briefings and receive information which sometimes does need to be kept confidential from the staff— Just note, I'm letting you have

A second address here so we can keep it—

Well, I didn't. I asked questions, I thought. I'm sorry. No, you did

Have, you did have. I

Think I only agreed with the Mayor to try and clarify what I was getting at. The problem that I have with this line is that for someone who, anyone with a disability who needs to use a voice recorder to take notes. Now, a prolific note taker, I write down nearly everything that's said in a briefing, but I write it on a piece of paper. If I didn't have that capacity, in order to jog my brain when I go back to refer to it, I would need some form—if I had dyslexia or some sort of sight, some sort of visual disability, I would need to be able to record what happens in those briefings for my own notes, not to broadcast, not to hold against anybody, but just for me to refer to that information. In its current form, I think that clause precludes it and I can't support it. I'm hoping Councillor Kotlash can tidy it up so that it doesn't preclude people using it for personal notes.

If we added— Other than in cases where considered required by the General Manager. Does that fix it for you? So if there was that situation, the General Manager has the ability to delete somebody record it if required.

Or other than for personal use.

Can I suggest that we're going into territory we might need a bit of advice on, because that's the wording I've taken from the clause that is about our council meetings. So if one of the councillors or staff needed to have some assistance for access to those meetings, then we would have to change the whole thing . So I think we need to probably,

We could put a clause in the non-mandatory section of this code to say that in situations where somebody needs to have, you know, their needs override, you know— sorry, just to say that, because I just took that wording. That wasn't my wording. I wouldn't have written that. So

I've just been given some advice. The other wording in the code that we could apply to this situation is to add on the end of that, without the prior authorisation of the council or committee.

Yep, that works. Yep.

If everyone's happy with that. Okay. All right. Right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor, and thank you for everyone's input. I just wanted to explain that what I was really looking at with this was, at the moment we have the ability, for example, we discussed Windsor Mall in the previous item, and a council could have put forward that any matter from there should have been sent to a committee. We already have that. What I was worried about is that during the meeting there are things... Or even before the meeting, there are things that councillors think of and think that should go to a committee. But the only way they have of raising that is if the item is on the business paper, or if they want to put up a notice of motion in the following meeting. I was just trying to get it so that councillors who have an item which is unrelated to what's in tonight's business paper can say, at the next meeting, I would like us to consider putting this to a committee.

And that would mean we could do that without the necessity of a notice of motion. I find notices of motion can be very unwieldy and involve a lot of unnecessary debate. It was really just an administrative tool to mean that we would use less notices of motion and have another tool to use to catch people's ideas to put things to committees. That's all it was about, giving people that extra opportunity. And I thank those councillors who have supported it. Thank you.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Richards is absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

Next item is notice of motion two. Deputy Mayor. I've organised the ... Heat Smart program, and I think that's something.

Thank you. The Heat Smart program is something that I think that Council should look at and should be taken to the Community Services Committee to be discussed. And

I've got three other points there that Council also requests the committee considers whether the Council should appoint a delegated staff officer as the Heat Coordinator, and also when the Community Services Committee is held, any other outstanding matters held over from before should be considered, and also point four, where possible, all Council committee meetings be held on the last Tuesday of the month, which has now become available because Council meetings will be held monthly.

Thank you. Any discussion? A seconder, sorry. Councillor Sheather. Just a question, Mr Miller. We had a seconder first. A seconder for the notice of motion, Councillor Kotlash. Sorry, go ahead, Councillor Sheather.

In the minutes it indicated in relation to the ordinary Council meeting last month that Council set dates and times of ordinary meeting Council of the month April to December 2022 in accordance with attachment two, one meeting a month, second Tuesday of every month.

Yes. This is talking about the committee meeting, so the committee meeting will be on the night that used to be a council meeting, I think is the point, yeah.

So, is there any further discussion?

If not— oh, sorry, Councillor Lansbucket. Oh

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just had some questions around what the involvement of our staff, because it says our staff are in the WSROC, doing the WSROC Urban Heat. I just wondered what that entailed and what aspect of that they were working on. Are they working on the implementation, or were they involved in the actual generation of the policy? What is that?

Refer that to Mr Mifsud.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd have to take that on notice. Yeah, I'm not exactly sure unless— no, okay. Yep, so we'd just have to take that on notice.

Okay. I was just wondering if Councillor Calvert would add a bit of detail to this, because as far as what I see, it's just passing something on to a small group of councillors to then discuss what to do about it. And I think if we don't have the right people in these meetings, because they are so few and far between, I think that— Could we add, for example, some information to have there, such as some examples of urban heat implementation plans, such as Moreland Council in Victoria and what they've done, and could we ensure that certain people are invited so that we've got the people there to be able to actually— I'm just concerned we would have a council meeting, we'd all talk about it, and then we'd decide to a committee meeting, then we would decide that we should have some people come and speak to us about implementation.

And this is the delay in this system all the time. I think if we could, if we have notices of motion about what we want to discuss, if we could specify at the time who should perhaps attend or be invited at least. There's a number of people working in this space around the implementation of urban heat projects. I heard a very good fellow who was from the geography department at Western Sydney University, and he was speaking about how you would implement. So if we— otherwise we're just leaving that to the staff to come up with something. I think if we could specify who we should have at these meetings. I'm just thinking, I'm trying to cut down the delay time in that.

I don't think we need a council resolution to invite someone to the committee meetings. I think if you've got a list of people, or if anyone else does, you just email that through to Ms Stewart and we can get invitations, make sure those people are invited to the committee meeting when it's on.

Okay, all right . So we just— and of course that would definitely require to invite the people from the previous committees. Yep

They're all on the list. Yep, they get invited to every committee meeting.

Okay All right. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Thanks. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I had a bit of a chat to someone who's been working with the Heat Smart program at WSROC. In fact, they approached me today and asked if Council would be willing to allow them to, would be, who in Council they should approach to run some Heat Smart programs out here. So they've apparently run some programs with the staff, but they now want to run programs with our residents. So I said that I would refer that on. So this is me referring that on, because I think this is really valuable information. It's really hard to concentrate on this stuff while everything is so bloody damp and it feels like the sun will never shine for more than 15 minutes at a stretch again. But this is actually a really good time to get prepared to deal with heat, because we know that as we move out of this La Niña cycle, we will probably go into an El Niño cycle fairly rapidly.

So, and some of the stuff that's come out of the Heat Smart program I think is really, really interesting. And we're in a good position, I think, to take some of that forward, particularly with our DCP and LEP, and I know the staff have been working with WSROC to do that. But some of their requirements are things like cool roof requirements, which I know we built into the Jacaranda DCP, and we need to do more broadly across the LGA because we're going to lose that battle if we don't act really quickly. Tree canopy targets, which we're on track to start doing with our town centres work , but also with the discussion in the Environment Committee, hopefully, about tree canopy following. That resolution a couple of meetings ago, deep soil around that tree canopy to support the trees.

And I noticed in Windsor Mall, we're looking at a mechanism to actually do that so that those trees survive better. Because a lot of our street trees aren't going to survive climate change, those particularly the plane trees that we were removing from Windsor Mall. We also have in large tracts of Richmond, they're one of the tree species that is slated to be lost in the next 20 years because of climate change. So we need to have our heads around how we manage this stuff, whether we can save those trees, what work will be involved in doing that. The other big focus of this program seems to be data to assess home performance and homes that are designed to keep people thermally safe at 2030 projections.

So not just now, when we already know, you know, we know a couple of years ago that we had a resident who basically cooked to death in his home in one of those heat waves. You know, this isn't pie in the sky stuff. This isn't something we can put off. This isn't something that we can just keep flapping our gums around. We have to act on this, and I'm pleased to see that this will come to the next committee because it's real and it's urgent. And the best time—it's a bit like bushfire, you know—the best time to get ready is in winter. The best time to get ready for heat is when it's not so hot and we've got a bit of energy to do it. The other thing that I think is really interesting, and I'm hoping that we can discuss this as well, is this idea of thermal autonomy as the standard.

So it seems that the current test for whether a building is thermally comfortable is with the air conditioner on. Now , we all know how tenuous our power supply is here. That might be great if you can, A, run an air conditioner, and B, afford to run an air conditioner. But for many of our residents, that's not possible. And when we have really big heat loads, and we are one of the hottest parts of Western Sydney, the first thing to go is the power, and consequently so does the— I mean, you can't even run a fan. So if your house isn't thermally comfortable by itself with you lying under a wet sheet like we used to do back in the dark ages, then you're in real trouble. And that's what we're committing our residents to as the chief strategic planners in the LGA.

We have to be better at this. We have to deal with this as a matter of urgency. So I'm pleased to see that this will come to us and hopefully come to us very soon. But I would like to get— Some action on getting some community programs run on this as well, so that people can start gearing up their own properties to deal with this. It doesn't have to be expensive. Some of it can be quite cheap, but you can do some fairly clever things. The easiest way to sell it to people is that it saves them a lot of money.

Thank you. Part of reply, Deputy Mayor

Yes, thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I thank Councillors for their input. The heat is actually the biggest killer of all the natural disasters we have in Australia. It kills more people than floods or bushfires put together. Now, with bushfires, we have groups like the RFS, and with floods, we have groups like the SES. We have dedicated people to help manage those disasters. But generally, we don't have anyone to help manage heat as an issue. What Heat Smart tries to do is to start us thinking on how we could do that. Heat Smart is something that works in conjunction with two other policies that WSROC have put out, which is the cool suburbs policy and also urban heat planning policy. Heat Smart is more or less an umbrella of those three, and its main aim is to work with the community and raise community awareness, because there's a lot of people out there who aren't aware of how dangerous it is to be in a fibro house when it's 45 degrees, and what things they could do to relieve the heat stress and also not aware of which particular people are most vulnerable.

So they're all the issues that Heat Smart is raising. Our staff have been working with the construction of the Heat Smart... Program, and you can see on the bottom of page 68, in the last paragraph, it talks there specifically about what the Hawkesbury City Council staff have been doing. What I'm aiming to do is to build on that so that it's recognised by Council and recognised by this committee as a major issue that we really need to get part of, and we need to get greater community input. And I'm trying to get us to assist Council staff to do that. It has already started, but what I'm saying is it started sort of in the staff with some backroom discussions with WSROC, etc. I'm trying to bring it out of there, put it in the public domain through this committee so that the whole area is aware of the dangers of heat and we, as a community, start to address some of those issues.

It's not something that we can solve tomorrow. We can't go out and bulldoze 10,000 fibro houses and replace them, but it is something we really need to start because with climate change, the problem is only going to get worse. So we need to start addressing it now, and I'm asking the committee to take that on. I'm not asking that the committee in one meeting with three or four councillors solves all the problems of heat. I'm asking the committee sets in place a staged process for us to continue addressing that issue over time. And it might mean that the committee has to study this and get people in from outside, have guest speakers. It may run for a year, I don't know, maybe even more. It could even be something that the committee decides to set up a working group that continues.

Forever, they're all the options, but those options only come out if we have a committee meeting and we throw it all on the table and we discuss it. So that's what it's about. It's about raising the level of this issue so that the community and the council can start to react to it and do some planning about it. So hopefully councillors can see that that was my aim and hopefully we can move on and get support. So thank you.

Thank you. Put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Favour: Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Feigl, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Richards was absent for the vote. Declare it carried.

That's the end of our items in public session. Does someone want to move we go into confidential? Moved Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Deputy Mayor. All those in favour? Declare it carried.

Okay. Returned from confidential session, so I'll refer the General Manager to advise of the resolution.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. In regard to item 70 regarding the acquisition of road reserve by Sydney Water, part of Earl Street, Wilberforce, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Veigel, that, one, Council approve the sale of the road reserve adjacent to 29 Putty Road, Wilberforce, known as proposed Lot 100 in DP 116586 , as shown in Attachment 2 to the report, to Sydney Water in the amount detailed in the report. Point two, that authority be given for the sale and any documentation in association with the matter to be executed under the seal of Council. For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, Veigel, Conolly, Reardon, Sheather, Calvert, Dogramaci, Djuric, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler, Zamprogno, Kotlash. Absent for the vote was Councillor Richards. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. That was our final item of business, so we'll declare the meeting closed at 7.50 p.m. Thanks.