18 April 2023 - Ordinary

Good evening everyone, thank you. If we could just quieten down, I’ll just wait for the cue from our staff that we have gone live. Oh, excellent. Well, welcome everybody to our meeting of the 18th of April 2023. I am your Mayor, Sarah McMahon. Let me just excuse the mask on my face. I have a head cold, which you can hear clearly in my voice, but it is not COVID, so no one needs to ask me

Whether it’s COVID again. So I’m doing the right thing and just keeping it to myself.

Just want to

Let

Everyone know who is standing. We have just allocated some seating outside in the foyer. There are speakers out there, so if you did want to take a seat, you’re very welcome to do so. Okay, let’s begin. Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinjung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of the country. I’ll now hand over to the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Members of the public 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 would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5. 33 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 such persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council’s record management system. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of the Council. For the benefit of those persons who will be addressing the Council tonight, it is expected that you’ll 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 any answers given in response to questions from Councillors.

Finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in or attending the meeting this evening has a mobile phone on them, could you please turn it off or turn it onto silent at this point in time. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. Can I please have apologies or leave of absence? Looking around the room, we have all councillors present, which is wonderful. Can I please have any declarations of interest tonight? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Item 6.1.1, pecuniary interest.

Thank you. Anybody else? Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Likewise, item 6.1.1, significant non-pecuniary interest. Thank you, and I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in both items 4.2.3 and 4.3.4. Okay, could I have someone to confirm the minutes of the last meeting, please? Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Veigel. All those in favour?

Thank you. Confirmed. Acknowledgement of official visitors to Council, I will just acknowledge that we do have in the room our State MP for Hawkesbury, Robyn Preston. Give the room a wave. Thank you. And Deputy Mayor, would you like to introduce our guest from Wesrock, please?

Yes, sorry, we have the CEO of Wesrock, Mr Charles Cassacelli, who's come to visit us tonight to just let us know that Wesrock is part of our community.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Okay, agenda item subject to public address.

The agenda items we have with registered speakers tonight are 4.3.1 and 4.3.4.

Councillor Conolly. Yeah, I just wanted to move a procedural motion, Madam Mayor, to deal with 4.3.4 first, given it seems the majority of people with us in the room are here for that item.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Can I have a seconder for that? Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Lovely, thank you, Councillors. We'll hear.

Item 4.3.4 as the first item for this evening, Livability Project Windsor Town Centre. I will just read out my declaration.

Okay, I'm declaring a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I had previously stepped out of the larger livability item due to my partner leasing a building in Richmond. As this item relates only to Windsor, there is no pecuniary interest and I'll be staying in the matter.

Madam Mayor— Sorry, just, you skipped over the condolences, which I think we need to

On my list, that's next, Councillor, after items subject to public address, so I'll keep in order. But thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Unless you wanted to move— Oh no, we'll start with the item. Okay, we have six registered speakers for this item. I'll call on our first speaker registered, which is Grant Garrish. Grant, are you in the room? Oh, there you are. Mr Garrish has a PowerPoint presentation. I'll just check with the staff if we're ready to go. We are ready to go. Okay, Mr Garrish, please come to the microphone. Thank you.

One, two, three. Congratulations and the rest, but I will instead say some have said, Oh, if you mention that, Sarah, so much for this, maybe that hurts her because there's opponents. I say, No, we stake our colours to the mast. She is outstanding in regard to this. Many in the community must acknowledge that. Here we go. Time starts as has started.

I have a text message from the company that won more awards than any company in Australia with regard to heritage. It would be interesting to see if this project can be reconsidered. After all, if it's good enough for the cover of a phone book, surely this is not the time to change that. I think I may also speak, although we have a distinguished representative here of that era, of the councillors, your predecessors, nine of whom aren't alive. And so I believe if some of them were alive in Hill and Hardy, they would speak and say, You must not do three things, because it'll rebound to your discredit, which is you must not be accused. Local media won't do this, not enough teeth, but Sydney media will, and very specially JustMite, we shall see.

And the three difficulties are disrespect, rejection, modernisation. Disrespect because the council, in their original ingenuity, made four key aspects, all of which were under threat. One was saved September 20th by several people here, Gay Ben Darrin. That's the water wheel. The other one, the gas lights, a few months ago, I suspect I had a part in that. Two left: the brick pavement. The third one is the sandstone and alfresco areas, which the local business owners love. And the idea, now we go from disrespect to rejection, rejection all around Australia, rejection of Tasmania, rejection of Victoria. Rejection if you want to get a little closer. Macquarie Street,

Rejection to the heritage precinct, which is what? Australia's, you tell me, most prominent, most renowned. It's called what? The Rocks. What are the substances in the Rocks? Brick pictures can be supplied, as many pages as you'd have in a phone book. Harking last time on the phone book, I hope you've seen it, as I hope you've seen the PowerPoint as well, which we'll soon go into in the remaining two minutes. Look how nicely I'm timing this, but we've got a punchline, and I hope there might be a question. But first, we go: disrespect Macquarie Street, disrespect The Rocks, disrespect brick all throughout the English colonial areas, of which there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. The earliest recorded example of recycling 200 years and five years ago is the 100,000 bricks from St. Matt's, because that's the second on the site, you may know.

It will not be permitted if you do not support this, and history is going to show, and it's not going to be that far away, that 205 years later, the question of the absolute priority and respect for business of repairing in situ the bricks, rather than taking them away and putting a foreign substance, which has nothing to do with Windsor, nothing. Now, I'd like to start the PowerPoint presentation, if I may. Since you have that, we can go to the next, and the next, and the next. Happy tourists, I think that's pretty. But what is the Windsor Street precinct? How Windsor could be and will be when the lights are on. Take note that when that ceremony was on the first week in December 1984, it wasn't just lights.

That diligent council did everything. The water wheel turned on, everything was coinciding to the same week in December in 1884 when the system first came. How about some praise for your predecessors? Next, please.

Why Windsor? I think you get that. I believe that this is the second most beautiful suburb of Sydney, 650 and growing. And you would know that, so I don't need to read it. So we'll move to the next, and the idea is quickly saying real, not fake. We can do that. But how about those beautiful three words: smart action now. Smart action now. Isn't that the case? Well, I think that several people down from me, one, two, three, four, five, the personification of that is. I'll say it, Sarah. Next, please. We have a person here who would probably be the absolute expert in organizing the finest ceremony you could ever have, and that's Gay Kelly, who has a tremendous track record of helping the community. It will be on either seven or nine or ten, or ABC or SBS, or how about all five? Next, please.

Jam-packed with people. Savannah. Many people claim it's the prettiest colonial English in the United States, have been there numerous times. I say to you in respect to that, we go next. If this was French, I don't believe for a minute, and this is the one we keep on, I don't believe for a minute we would be this far along with this modernization. Essentially, all the image after image, by Bowling Alley approach. That's what we see. Note here this composite of what can be. There's a vertical block there, and that street is what? The most historic street, you tell me if I'm wrong. Macquarie Street. What's the material? Brick. Left-hand corner, one of the three or four hundred English colonial areas.

What's the material? Brick. Moving down, you see the clock, not this crappy black, a beautiful red. Then you see the ending this, you see the heritage trail, and you'll notice the overall view of Windsor. We do not have a don't miss. Guidebooks do. If you have half an hour or one hour to be in London or Paris, you do this. We don't have one, but we will have one. Imagine that, two or three or four bricks that they get lifted up, different color gets put down, medallions in appropriate places, and Windsor has, for the first time, Australia's best. Don't miss. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garrish. I was about to say your time is up, so thank you very much. You've ended at a beautiful moment. Are there any questions for Mr. Garrish, please, from the councillors? Councillor Sheather. Yes

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Grant, with the materials that, excuse me, make Windsor what it is, not all of them are 200 years old. What's your experience in relation to regenerating a town with, for the want of a word, fake equipment that would give that character? Every year a company exports, which I've been in constant contact with for two and a half years, they export to 45 countries. That means when you go to Europe, you look at a light or you look at a bench, in this case, United States, the lights and the benches because Europe makes their own, and they are made three years ago, five years ago.

Nobody stands in front of those benches or those lamps and says, Don't you take a picture. Prague has theirs put in in 2014 as an example, a little bit more recent, I suggest, than 1984. I wonder how many. Was it 25 like us? Oh, between four and 500. Thank you,

Mr Garish. Any further questions? No, thank you very much. Appreciate your time. I'll now call on our next registered speaker, Mr Darren Pead. Good evening, everybody. I'd like to just start off by thanking all of the councillors that have been in communication with myself and some of my colleagues over the last four weeks since the last council meeting. At the last council meeting, as you know, we discussed a lot of things about Windsor.

We had to go away and come back with some proposals, and I feel we're currently in a situation where we have just about full consensus on what Windsor needs to make this project happen. Within the deadline of June 2024. I believe later on tonight Councillor Sheather is putting an amendment to the business paper, and I just want to say up front that I fully support every point in Councillor Sheather's amended note, and I believe that if we adopt that tonight, that we will get this project finished on time without risking losing anything. And I believe that it's a very good compromise between what everybody has wanted to achieve for Windsor. So thank you, all the councillors, and the mayor for your support, and Robyn Preston and Susan Templeman, who's not here.

We've worked hard with everybody over the last four weeks to try and get an agreement, and I think we're there right now. So I don't think I've got really too much more to add. Everyone knows my view on Windsor. For anyone that doesn't know me, I own three businesses in the Windsor Mall. We employ over 60 people in the Windsor Mall, which is a fairly good contribution to the local economy. And the only thing I want to see for Windsor is a thriving, successful, beautiful , picturesque historic town centre. And that's not just the Windsor Mall. I know some people have accused me of being only interested in the Windsor Mall, which is not the case. I believe the whole of Windsor is a tourist destination, from the railway station all the way to Thompson Square, along the river, heritage trails that can be around the town, and I really want to see the best for Windsor.

I have a 20-year-old daughter. Well, she's 20 this week. She's not 20 just yet. She will be in a few days. She's now involved in our business, and I'm pretty sure that she wants to continue on our business in Windsor. So we do have a vested interest. You know, I'm not old enough to retire yet, but when my daughter comes on board, I want to see Windsor thrive for the next 20, 30, 40 years, not just for today. So my interest in Windsor is long term, and the best for Windsor, and the best expenditure of council and government money. And see the best return for business owners in Windsor. And I know there's a lot of business owners here in this room right now, and we all work together to achieve the same thing.

There's no bickering in Windsor. There's no— everyone's working together to attract more tourists to Windsor and to have the best-looking Windsor that we can possibly have. So thank you, Councillor Sheather, for your efforts that you've met with us every week since the last council meeting, and Councillor Djuric, and what we've come up with. I think all the councillors have seen that everyone's got that amendment, and I'm fully supporting it 100%, and I want it agreed on tonight, hopefully, so we can move on and not keep changing anything. We've got an agreement now of what we want. So I don't have anything else to say. I've said it in previous council meetings, but, you know, I really do appreciate the support of every councillor in the room, and I also want to say thank you to the general manager.

We did request some urgent maintenance and cleaning to be done in Windsor, and it's been happening fairly regularly. Like, I'm not sure if it's daily or not, but it's happening, which is a very positive sign as well. So I think between the councillors, the management of the council, and the business owners, we're definitely on the right track, and I feel there's a good working relationship happening. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Peed. Any questions, Councillor Djuric?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thanks, Mr. Peed. I appreciate you speaking tonight. I know when we first got Richmond Marketplace and Rouse Hill Shopping Centre open, I know it really hurt Windsor. It was very quiet for a very long time, and a lot of shops were empty. They all seem to be pretty full now. The shopfronts are facing them all now quite full, and at times it seems to be quite bustling. What do you think has been the driving force behind the increase of people coming to Windsor at the moment?

Well, I think there's a few things. I think Windsor is booming. More so on weekends than weekdays. But at the moment, I had a look today. There is one empty shop in the Thompson Square precinct. There's one empty shop in the entire Windsor Mall, facing onto the mall. I'm not talking about the little arcades, but facing the Windsor Mall, there's one empty shop. And from the post office, or the old post office, all the way to the council chambers, there's three empty shops. So we've got five empty shops in the entire Windsor. Ten years ago, 15 years ago when I came to Windsor, it was about 50% vacancy rate. And I think there's a few things that have worked in our favour. One of them, I think COVID actually did assist Windsor.

A lot more people want to be outdoors, and I've found since the COVID lockdowns that more people are wanting to come outdoors and enjoy things. So I think that's definitely helped. The fact that every shop, almost every shop in Windsor is occupied with a good mix. It's not the Westfield shops. Like if you walk down the Windsor Mall and George Street, Windsor, the mix of shops is unique. People come here for that. We've got cafes, we've got outdoor dining, so that's definitely helped as well. And I believe that the businesses that are in Windsor have done a lot of promoting of Windsor. We have an I Love Windsor Facebook page, which has 15,000 followers, which also has a big impact on attracting visitors to Windsor.

And the Windsor markets, in the last couple of years, the Windsor markets have really increased their quality and the amount of markets. Like the weekend just gone, Sunday just gone, the Windsor markets had a kids' day weekend, or kids' day market on Sunday. There was a petting zoo, face painting, characters. The Windsor Mall was as busy on Sunday just gone as any Sunday. So it's, you know, and my business has had a booming Sunday just gone. So I think there's a combination of things. Councillor Djuric.

Thank you. Just one quick question, more of a comment, if we were to open the mall and take away the meandering feel of the mall, do you think that would hurt the mall as a drawcard to Windsor?

Absolutely. Like, the Windsor Mall has the look and feel. Like, okay, I know it was built in 1984, so it's not from 1774. It's from 1984. But it's been, it has that historic look and feel, and people do come to Windsor. And I'll just tell you one example. I was sitting out the front of my shop having a coffee one day last week. An elderly couple walked up the laneway and into the mall, and when they got to the mall, they stood, they stopped, stopped where they were, looked around like this, and the husband said to the wife, This is fantastic. It hasn't changed. This is, and, you know, that's all I heard. So I took from that that's the reason they came to Windsor. They came to Windsor for the look and feel of Windsor.

They were happy that it hadn't changed. I think if we modernise the mall, declutter the mall, straighten out the mall, it's going to look like Blacktown Westpoint, Rouse Hill Town Centre, which is not what people come to Windsor for. We've got something very unique here, and the 25 gas lamps that we've got are unique. It's the biggest network of gas lamps in this entire country, and that's a drawcard for Windsor. Thank you.

Any further questions? No. Thank you, Mr. Pead. Okay,

Thank you.

Okay, I'll now call on our next registered speaker, Sue Payne.

My name is Sue Payne, and I've lived in the Hawkesbury since 1996. I operated an accounting practice in Windsor from 2004 to 2013, when I sold the business. I still work for the purchaser, managing the office in Lachlan Court in the mall. I've been the treasurer of the Windsor Business Group since 2005, and I have not been privy to the discussions between business owners and council this week, so I'm just going to speak to the business paper and what's in the business paper that is for discussion. We are not in favour of huge development for the Hawkesbury, but there must be some, and it can be done in sympathy with the objectives of maintaining our historic and rural ambience. After being shown a plan for Windsor, I was quite alarmed for the project to have been put at risk so far down the track, and this prompted me to study the plan.

Having been part of the original working group for this project, there were many options presented to us. We are not getting art installations of an apple outside the Thai restaurant, or metal sculptures of horses and wagons, or play gyms and water features in the mall. Simply pavers are to be replaced with pavers, cobblestones and granite. The sandstone blocks will be taken up and relocated in various sections in the mall. I've been told that only 5% of pavers need to be replaced. I find that absurd. They are okay in some places, particularly where they've been cemented in, but most are chipped, cracked or have been lifted by tree roots. And I'm not sure 40-year-old pavers and bricks can actually be repaired or matched, for that matter.

I've no problem with engraving pavers being placed near the water wheel or with identifying historic buildings and locations or with heritage trails along George Street. The only question is, where does the money come from for this if they don't fit within the scope of the project and the timeframe? The street furniture photographed in the plan is not particularly modern or heritage. It pretty much is the same as what is already in place, which, by the way, is not really historical, considering they were only installed in '84 and you can find them everywhere. And if you look at early pictures of George Street, there was no furniture or trees, for that matter. The London plane trees need to go.

In all my time in the area, people have complained about these trees. They make a mess, the roots create trip hazards, not to mention what gets into people's eyes. They need to go . They are now too big for the mall. Nor can we support softfall and metal grates installed around the bottoms of trees where pavers have been lifted. This will be unsightly and certainly not to be considered to enhance heritage. This is not to say that we think that all of the planned trees are perfectly placed. We do think that more consideration needs to be given to the placement so as not to block outdoor dining and views of heritage buildings and/or access. It is my understanding that these plans have been through heritage at least five times.

I won't be the first to tell you that heritage committees absolutely pull a plan to pieces before passing or denying a project. This plan has been through the mill, so to speak. I can't believe that the design is not right for this area if it has already gone through heritage intensive testing so many times. I believe that one of the raised issues is the disruption to the businesses in the mall. This is a genuine and a significant concern for all businesses in the mall. I've been informed that council will work with the contractor and businesses to minimise this disruption. It is not something that has been disregarded. The work will be completed in sections and every effort taken to minimise disruptions.

And this is outlined in the business paper on page 102. The mall will not be closed for 12 months, which has been suggested. We note, however, that there appears to be no provision for loading zones at the end of each section of the mall or in the side streets. Unless this happens, we believe that there will still be problems with delivery vehicles in the mall. The basic objection is to revitalise, not to modernise and not— Not to Westfield eyes. If you study the plan, you will see that revitalisation can be achieved. It will enhance the character of Windsor, not detract from it . I

Also refer you for consideration to Abigail Ball's email that has been sent to all the councillors, where amongst other things she talks about heritage. We know that there are 19 locally significant buildings in just the mall section and one state building. Ultimately, our concern is that the opportunity will be missed. If the work is not done now, in 10 years' time we will be having this conversation again. And where will the money come from then? Will ratepayers have to foot the bill that time? We've got an opportunity from government funding here, and we should use it. Considering the options put forward in the business paper, we can only support Option 1 or 1A. If we don't replace the pavers, the trees and the furniture, what will be done? If the answer to this is do nothing, then that is not a win for Hawkesbury or Windsor in particular. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that. Are there any questions for Ms Payne? Councillors and proponent.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Ms Payne, thank you for coming and presenting to us. Firstly, could you tell me how many members are in the Windsor Business Group? Not

Off the top of my head. I don't manage that now, but I think there's about 20, 25. So

My second question is this. As elected representatives who want to fairly represent and pick our way through competing views here, Windsor Business Group puts a view. There's another group that claims 17 members that also claim to be representative of the sentiments of stakeholders and business owners in George Street. Can you help me navigate my way through why there are these contending views and how we as elected representatives might find some consensus? Well

The main issue with the Windsor Business Group is that the plan will not go ahead, that we will have no change. And that is our biggest concern, that options two or three will be taken up and we will miss the deadline, and therefore we will not have the funding available to move forward. That is our main issue .

Any further questions? No, thank you, Ms Payne. Okay. I now call on our next registered speaker, Gay Kelly

Thank you very much. My name is Gay Kelly. I'm speaking against the business paper . I find it extremely confusing, contradictory in parts. I will detail that a little bit further as I go on. I'm a part of the Windsor Experience Action Group, which was formed only about five weeks ago. On our very first meeting, we had 16 members. We now have 73. Most of those, about 69 of them actually, are business owners on George Street . Of the membership, there are obviously many different ideas about what each business wants for Windsor. We have listened to our members, and we have had robust discussion on many of the points. We also email all of our members and keep them informed so that our group, and also our group is growing daily.

Some members would like to keep the trees, obviously, and some don't , all for their own reasons. All of our members are all alarmed at the lack of maintenance within the precinct. All are concerned about the financial viability of pulling up the pavers when there are only 10%, and you could exaggerate it if you want, because I think the business paper is a little bit exaggerated in figures. Say we said 15% of the pavers were damaged or trip hazards or whatever. It's not logical or financially viable to be removing all of the pavers. The gas lamps, our group are absolutely thrilled that they are going to be refurbished and left in situ. The group unanimously want the ambience of the mall to display heritage.

So we would like to see heritage-style tables and chairs to also have the heritage trail incorporated into the design, and also the pavers which were purchased with the names on them also to be installed in the paddle wheel precinct. Comments on Facebook about the gas lamps being fake. Well, I don't think so. Back 30 years ago when the mall went in, the council at that particular time spent a lot of time and effort in looking at those gas lamps and trying to make them feel the ambience of Windsor and the heritage style. Hence we have the Windsor lamp, which we think is very, very special to our area. We do enhance heritage. Lack of consultation on the project has been noted by absolutely everybody.

It is noted that there is a council website, but most of the businesses are busy running their own businesses, not having the time to look on the website all the time, so therefore a lot of them didn't have a say. I do have concerns about the percentages that were in the business paper as well, where it said 63% of the businesses were supporting. I would like to beg to differ that , purely because when the consultation process was held in Windsor , there was a table set up in Windsor Mall of a Sunday. We all know Sunday is the day for tourists. Yes, we do want their ideas as well, of course, because they come and visit our beautiful town. However, I would have thought that the ones that should have been consulted were the businesses, our members along George Street, and also the market stallholders.

The members of our group all state that they weren't consulted, and they're really quite adamant about that. But at this point of time, one of the things that was raised by one of the councillors was Charles Liggett when he worked here. Well, Charles was absolutely wonderful . He did communicate with the shop owners. He was fantastic . To be quite honest, I remember at the time he was talking about signage, and then all of a sudden he just disappeared off the face of the earth . But yet again, in 2023, the communication has been picked up again with a new staff member by the name of Phoebe. So thank you to Phoebe as well. We really do appreciate that communication. The council report that has been brought to all of the members today is full of the most confusing and I think contradictory statements and cannot be used to form an opinion tonight.

I'm against the majority of the report, actually. I feel it is misleading and possibly implies to do it your way or the highway, and that, to me, is really concerning. I am not happy with the options. It is presented very poorly, almost like playing a game of tic-tac-toe. It's ticks and crosses all over the place, and you think, what on earth have we got here? Okay, question. The report's interpretation of management, to me, is extremely poor. When you look at things like the gas lamps, okay, if the gas lamps stay in situ, then it's not covered by this particular grant. However, if you move them, it is, okay. You still have to maintain the top of the lamp to get the gas lamps operational. So how does this make sense?

I find that really, really difficult to understand, okay. Bear

With me because today I've had my husband at the specialist, and so I've got notes, not typed ones, so excuse me. The gas lamps. Result in September 2020. Sorry, Ms Kelly,

I will just let you know your time has expired, sorry, so you will have to wrap up. Thank you. Okay,

Thank you.

If you wanted to say one more thing, that's fine.

Okay. Reserved. The gas lamps were resolved in September 2020. They reappeared in the business paper in September of 2022. Again, it was resolved once again. One may ask, why it reappeared in the business paper two years later. Can I keep going or—

No, I'll have to stop you there, okay. That's okay, just in fairness to every other speaker. Okay,

Thank you. Thank you

Very much. Are there any questions for Ms Kelly? No, thank you for your contribution. Appreciate it. I now call on our next registered speaker, AJ Papandrea, who also has a PowerPoint presentation. Excellent

Thank you.

Excellent. Arts all good. Thank you. Oh, thank you for having me again. I've spoken about this before, both in formal and informal settings. So this time, I thought we're in the fortunate position where some of this work has actually started. So I've done a little bit of a tour around South Windsor and Richmond and things, and taken some photos of some things that are happening, so. Is there any chance we're able to see that on the board so I can see what I'm doing as well? Is that? Yeah, that's okay.

Thank you. So if we could have the next slide, please. There's lots of last-minute things going on. I should say I'm a member of the Windsor Experience Action Group, but I have made this on my own. This is a photo from part of the Stage One project. It's a before photo. Each section I've taken a photo of is a before and after, and what we would like to see. So this is as it stands currently, and this is just across the road from us now. And it's also, this part's close to my heart. It's right in front of my place. On the left, you can see the northwest side footpath of George Street, and on the right, you can see the southeast footpath on George Street, immediately across the road. And if I have the next slide, please.

This is the proposed after effect. So you can see the left with the damaged footpath is to remain, and on the right-hand side, the proposal is granite pavers, I believe, and that's a photo from Windsor just last week, a month or two after they've been installed, and you can see they're already filthy and they're already having been torn up by utilities organisations. If I could have the next slide, please. And this is what we would like to see. Obviously, I don't think we can build a harbour bridge over George Street, but that example is there to show that those interlocking bricks are used in places like Milson's Point and The Rocks, so they are, I think, certainly okay, especially when they're actually cleaned.

And on the left, you can see an example of what looks very much like Richmond bricks or the bricks that have gone in in Richmond with the Freedom Trail that you've seen from a few other people's images. Could I have the next slide, please? Okay, so here's a before example of the furniture as it currently sits in the mall. Could I have the next slide, please? This is the furniture as it's gone in in South Windsor. So again, that's a photo I took last week. And could I have the next slide, please? And this is more like what we would like to see. So the example on the left especially is an example of a heritage-style bench that's produced locally, at least in New South Wales. I know there are foundries in the Hawkesbury as well that can produce these things.

We would like to see something that is heritage style and is also produced locally. I think, as far as I can tell by crawling underneath the benches that have been put in in South Windsor, they're made in Taiwan, from what I can see. Can I have the next slide, please? So before, this is the before photos of the trees as they are currently, or at least this is not so much in concerning the trees themselves, but more how they're planted. Could I have the next slide, please? That's how they are in South Windsor, which is the concrete bollards. Could I have the next slide, please? And this is more like what we would like to see. So these are from other towns. They're examples that are not local, but there are local producers of these.

You can have simple CNCed steel grates in any pattern you like, containing local elements, features, anything. Could I have the next slide, please? This is a before shot of the mall as we know it. Next slide, please. And again, that's a couple of sections of South Windsor. You can see the granite pavers, and they're already quite filthy. They're not a material that does too well with dirt. Next slide, please. And again, what we would like to see, we would like to see the brick or the pavers maintained and a heritage trail put through. Next slide, please. Okay, before we have Fluted Cannonball bollards all up and down George Street. Next slide, please. This is what's proposed in terms of the bollards.

This is directly from the plan from Place Design Group. We're getting yellow rectangles,

I suppose.

Next slide, please. We would like to see those bollards maintained and, if anything, some features added. So this example is another one that is locally produced, this horsehead bollard, which is made locally in New South Wales. This image shows the paving between Bridge and Baker Street. You can see the before and after photo is not much different, and that's because it isn't. The proposal for this area is to pull up those bricks and to replace them with identical bricks at great expense, in both money and time. Next slide, please. Okay, we have a before shot of the rotunda. We all know that. Can I have the next slide, please? And the after shot. The after shot is, of course, just an open space.

I know at one point there was a proposal for a sculpture hand or something like that. Next slide, please. So these are, again, local examples of gazebos that have gone up in the town, locally funded. The one on the left is from Berry. A local fundraising paid for those as well. Next slide, please. So some lamps and features in the Windsor Mall that we all know. Next slide, please. And this is the proposal. So this is an image of Liverpool Plaza, which is the proposed concept by Place Design Group. Next slide, please. And what we would like to see is the gas lamps to become a feature and also be extended down the street as well. Before we have a bus stop that we know. Next slide, please. This is the proposal.

This is what has gone in in South Windsor. I can acknowledge the plan for Windsor has a shelter over the top, a boxy modern shelter, but it had that in the plan for South Windsor as well, and it wasn't installed, as far as I can tell. And this is what we would like to see. The one on the left is the existing shelter with a frieze added and things. Next slide, please. This is before the Windsor Mall. Next slide, please. And this is after. So these are the proposed images from Place Design Group's actual proposal. So as you can see, next slide, please, I think that's — and this is what we would like to see. We would like to see the Windsor Mall as it is, with some heritage components added. And I'll finish on saying, if I may, that lots of those features — I'm self-taught in Photoshop.

I'm a high school teacher. I added those things. The images that they've put together in Place Design Group's plan are a debacle. They're terrible. They look like they've been cut by hand. If I had a student handing that in, they would fail. So I think this is a group that should be taken off the project. They either do not have the skill or they have not bothered to even put together a decent plan.

Thank you. Thank you very much for your comments.

Councillors, are there any questions for Mr Papandrea? No? Thank you. Got off. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. I'll call on our next registered speaker, Noel Bridge. Awesome.

Hey, Jay.

Okay .

I have a couple of pictures here, and I just want to say up front that I believe that the presentation that was given originally and consistently is the beautiful Windsor is over here in black and white, and the new concept is here in beautiful colour. And I can tell you here and now, psychologically, you'll be attracted to the colour, 100%. We all know that because when it comes to elections, they always have the guy they don't want to win in grey, and they have all their luxurious colours and trying to convince us, right? So I just think psychologically we've been manipulated a bit to accept modernisation, even though we don't want to use that word. And that's just part of normal way of getting business and changing everything and making more money.

Anyway, let's get to the business paper in reference to the options. It was confusing, and I looked seriously, and I kept looking and kept looking, and I thought to myself, none of them really encompass exactly what we want to do in terms of the change for heritage style. However, when I got to option three, I got excited, and then I realised it said something about the current scope of works, which straight away means there's a big issue, right, because

This can't

Be changed or whatever, which I'm not totally convinced that

Variations can't take place.

Anyway, so then I wrote my own. So I had 3C, so I've got an additional one for you, which is not in the paper, and it says that there should be a new scope of works for stage one, stage two, and Thompson Square — in other words, the variations put in place — applied concurrently so that it doesn't take too long to get it all through, because 90% of the work, or 99% of the work, is already done. It's just crossing out this and adding this, and I don't think I'm exaggerating in that. Most people do it all the time in building companies and whatever. And at the moment, even if that took, say, three, six months, we've got 14 months, which means we've got eight to 11 months of construction time, maybe even more.

And the other thing is this: this has all been discussed, most of it, at least six to nine months ago. If we'd done it then, we would well and truly do this on time. But the other thing is, I'm not totally convinced that you won't get an extension anyway, especially if you're partway through your construction, because there's already been two extensions that weren't supposed to be given in the first place.

Now, I don't know enough about it, I can tell you that, but I'm just looking between and thinking, why not? And what's this? Okay, so in the process of actually not modernising the way they planned, right, there's about a $3 million saving to the state—actually, well, whoever it belongs to. It could be the state or whatever, federal government. Other than the fact that that will reduce inflation, right, because less expenditure out there, because less spending actually does reduce inflation. This will actually make it easier for other areas to have some work done on it. And we know—okay, I'll just keep on going. So I think it's actually more of a battle of the will,

And that is that

Maybe the council staff don't have enough time, or maybe they've got too much on their plate, because I know there's a lot of other things going on, that they just can't get in there and focus and push a bit harder and say, look, we really need the answers or whatever. Anyway, I know I'm running out of time, so a lot out of time actually.

I just want to say that Black—and I talked about the photo already—the consultant's vision is their vision, not ours. Right, and our vision is quite different. And I think we need to know that we own that vision and we want to keep that vision.

I think I've probably done most of what are the things I want to say except this.

I hope tonight that the councillors see fit to give a motion that works and the mall in George Street from Thompson Square to the station be done to reflect the heritage nature of Windsor. And I want to say old is good. And if you want to test that, ask your grandma.

Thank you, Mr. Bridge. I'll let the question of whether you wanted questions slide. Okay, we need to look to put a motion forward, councillors. Councillor Sheather. Yeah

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, there's a motion that the general manager has that they can put on the board, and I must apologise. I sent one to councillors yesterday and distributed to people that wanted it. After discussing with you and the general manager today and the implications of the last couple of speakers in relation to timeframe and the like, I would move the motion that we can't read up there on the board.

If we could just expand the text there and make it a bit bigger, that'd be great.

Thank you. I'll give councillors a moment to read that, and then I'll ask for a seconder before we proceed. Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno. Go ahead, Councillor Sheather.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, before I start, firstly I apologise that I couldn't distribute this to the interested parties. This is not a standalone project. There's a lot of people involved with this right across our community, and that's obvious. We've had a local member speak in Parliament about it. We've got our state member here tonight, and a past mayor, and a gallery full of people we've never had before. So it is important to Hawkesbury in relation to an outcome that we hope to arrive with tonight. With the motion that I proposed and distributed, I went through on a dot point from the railway station up to Thompson Square, dealing with the issues on those portions of the diagrams within the document.

After speaking to you and the General Manager, it was confusing in relation to what was different options in relation to how the money was to be spent and structured throughout, without the program. So after those discussions, the points that are in option three, stage one, is from Windsor Train Station to Fitzgerald Street and Thompson Square. Stage two, which is Windsor Mall, Fitzgerald to Baker Street. The things that were in the motion that I distributed, or the proposed motion, that aren't in this, and after discussion with you and the General Manager, that would frustrate and probably eliminate. A lot of the work, reluctantly, I withdrew. Those two things were, the first one was to pave the area outside the railway hotel down near the station, which is Ashfield.

That stage was always proposed to be like for like. Whatever work was going, so it wasn't going to get paved anyway, and the rest of the works continue. When we get up in the area between the council chambers here and Fosteral Street, it's proposed to have trees in the streetway, something that I don't sit comfortably with at all. To take those out would have damaged

The opportunity to get other works done, which the general managers indicate that can do, and that's both sides of the street be paved, and those works continue. In the area of Thompson Square, that proceed as, when I say as per the plan, the other bits within this motion cover the dot points, I suppose, in relation to heritage aspect, the types of furniture, and those types of things. So, in the main, the motion that's before council now covers those things apart from the two things that I indicated left out. And the view of the general manager that in the main, it's likely that what this motion is proposing can all happen. And within a timeframe, there's a process to go through, but it's more likely to happen than if I'd progressed the motion that I distributed yesterday.

I'll leave it there.

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. Any further speakers? Councillor Wheeler.

A couple of questions in relation to stage two, existing pavers and sandstone and gas lamps to remain in situ. Is that consistent with— so there seems to be some concern about what constitutes maintenance and therefore is it eligible under the grant funding, and what constitutes revitalisation, which is the objective of the grant funding. Could we get some indication of what is what we anticipate being eligible out of those changes to stage two and what is potentially not and therefore council would be liable for?

Thank you, General Manager, or refer to Ms Kearney.

Look, I can certainly have a go at it. Perhaps Ms Kearney can chime in. What the, I guess the substance of the motion you have before you, councillors, is in effect a modified version of option three in your papers that would in effect mean and allow— The project team to progress stage one. So we get on, we get out to tender and we move through on stage one. In respect of stage two, principally the mall, that we would, upon any resolution this evening, simply proceed as quickly as we can to write to the funding body and seek guidance from them about their willingness, in particular to move that June 2024 deadline is the pressing deadline, okay, as well as the scope of works. So if there were components of the project that were considered ineligible at that particular point, then that would be quickly advised to us and that we would then relay that component back to Council.

In the event that the parts of the project in stage two was not deemed eligible for funding by the funding body, that then becomes a decision back for this Chamber about whether you wish to proceed with it using Council general funds.

Thank you, General Manager. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, that doesn't fill me with confidence, I'm afraid.

A couple more questions, if I can

Mrs Kelly made a reference to further consultation that's been done recently . Can I get some feedback on what the concerns were that came back from that consultation about the plans that Council have? And I should say that the plans that are before this Council that we're deciding tonight do not include the pictures that we have seen in the PowerPoint presentation that was shown to us. They are, as far as I understand, from a very early draft that was, excuse me, dismissed by the Town Centre Working Group as inappropriate and dismissed by Council as inappropriate. So if we're going to have a discussion here, we need to all be talking about the same thing because at the moment we're not.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll refer that to Ms Kearney. Thank you.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. In terms of the key themes that have come out of the recent engagement, two main issues have been brought to the staff's attention. One being the colour of the paver proposed to be used in Windsor Mall and the other sections of Windsor, and the other one being the disruption to the business community.

Thank you. And could we have some further information about how Council intends to handle that disruption to the business community? Because we're hearing a lot of rumours at the moment about the mall being closed for an extended period of time, about businesses not being able to trade, that sort of stuff.

Ms Kearney.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. The mitigation methods we'd be using is breaking the construction down into smaller parts. So we already have written into the draft tender that both sections of the mall won't proceed at the same time. So it allows for the markets to continue operation during the construction. We'll also ensure that a mix of day and night works will occur. So any disruptive works will occur outside of normal business operating hours. Businesses will be accessible at all times during trading hours. So businesses will not have to shut during the construction works. And it will be split into small stages so that it's not an entire length of area that will actually be disrupted at each time.

So how many businesses are we talking about the works being in front of?

So what we did in, if I can use Richmond and South Windsor as a comparison, so in those centres we did about six to eight businesses at once, and we could work with the contractors to look at if that's appropriate or whether we need to break it into smaller sections.

And how long are we looking at that level of disruption in each section of the mall?

So, in terms of, based on what we've gone through in Richmond, the paving, the businesses would close of an evening. The contractors would come in in the evening, remove the paving and lay the base for the paving to go in. The next morning, the business would come back and there would be a base, not the pavers there. They would then operate for the day, close that afternoon, the contractors would come back in and lay the paving. So you're looking at, and weather dependent, so you're looking at a few days roughly.

Thank you. Could I also ask about this idea of replacing broken pavers and how we maintain the space at the moment? So, in terms of, these pavers have been problematic for a long time. We've been repeatedly told that they're a trip hazard. We've had instances where people have hurt themselves. I know we worry about this from a risk perspective. We've also heard from Mr Peed that Council has upped its maintenance of the mall recently, and there have been long-term concerns about the cleanliness of the mall. Where does maintenance of the pavers and the maintenance of the mall fit together in terms of the long-term management of this space and the ongoing costs to Council?

Director City Planning.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. Look, I can certainly talk just into some estimates that we have around using the existing pavers, and they are just estimates because the reality is that there'll be ground levelling work that would need to be undertaken, and there's also some question as to what the integrity of the pavers would be once lifted and relaid. The estimate costs are $175 per square metre, and we're looking at around, I think it's around 4,300 metres squared for full coverage of the mall. But that's very much, you know, I guess based on— Essentially, a lift up and a clean and a re-lay, but without taking into consideration whatever underground works or levelling works may be required. I'll hand over to the Acting Director, Infrastructure Services, with regards to the cleaning.

So, with regards to the cleaning, we do a daily clean sweep, including the furniture. There's three hot spot areas that are pressure washed three days a week, and we're currently investigating options to improve the effectiveness of the cleaning, including potentially mechanical means that will be more effective, particularly with the bird droppings . And in considering those mechanical means, working within the current hours, given it's a combined residential and commercial zone, we need to obviously balance the impact of those cleaning activities on both the residents, the businesses and their patrons.

Thanks. There's a reference in this motion to the meandering attitude of the mall. How does that affect our ability to use mechanical means of cleaning that space? Does that make it more difficult?

It would obviously depend on the placement and the access of the mechanical means that—

Thanks, speaker. Okay, gallery, thank you. We don't need to yell, please. We're doing our best here to work in a professional environment. Thank you.

Ideally, we'd be able to use our small street sweeper that you may have seen operating on footpaths. We would need to assess— The , you know, in terms of meandering what's placed where and whether we've got access through there to be, you know, as effective as possible by using that small sweeper. But that's not to say we can't look at other mechanical means.

So can we can't use that , the small sweeper at the, with the placement of things in the mall at the moment, is that?

In some areas, potentially, yes, we can, but we can't access all areas with that small sweeper. I should note, though, we are in the process of replacing that, and it may have greater flexibility, but we'll need to assess that.

Thanks . Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to ask a question in relation to the rearranging of the gas lamps. If we were to move gas lamps to the positions that were outlined in the option one suggestions, which apparently are going to make sight lines better and accessibility better, how can you estimate the percentage of the mall that will have to be dug up in order to accommodate the gas for lighting the gas lamps? Because I believe we've got a motion that all the gas lamps are going to be—

I'll just refer that question to Ms Kearney.

Through you, Madam Mayor. So I wouldn't be able to, off the top of my head, roughly give you a percentage, but I guess there's 25 gas lamps in the mall. We've had an initial recommendations report undertaken by a gas fitter plumber, and in that it suggests that there's been some pressure testing undertaken, which seems that most of the gas lamps could be relit, but some further pressure testing would be required, and that would require the lifting of the pavers so that the infrastructure could be accessed, and obviously parts would be required to ensure that all the gas lamps would be able to be relit.

So, am I right in assuming that whatever happens to the gas lamps, whether they stay where they are now or whether they're moved, there will be disruption to the pavers in the mall. Is that a fair assessment?

That's correct, Councillor. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Conolly.

Thanks. There's some questions as well, or just really one question at the moment. In that presentation that we saw with the slideshow, there was the yellow bollards and the bench seats from South Windsor. Looking at the plan for Windsor, it shows the black bollards in the same style as they are now, and the heritage style seating. I just wanted to check, will those yellow bollards or the bench seats shown on the screen tonight be installed in Windsor at all?

Ms Canney.

No, they won't. So that image was an early image that was part of the master plan that Urbis prepared, and it was an artist impression, so you can't take all of those details as being.. . Yeah, what will be installed. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Just another question, sorry I forgot to ask.

In previous briefings and discussions, I remember we were talking about when we were going to lift the paving in the mall, we were going to take that opportunity to assess the drainage and the underground infrastructure, if you like. Is that something that we're still planning to do as part of this, since if we're going to lift the pavers, are we going to do anything with drainage and checking the sewer and etc.?

At this point, an investigation can be undertaken once the pavers have been lifted, and what we're looking at doing is running conduit throughout the mall for future proofing, so if other items need to be run, there's a conduit there so that they can be run and not have disruption in the pavers lifted in the future.

Sorry, if I can just add, Councillor, it depends on which circumstance you're talking about. So if we're talking about the motion that you've got before you at this point in time, we're not talking about a wholesale lifting of those brick pavers and a relay. If we were talking that, you're probably looking at equivalent cost to what you've got before you as the plan at the moment, if that makes any sense. So I guess to answer that question is if the pavers are staying, all that subsurface work would only be limited to operationalising the gas lamps.

Councillor Conolly. Thank you. I'll just ask one more question and then I will speak on the motion. I just want to clarify my understanding that if we went with the motion that's on the screen here tonight, and we submitted a variation and the answer was no, you can't have a variation. Would we be effectively handing back or not claiming the $3.8 million that's listed in the business paper for stage two?

General Manager. In the event of any other resolution to proceed with the stage two as it is at the moment, yes, that's correct.

So, sorry, I just asked one more question, but that's led to another one. Is the suggestion there that if we submitted a variation and they said no, that we might still be able to proceed with the original plan?

General Manager. We're looking—we're going to be cutting close on time again, councillors, so this is what we're coming down to at this point. So I think we're going to struggle procedurally around lodging variations and then changing our mind and then going back to the other one. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think it's going to be difficult, and we're certainly going to be on a big time pressure point.

Thank you. I'm feeling very uncertain tonight about this decision. We've got a situation where we're talking about rolling the dice on $3.8 million on behalf of our community , and potentially hoping for the best, but if we don't get the answer we want, just not spending $3.8 million on Windsor that we could have spent to greatly improve the place, even if the plan wasn't perfect. But I also acknowledge that there's a very strong presence from the Windsor business community, full of people with skin in the game, who wouldn't be here on a Tuesday night if they didn't think this was the right thing to do. But as I said when I met with the people from the Windsor Experience Action Group, to me the equation is: is the current plan so bad that you'd rather have nothing at all and hand back $3.8 million?

That was the answer I got when I asked them to. But I think we have to make that decision on behalf of 67,000 residents and ratepayers. And I think that's a really hard thing to do, to go and say, let's just roll the dice on $3.8 million when we could greatly improve Windsor and potentially significantly reduce the cost for future generations on maintaining our area. So I'm listening with an open mind. My inclination, though, is that that's not the responsible thing to do.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also have a question, and it's, I can't see the top of the motion, and I have no internet, so I can't see it on my computer either. I don't know what it mentions, oh here it is, it's back here. My concern was finding out about the, when we received the email about this, it was alluded to that there had been some, thank you , perfect , there had been some issues in Richmond around how the paving was done with regard to impact on heritage buildings. I'm trying to ascertain what sort of safeguards we would have in place in this work. So can someone address that?

I wasn't aware of these issues, but Councillor Sheather had referred to them, and I think it was to do, and I'm not sure because I am a little concerned that some councillors have information that not all councillors have, and I think that's problematic in an issue like this. But I believe it was something to do with how concreting was put under the paving up to butting into heritage buildings, which therefore can put them at some sort of risk. You don't know about that. I guess I'm just looking for assurance that any work that's done in the vicinity of a heritage building will be done with a protocol that would not allow something like that to happen

General Manager . Thank you. I am aware of that particular issue. I wasn't when I first heard of that Councillor Sheather raised. Yes, absolutely. So all of our works will be guided by experts that we've independently engaged to guide us through that. We're certainly aware that the concerns were raised around some of those similar issues in Richmond, and we'll continue to take advice and rely on the approvals of the New South Wales Heritage Office, who are the eminent approval body in this instance. Thank you.

Councillor ... Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's clear by the number of people that are here tonight that the plans that have been presented to date have been deficient. And we could argue about whether it's because there was too little consultation, or, as I suspect, there was consultation that occurred, but that it wasn't listened to. And that's why so many people are in the gallery tonight. But we have a generational moral obligation to get this right, and delay is something that we can endure so that we do get it right. I'm happy to support Councillor Sheather's motion as a good middle way through. And as I said at our last meeting, I understand completely that when we ask these questions of staff, they reply with measured caution about the deadline that is attached to various grants, and that if we dally too long, we're at risk of losing that funding.

So I'll address my remarks through you, Madam Mayor, to the councillors that might, like Councillor Connelly, be on the knife's edge on this particular point . That is a political calculus that we make, that if we say that we could do better, that we ought to do better, and that that brings us close to the deadline of the acquittal of the grant, that we will receive a receptive audience. So what evidence is there about the kind of audience that we might receive? Well, I know that our local member, Robyn Preston, has been very engaged in this and understands the sentiment within the community and is a very effective representative to the state government. I know that our federal member of parliament has spoken passionately about this in federal parliament.

In fact, was very direct in her remarks about how the plans were disappointing and that there was a desire for us to readdress those plans. Considering that this is both joint state-federal funding, I think that there is evidence before us as that if we, as councillors, want to roll the dice, as Councillor Connelly says, is that we will receive the response that we want, and we owe it to future generations to get this right, because I don't want to see the westfieldisation of the mall. It's a unique heritage area, and passionate people like Grant and Darren and Noel and Gay and Wendy and others who have spoken to us consistently about the unique heritage qualities of our most historic town centres have made the case in a compelling way that we can do better, that we should do better , and that we can preserve the gas lanterns and we can preserve the character of the mall and we can deploy that funding more effectively if too much of it was being consumed in the unnecessary replacement of paving and so forth.

I think this is the way through. So I'll close with this appeal to my colleagues that are — At odds about this is that this is worth the risk. To me, it seems like a fairly prudent and not a safe bet, but it's certainly worth taking a punt on to get an outcome that we'll be proud of, rather than an outcome that once we're stuck with it, we'll be walking through for the rest of our lives thinking, what a shame. We could have done better. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Okay

I might just say a few words on this motion on the board as well. It's been a very interesting day, and I do thank Councillor Sheather for the words he put together yesterday . Councillor Sheather and I then basically locked ourselves in a room to try and come up with what you see on the board today. So — Sorry, that's not right . So we have worked sufficiently hard on this to get it right, and I have really enjoyed my engagement with the businesses and the individuals who are committed and dedicated to ensuring that Windsor is a beautiful place. And while we all know that the mall itself is not essentially historic, if you're looking at a 1984 installation, we must remember that the buildings bordering the mall certainly are.

And that's what we need to continue to keep , that ambience. Now, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I find myself in a unique position in this matter where I had no part in the previous decision-making on the whole livability project in its entirety. But because we're talking about just Windsor now, I can participate, and I almost kind of see that like a bit of a legacy, I guess, that wasn't there beforehand, but here now, I think to get the right outcome for our community. And I guess as your mayor, it's a very important role that, you know, we always— Have difficult decisions to make in this chamber. They're not always easy. We've had some really trying times over the years, but I think what we need to leave from our time here as a decision maker is a legacy to our community.

And in 10 or 20 years' time, they're not going to remember the name Sarah McMahon or anyone else. They're going to walk through a beautiful mall that means something to the Hawkesbury, and that's what I find significantly important. I just want to step you through a couple of points on the motion so that there's a little bit of understanding in the room, because I know that not many people have seen what's up there. Now what's on the board is sort of option three, which is in the report, but with an added element for clarification. Now, stage one basically means that we are not touching what's already part of the scope of stage one, but for one added element. That means that in conjunction with discussions with our key management staff today, stage one, by and large, will be able to go ahead.

We'll be going out to tender, as we planned in a couple of weeks' time, I think it is. The addition to stage one is what the staff have already costed, which is the $650,000 paving of the north side of George Street. So I've had those chats with Councillor Sheather and his passion about the trees and where they need to be placed. But as I've said to many business owners in Windsor, sometimes to get the outcome you want, you've got to give some concessions. And I don't think we should be dying in a ditch over the placement of trees when it means that we can get this scope of work done. So that's what the difference is in stage one, kind of as it is, but for the addition of the paving, which— Looking around the room and the key speakers here tonight, excuse me, I need to lose my voice.

You have really been staunch advocates for what you want to see for the vision of Windsor, so I thank you for that. If we scroll down to stage two, if I can just ask the staff to do that, that is the submission of the variation which we have been discussing tonight. And yes, there is an element of risk in that. We have an agreed stage two, which, from my experience over the last few months, does not meet community expectations. And that's why we have a full gallery here tonight, when in most council meetings we're lucky to get three or four people. So it's actually great to have an audience, let me just say. But it's important that with stage two, I just want to break it down very quickly. There is still going to be works done to the mall.

So anyone who's concerned that we're going to keep status quo when we all know that our mall is in desperate need of a facelift, that is not the case. The biggest difference in what we would like to submit to the funding body is that we keep the current pavers and the sandstone where they are, but for the parts that are significantly broken and need to be repaired. The other part is the gas lamps remain in situ, but that's already been decided through a previous council resolution, so that is already happening. The other parts there, if you can't read them, is just replacing the old and broken furniture with heritage-style furniture, removing the plane trees. Mrs Payne spoke about that. I've spoken to the other businesses in the mall who wanted to retain them, and I understand for their beauty and their shade, but I've been very firm by saying that they just are not practical, and we will need to remove them and replace them with trees that are sympathetic to the mall.

The other one is improving safety and the visual appearance of existing road crossings and, of course, maintaining the meandering attitude of the mall. Now, based on what Councillor Sheather had put together and circulated, I think that this effort here that we've put together and worked on significantly today encompasses most of that, with those couple of very minor concessions to ensure that we can get this through the funding body, or at least stage one can proceed. In terms of stage two and ensuring that road through the funding body, what's reassuring to me as the Mayor of this community is that I've got the backing of our state member of Parliament here tonight, Robin Preston, and our federal member of Parliament, Susan Templeman.

So, given the state and the federal government are the key parts of this funding commitment, and of course Council did pitch in a little bit as well, to know we've got the backing of those different levels of government to have this as an outcome for our community gives me a little bit of reassurance, even though we can't guarantee that that's the case. The last thing I want to touch on is, of course, the funding deadline, construction deadline, sorry, which is June 2024. That is a deadline that is in our faces, and we need to respect that. We have asked for variations before, but we are here where we are now. I wouldn't be doing my job as your leader if I was not listening to the community.

We have to, in my best way forward, put that to the funding body and at least try. If we didn't at least try, we would not be doing our duty of care to our Hawkesbury community. So that's my thoughts on where we are. I'll be wholeheartedly endorsing the motion as it is on the board. I want my time here to leave a legacy for the Hawkesbury, something we are proud of, something that is beautiful, and something that, of course, sits with an experience when people come and visit the third mainland settlement of our colonial times. So thank you everyone for all of your input over the last few weeks. I hope this is an outcome that you can all be satisfied with. Thanks.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have an amendment that I've sent through to the staff.

Sorry

Councillor, let me have

A look.

Do I have a seconder for the amendment? I'll second it. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. As many of you know, I've been working on this project since I was elected in 2016. In fact, I ran on a platform of revitalising Windsor at the 2016 election. This project was much easier when its scope was smaller, when it had less money attached to it, and it was focused on just a small section of Windsor. Once we had got the livability funding, it became much more complex. We had a really rigid time frame, we had much more stringent objectives, and we all of a sudden had a big pocket of money to be spent across our three major towns.

It was one of the biggest projects that Hawkesbury Council had embarked on at that point.

There's been a series of Chinese whispers in this project that I find deeply concerning, and unfortunately we saw it again this evening, where we've still got people talking about changes that are going to be... That they believe are going to be made that aren't happening, and we therefore have a whole lot of angst within the community that is misdirected. I really understand that businesses want disruption to their trading minimised. That's perfectly reasonable. I understand your concerns about the modernisation of the mall. I understand that you want a good outcome both for your business and for the Hawkesbury. It's our job to make sure that the whole LGA gets a good outcome out of this project, and that's why I can't support the motion that Councillor Sheather has put forward.

It's a vast improvement on the one that was circulated to us prior to this meeting, and it would have been really nice to have seen the changed motion before it came before us. You have left us at a distinct disadvantage, and consequently you have left the outcome of this project at a distinct disadvantage. I cannot, in good conscience, as someone with a long-term responsibility to this council,

Accept a motion that leaves us and particularly our staff swinging in the breeze, hoping that we get yet another, what is this, the fourth, fifth extension to this project. It's , as Councillor Conolly says, it's an in excess of three million dollar roll of the dice, and that just isn't responsible. This motion is, it's not deliberately vague around heritage, but it allows council staff enough scope to move forward so that some of the items, like exactly what a chair looks like. can be negotiated while we're still moving forward with this project.

We're talking about using the recommendations of the Thompson Square CMP, a really exhaustive document written by the best heritage experts in the country, frankly, and the Borough Charter, the guidelines for heritage management in New South Wales.

The paving colour, I think it's really reasonable to question the colour of the pavers that we put down. Currently they are very dark. They are very trippy. They are very broken, and it's going to cost us a lot of money to pick them up, polish them off and put them back down again. I don't know that that's the best outcome in this space. Their dark colour makes them really hot. It makes the space hot. But what it does do is hide the dirt. And I think the recommendation to Honey Jasper will at least hide some of the dirt, as opposed to the South Windsor option, which is that really grotty grey, you know, easily grotty grey. What I think we also need to do, though, in this process is debunk the idea, debunk some of these Chinese whispers that have been circulating for five years now.

We will not be opening the mall to traffic. When we talk about opening the mall, we talk about opening the sight lines of the mall, which is consistent with a Victorian and Georgian era square, that you can see from one end to the other. It won't be open to traffic. It will be open to sight lines. That lures people to move through the mall and spend more money in more businesses. This is basic town planning. The water wheel and gas lamps will be retained. I'm going to ask again this week about why Council was getting rid of the water wheel. For heaven's sake, the water wheel is staying where it is, and that the mall will not be closed for trade during the works; it will proceed in small stages to minimise disruption.

And Council needs to go out and tell businesses exactly that, so that they can plan around it.

I think this is a logical, safe way forward. I think we can— not everybody is going to be deliriously happy with absolutely everything in this plan. I'm not either. But what we have to do is be responsible and show some good leadership with a windfall amount of public money. This is public money that we are spending to do this work on our major town. We have to be responsible with it. We also have to make a decision and move on, because this going back and forth, round and round and round, this is bad. This is bad governance. It's bad leadership, and it's bad for business. Thanks.

Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? Councillor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would just like to ask through you if Councillor Wheeler would add a 5(d), which is give businesses, well , in the whole of the Hawkesbury actually, some pictures and examples of the types of furniture that is going to be, is being contemplated, because I was a little bit horrified to see the yellow bollards, and that's definitely not what's going to happen. And that's misinformation, and that needs to be addressed. So if Councillor Wheeler would add that, I would be very grateful.

Are you happy with that, Councillor Wheeler? Yeah. Thank you very much. And a seconder

Yep, thank you. While I've got my light on, I am going to support this amendment. I am very uncomfortable with the level of risk that we're taking with the funding for this project. It is—we have been talking about this project for so many years, and now at the eleventh hour we think that we might put in a variation. I mean, that is just— I'm totally uncomfortable with that. The outcome that we will get from the Windsor Mall from this option one, with the different coloured pavers, I think is going to be pleasantly, surprisingly good for the businesses in the Windsor Mall. I think that there's too much misinformation flying around and people are scared that we're going to get something horrible.

I think this is going to be really good. It'll enable council to clean the mall better. It will be flat. At the moment, the pavers that we've got are mismatched. They're cracked. They're wobbly. They're wavy. It doesn't look very good at all now. And we have to think of public amenity as well. It's not just the businesses; it's the people that have limited sight, people who have accessibility issues. We have to think about opening the mall for everybody. And the amendment, the motion that Councillor [unclear] put up, didn't really address that. And I want to drag us back to the best practice in planning that we— If we have the opportunity to do those things, we should grab it. One of the things that came to my attention when I was talking to businesses was that they're worried about the disruption to the business.

And like many people have said here tonight, that is a real and genuine issue, and we must do what we can to minimise that disruption. I am comfortable that we're going to do that. I think it's documented in the business paper how we're going to do that, and I'm happy that that's going to happen. I also think that if we move forward on our original proposal and the original plans, that we will have more time to be able to devote to the businesses of Windsor, to enable us to do this work in a staged and possibly slower pace. If we wait till the eleventh hour and everybody's—we're going to be scrambling to get whatever refurbishment that's in the original motion, we're selling ourselves short, and I'm just not happy, and I can't be party to that.

It's not good governance, and I'm not prepared to support that. So I think in the end this will be a good project, and I'm happy to support it.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to second this amendment. I think, firstly, I'd like to say that I don't for a minute doubt the genuine concerns that people have raised, and I think they are genuine concerns. But I think that what has concerned me most over the past couple of months is the amount—and I won't call it misinformation, I'll call it disinformation, because I believe that some information has been circulated that isn't true, and I've been contacted by people who've been told things that are simply not true. And that concerns me very, very much, that people have been led to believe that things will be happening that simply are not true. And I find that disappointing.

I'm not directing that at anyone in particular, but some businesses have contacted me, and they don't feel they could speak out or say things because of what had been said to them. The objectives of a livability project are very clear. This is money that—it's not just a grant from the federal or state government. It's within the Western Parkland City Authority. It's money that has been put in by the federal, state and eight councils of Western Sydney. So it's not something you just go to and say, you know, give us a bit more time, do this. It has a strict protocol around it, and we've pushed it to the limit as it is. And like the other councillors that have spoken about gambling on losing that, I won't sit here and have that lost when we fought so hard.

It's a project about accessibility, livability, getting people into your township safely. And Councillor Kotlash has just raised the things around accessibility. The mall isn't accessible for everyone. My mother's 98, and I can't take her there because she can't get around there. So we want to make it so it's a place everyone can come, a place of inclusiveness, a place that's clean, a place where you can sit. And I am more than happy, absolutely happy, to change the colour of the paving. I think this colour is much better that Councillor Wheeler suggested. I'm happy to have heritage-style furniture. I think that will look wonderful in there. I'm happy to ensure that no heritage buildings are adversely impacted by making sure that we have the correct procedures, and that's why I asked that question tonight.

The conservation management plan for Thompson Square, of course, has very valuable information, and we know, you know, that we know what needs to be done, and if that's followed, then I'm happy with that.

I just think I get a little bit concerned when people are using the heritage card, perhaps not as much as it could be. We know that the real value in the Mall of Heritage is in the buildings that line each side of the mall. So what would be better than to really enable those buildings to be showcased to the people that come to the mall, to encourage people that the next phase, perhaps, and there's nothing to stop future projects, we can apply for more funding to do more things to really build upon what this initial project might bring, and that is that we can have projects to do specific things around buildings in the mall. We can have, you know, hopefully get more money from the government to incentivise landlords in particular to upgrade their buildings, to really get within where the heritage integrity and authenticity really is within the mall.

I think that the option 1A is a good option with these specifications that Councillor Wheeler has put there. I'm just concerned that we are not acting in a way which is encompassing the fact that this is a public space, that we need to make a good space for all of our people, for all of our ratepayers, and there's $3.75 million of ratepayer money in this whole project, not just Windsor, but we need to make decisions that are for the future. This is not a retrograde step. There's nothing I can see that is detracting from the heritage of Windsor. If we have the proper furniture, you know, we've already had the integrity of Thompson Square, you know, impacted by the presence of the modern bridge, and that is a tragedy.

But we know there's only two heritage precincts in Windsor, in North Street and in Thompson Square, and we don't want to miss out on having the Thompson Square. square area done up in the way that is outlined in this project. We don't want to risk losing that, and I think that we have to, we have to.. . yes, we could perhaps add—it is a note from Councillor Wheeler—could we perhaps add a point around future funding be found for continuous paving along George Street, which that would be a point E, if Councillor Wheeler would add that. A six, sorry, point six. I can't see even with my glasses, that we apply for future funding— no.

Sorry, Councillor... Councillor Lyons-Buckett, your time has expired. I'm happy for you to put that final point up with the right wording, if you just want to let the staff know.

Maybe just look to future funding opportunities for further projects.

No, just, yeah, just for future funding for

Further projects . Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment, we'll just remind councillors conscious of time on this item. Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, just to clarify a couple of things. The first thing I did was apologise in relation to the time the motion went out and the like. I can assure you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett got it at the same time as everybody else, and I responded to her email in relation to a question at 11 o'clock last night. And I don't know if other people might keep things from other councillors, but I'm one that doesn't do that. If you don't want me to tell somebody, don't tell me. It's pretty simple. Just to clarify a couple of things, this is our business paper with the latest photos and stuff in it. Because they're not numbered, if you go to the back page, it shows the seats and the garbage bins and the likes that are of a modern mall and the like.

And the George Street Mall north final design is a bowl and alley. It is open, as described, and I say a bowl and alley because that's what I perceive it as. It's not the mall that I want to see and the like. In relation to the funding, the motion isn't suggesting that Council foot the bill for what might not be appropriate for the program. But part of the problem is with the mall that the lack of maintenance over the years has put us in a situation where something up there needs to be done straight away. And we spoke about that this afternoon and how we might achieve that. And I'm sure it'll be discussed by the councillors. There's a $368,000 budget for work in the mall. Now, I don't know what that's allocated to, but if it's not enough, we might have to look for a bit more.

But in relation to getting it right and the money, I am not prepared to accept money on the basis we've got to do something. That's simply not good enough. And I don't want to go into the issues that we've talked about before about consultation. I don't want to go there. All I want to say is that over the last few weeks , and with the different people I've spoke to in different walks of life, most of them in business in Windsor, and the works that's happened in South Windsor and Richmond, there's concern that what's happening in the mall may not be the best for Windsor. And hence the involvement that Councillor Djuric and I have had with a group in Windsor. None of that time have I heard anybody speak of misleading information.

There's stuff that's in documents, and when you look back in history, the water wheel was going to go and stuff like that. That's not going to happen now, but it's only not happening because people spoke out, and that's what they're doing here tonight.

Madam Mayor, that is not true. Do you have a point of order? Yes. This is misinformation that is frankly imputing improper motives to the previous council and the people involved in that project. There was never any intention to remove the water wheel from Windsor Mall. Never, ever, ever.

Councillor Wheeler, I

Thank you for your point

Of order. Gallery, gallery please. The chair has the call. Councillor Wheeler, I won't uphold that point of order. I believe Councillor Sheather was referring to the fact of people speaking up. There had been discussions in the past about the water wheel. That's been put to bed. Councillor Sheather, please proceed.

Madam Mayor, if I'm in error there, I'll certainly apologise. But the information that I've got and the documentation I've seen, that was the case, and it was a long time ago. Anyway, that's the past. What we're talking about is where we go with the future, and the — You know, we've been to talk through what's expected of Windsor, what the people expect of Windsor. Even people that just want to get on with it, they don't want the character of Windsor changed in any shape or form, nor does anyone want to lose the money, for that matter. Nobody, anybody in their right mind wouldn't want to do that.

But to put in place things that aren't going to be the character, as you will explain when you spoke, is not the right way for us sitting around this table to decide. And the public money, if we don't spend it, guess where it goes? Back to the people who collected it from the very people sitting around this room that put it in in the first place. So we're not wasting the money, it's just that we're not going to use it to the degree that the plan indicated that we don't agree with. So, Madam Mayor, I'll leave it at that.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? Councillor Dramachi.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, you all know me. I'm a practical person. As a matter of fact, a similar question I was going to ask when Deputy Mayor, last month or the month before, when I asked the question regarding that [unclear] matter when it was before us. Why do we have to fight and always, you know, oppose every single one of the individuals in this room is not going to agree with everything we say and what. We're talking about the excavation of when the gas lights. We're talking about how deep we are going to go. What is the colour of the pavements? What are we going to— I mean, why do we have to waste, you know, so much time on this kind of thing? So what I'm saying is that when time comes, you know, for voting, call me before, but I don't have time for this kind of, you know, waste of time.

You know, all these people want to go home. We are talking about the colour of the pavements. We're talking about next, we are going to talk about what kind of a conduit, where is the copper pipe is coming from. Councillor Dramachi

Thank you. What is your point of order?

It's gone.

It's gone, yeah, thank you. I will, as the Chair, I'll just remind Councillor Dogramachi of what a privilege it is to be elected into this role and participate in democracy. And I think that we need to uphold our roles here in that manner. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I won't be leaving. I'm staying. So pleased. Look, I'd like to start with a few questions, if I may. We saw some pictures of some yellow bollards. What are we planning to do about keeping delivery trucks out of the mall? Are those yellow bollards, which won't be yellow, is that part of that process?

Ms Carney, and I apologise for saying Kearney I'll get that right

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So there will be removable bollards placed into the mall so that it doesn't allow vehicles to travel through it as it does at the moment throughout the entire day. So it will be opened up in the mornings for deliveries. There is existing loading zones that have been implemented way ahead of this project, and those removable bollards will allow for market operators to enter, you know, if there is events happening, etc. But it will also maintain the pedestrian safety during the working week.

Thank you. That's excellent, because there's been a lot of talk about the pavers, whether to replace them or fix them or remove a few, whereas the cause of the problem, as far as I'm concerned, is the delivery trucks that go in there on a regular basis. And if we aren't going to keep the delivery trucks out, then— We might fix the pavers. We might replace all of them, or we might replace some of them. But several weeks later, they're all going to start getting wobbly again because the delivery trucks are the problem. I'm really glad that that's going to happen. And there's an implication that the motion that Councillor Sheather put forward has us putting in heritage

Sympathetic furniture , whereas it's implied that Option 1 doesn't do that. Is that true?

Ms Carney.

So the existing seating that is in the mall will be retained, the one with the iron ends. So that is being retained, and the slats, the seating areas being replaced. So all of those will be retained. The seating that, and the other street furniture that's going in is to complement. So one of the key aspects from very early in this project scope was not to start using products that were custom built so that it didn't cost for future and for ratepayers when it had to be replaced. So it is off-the-shelf products that are readily available, but complements and matches in with the heritage that's existing in the mall now.

Thank you. One, one last question, if I may. A lot of locals have been requiring that we have gas lamps extend right down George Street. Do either the amendment or the motion deliver that?

General Manager? No, they don't, Councillor. No, they don't. Part of the conversation that Councillor Sheather alluded to earlier that I had had with both he and the Mayor earlier today was that there's a certain degree of criticality around getting out to tender on Stage 1, and that any alteration around that to do with either lighting, lamps, trees and the like would certainly jeopardise that process.

Okay, thanks for that. Look, after listening to all the speakers and looking at all the reports, it appears to me the only major difference between Option 1 and Councillor Sheather's motion is what we do with the pavers. Everything else appears to be roughly the same.

And we have a, I think we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity here to spend federal government money to redo the pavers in the mall and bring them up to a standard that is safe for visitors and safe for shopkeepers. And if we don't spend that money and do this now, then those pavers, even if we replace the so-called 10% broken ones, and I had a look yesterday, I'd say it's more like 30 or 40%. Even if we do, then there will be ongoing maintenance over the next few years. We're going to have to keep finding money to patch this bit and that bit. And to me, that is the waste of money. This money is now made available, and as I said, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity. With those new pavers, it's not going to remove the feel of the mall .

The mall is still going to retain its current ambiance. It's still going to feel like Windsor. It's not going to change things dramatically. It's only going to improve what is there and attract more visitors, attract more shoppers. And I think, as Councillor Conolly said, we're rolling a dice here. And if we go ahead with Councillor Sheather's motion, I know he's well intentioned with what he's done, we run a very big risk that we'll lose the money altogether. And it's here in the document. It says that quite clearly, and of course I've lost it now, at the bottom of page 104, the grant funding body have repeatedly and firmly advised that the deadline for expenditure is June 24.

And if we went ahead with this change, they would not be able to be delivered in this time frame. And it says through here several times that there's a great risk that we won't be able to do anything. So look, this option one is not something that arrived yesterday. This is something that's been around, being discussed since at least 2017, if not earlier. It's gone through an extensive community consultation process. I know some people feel they haven't been consulted, but the several people that feel they haven't been consulted are now coming forward. What we're not seeing is the many other people who have been consulted. They're not coming forward and saying, Yes, I was consulted and this is a good idea.

And I know that I asked this at a— Briefing session not long ago. Do we have all the records of the people we spoke to? And yes, we do. And there are many people that we spoke to and do agree with this model , as in Option 1. And as has already been pointed out, Option 1 is not what we saw in some of the slides here tonight. It's not like this grand open boulevard with nothing in it. Far from it. It's a much, much more subtle sort of change and improvement. It does allow longer sight lines, but it's not an open road like Great Western Highway or something. Those photos were original photos from the draft about five or six years ago. They are not what are in the final outcome. So I would believe that this community is best served if we go ahead with Option 1, and therefore I'm going to support the amendment.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Anyone else wish to speak on the amendment?

Clarification, Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councillor Sheather.

I just read from a council document.

Relocate the existing water wheel to the museum on Baker Street. Replace it with indigenous meeting place seating and the link to Indigenous history and the river.

Thank you, Councillor, for making that comment. Councillor Djuric, what is your point of order?

Point of clarification. Yes. That came to council in, that came to the working group and hence then council. The initial draft from Urbis, it was resoundly rejected by both the working group and council. It was never on the table for action in the mall. It was roundly rejected along with the big hand and the apple. It was a concept design that was met with mortification, frankly, and never endorsed by council. It was never on the table for action. Never once.

Thank you, Councillor. I think we can establish the idea was there and it didn't go ahead, and we will leave it at that. Councillor Djuric, were you still wishing to speak on the amendment? Yes

Please, if I could, Madam Mayor. I won't be supporting the— Amendment, because it's not, I don't feel it's in line with the greater community sentiment. I'd like to start by discussing 2020. The working group met in April, May and July of 2020. Place Design Group was engaged to undertake detailed design in 2020, and a draft master plan was submitted. During 2020, the Hawkesbury was under siege by the Gospers Mountains mega fire. At the end of February, Hawkesbury saw its first flood in 28 years. March 2020 saw Australia's first death in COVID, and on the 23rd of March 2020, the state of New South Wales closed down. And it's during this period that our business paper states that consultation consisted of street walks, streetholder workshops, and pop-up engagement stalls.

One of the regular points of contention is that people were consulted. I can say that through the hell of 2020, people weren't available to be consulted on a liveability project. They had more pressing concerns, like stocking up on toilet paper to survive COVID. Even the grant funding authority accepts that the Hawkesbury has suffered extenuating circumstances during this period. During February of 2023 was the first time that a select few had the opportunity to view an artist's depiction of the completed mall project as it will be delivered. I certainly hadn't seen it prior to that. People are only just understanding that the mall received concrete-coloured pavers akin to cold, sterile, lifeless entrance of a Westfield shopping centre.

The community want to make it clear that Council does not have community approval for concrete-coloured pavers.

Even the people who want Council's original project delivered state they don't really like it. It's only recently I was contacted by a lady who stated that she didn't really like it, but the project should go ahead. I had a similar problem when I was five. My father would give me pocket money that burned holes in my pocket until I spent it on a worthless toy, and that always ended in tears. So I understand why people are desperate to spend money, because I've been there. When the current mall was delivered in 1984, there were artist depictions of exactly what was being delivered. If there was a pigeon in that depiction, then the council of the time delivered that pigeon. There was no confusion, and everyone was across what was being delivered, and everyone had ample time to put their two cents' worth in.

We have not done that. If we had done that, then we would have done appropriate consultation. If we're going to target the most iconic feature of Windsor, then it would be prudent to make sure that the majority of the community is across what council wants to deliver. When one appropriately consults with the people who want to change the mall, one quickly finds out that what they really want is more parking, or fixing the rotting furniture, or fixing the trip hazards in the mall. They don't really want to change it after all, certainly not a contemporary shopping strip. I want to commend council for understanding that the mall was in desperate need of work. The 40 years of being treated with a kind of mild contempt, the rotting tables and chairs, the mounds of historically aged bird dung, along with the repeated community complaints of the disgusting state of the mall, no doubt rang alarm bells in that the time for repairs is now.

The problem here seems to be that the deliverability grant funding guidelines don't seem to allow to deliver what is an acceptable standard for the greater community. This alone negates appropriate consultation. In attachment 2, Key Steps, March 2020, Community and Stakeholder Engagement states, Urbis undertook targeted engagement that was specific to practical short-term improvements. What this says to me is that the consultation had a preconceived notion of the direction it wanted to take. Now I can see that the reason for this was to make sure that the project was within scope that allowed for the funding. I'm only just starting to understand why community members keep saying that not only do they feel they weren't consulted, they feel ignored and they felt funneled towards accepting features or points that they didn't consider appropriate for the mall.

Which forces one to ask that despite the more being the appropriate project to do right now, was the livability funding the wrong type of funding to do the job in line with greater community expectations ? At what point do we stop continuing to err in our duties by doubling down and continuing to force the community to accept the bastardisation of their much-loved mall simply to capitalise on funding by forcing the implementation of the funding criteria of the livability grant? The problem is that we now find ourselves in a fixated state of short-sightedness, where the most important thing is spending grant money and ticking a job completion box over the views and needs of the people. And I think the people have made it clear tonight that we're not in line with greater community sentiment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Okay, Councillors, I will point out, and I'm sure the gallery is well aware, we've been going for two hours. Of course you have your rights, but I'm just pointing that out. Is there anyone wishing to speak on the amendment? No, then I will put the amendment. Those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. Those against the amendment, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Zane Progno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the amendment lost. The original motion is on the board that was put by Councillor Sheather. Is there anyone else wishing to make comments on the motion, Councillor Djuric?

No. So

Your light's on

Thank you. Anyone else wishing? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the motion. I think that's a little disappointing. I really don't. I think Councillor Calvert alluded to it somewhat, but there isn't a great deal of difference. And I just think there is still so much misunderstanding both around how the funding model for this specific project works, which is quite problematic, but also around... Around what would actually be the end result. There has been nothing taken away that would stop heritage-style furniture. The paving would be clean and done. The gas lights stay. The water wheel stays. The project would be done. When we initially, in Richmond, there was a little bit of an outcry at the start when things started happening, and then lo and behold, now there's only positive feedback.

People were worried about the parking, but now the parking's orderly. The trees are cooling the street, and that's livability. That's allowing people to have access to their town centre where it's being cooled, where it's being done in an orderly fashion. I just think that I'm just disappointed that this has become a very blurred sort of information. It's been framed as some sort of an attack on businesses to want to proceed with the original plan, which we all acknowledge we'll never have a plan that suits everybody. Even Mrs Kelly, when she spoke, she said that within their group, some people want to keep the trees and some people don't want to keep the trees. This is always the way that these things happen.

You cannot please all the people all the time, and sometimes you can't please some people any of the time, which is a real problem in our community. Regardless, I think, I mean, of course now my hope would be that some sort of project still proceeds. I thank the staff for their hard work. I know how difficult it must be to have a new council come in. We know we went through all of this for years in the last council. We made the decisions. It is poor governance to continually make decisions on the run like this when we've had so much time. I really do not believe that people were not consulted. I know that Councillor Calvert asked about how many people were contacted, and that was a lot of people.

It is up to individuals to take the opportunity to participate in consultation. If they don't, and then come back later and say they missed that opportunity, then that really, the onus of responsibility is on them, not on the Council. So we have consultation for specific reasons, and I urge people, any time something is put out to the community, to have your say. Take the opportunity where it's there, because it is simply unsustainable for us as a government organisation to continue to make decisions like this, like we're doing tonight. But thank you to the staff. I know it's been ongoing, and I hope that all that work does not come to, you know, absolutely nothing. And I just hope that whatever is put forward can be accepted and that something does get done.

Otherwise, we will have missed an opportunity.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion that hasn't already spoken? No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I do think the staff, and I know it hasn't been easy. There's been a Council resolution, and since the elections it's been frustrating, and I understand that.

But I can't let go the comments from Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

When I was approached by some business people in the street, and I said, you know, I need a bit more to go on than two or three people that had a view. So I suggested they might do a survey of people that have interacted, or either with the council or the people who are running the project, and, you know, what involvement they had. Within a week, they come back with 30 businesses that indicated they hadn't. And in the last two weeks, it's up to nearly 80. This is businesses in the main street, in George Street. Now, I know, and we've spoke about it over the last few years about consultation, and it is hard. You know, it's not easy. We've talked about it half a dozen times.

But if we're going to change the outcome of businesses in Windsor and the like, then a door knock all the way up the street, and there was some done, I don't doubt that for a second. But it's encouraging that people would sign a document to say they don't have the knowledge that they would like on what's happening. But on the other hand, it's embarrassing that so many businesses can say that So, and like I said, we've spoke about it before, and I don't know what the procedure is, but in some of the things we do, we need to go further. This is certainly one of them. And in saying that, I haven't heard a great deal, well, hardly any derogatory comments of where we're at, apart from it's not happening and the people would like a say.

So, and that's hence the motion that I've worked on yesterday and with you and the General Manager today. There's a great hope that most of the project will get done, and that there could be an extension. It's very seldom you get the support that we've got from our local members to the degree they have, and the people involved within the community. There's certainly a will to work to get the project done and the like. So, Madam Mayor, oh my God, there's been enough said. I think there's a good view of how people feel about this, and I know the people of our community, and I think I could say everybody that's got businesses in the mall and the like would only love to work with Council to achieve the best outcome we can for our city.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Wheeler. I declare the motion carried.

Thank you, everybody.

Okay, the next item subject to public address is 4.3.1, Draft Local Approvals Policy Caravan Park

Madam Mayor, I have a condolence motion that has been delayed for two hours now.

Can I have a procedural motion to move that ahead of the agenda item

Madam Mayor , the procedure is already that the condolence motion is the first item on the business paper, regardless of whether anyone is speaking. Okay,

Thank you. Yeah, I'll just let the gallery clear.

Gallery, if you could please just make your way out as fast as you can if you are leaving the meeting so that we can continue with our business, and please hold your conversations outside of the chamber.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Could

You also please turn your light on so that you can be heard?

Madam Mayor, I move that this condolence motion move to the next council meeting where it can actually be heard with some respect and dignity.

I'm happy if you would like to wait five minutes, Councillor Wheeler.

If you are leaving, please move away from the doors and speaking. If you are coming back in, please remain silent. I'm actually saying please remain silent as people continue to speak, so please remain silent.

Please sit down if you are staying in the meeting now. I'm sorry, but we have to move on with our meeting, and it's causing disruption. I'll have to shut the doors if we continue to have people walking in and out.

Councillor Kotlash, can you please shut the doors simply for the— thank you, Councillor Dogramaci.

Councillor Wheeler, if you'd like to proceed. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

This condolence motion is for Marjorie Clark, who was a long-term employee of Hawkesbury Council, and a life member and patron of the Friends of the Australiana Pioneer Village. She was also a recipient of the Order of Australia Medal for her work at the Pioneer Village. Marge was born Marjorie Bushell on the 27th of May 1938 at Richmond. She went to Bilbowes Primary School and then to Richmond High. At 17, which I think is staggering for people of our generation, she married Ken Clark and moved to Sackville, where she worked as a mixed farmer with her cattle dog, Trixie, as her main company. The family moved away and had children up in the Upper Hunter, which is common for lots of people who've lived and returned to the Hawkesbury.

She returned to Wilberforce to the family property at Bushells Lagoon in 1972 and started working at the Australiana Pioneer Village. The Bushells first settled at Bushells Lagoon in the very early days of the colony, I think in 1803, and the lagoon is named after her family. They still own that block of land. She , when the village was closed in 1999, where Marge had worked her way up to manager, she then went to work in the library. She was really pivotal in the running of the village. She, not just in her preservation of heritage in that 20-year time frame, and during that time council purchased the village in order to, at that stage, protect it. And Marge was employed; she'd been employed by a number of employers and council at the end of that period.

She also, beyond the heritage work, did a lot of work with injured and orphaned wildlife and farm animals until the last few years of her life at Booderee Lagoon, and before she then went, she moved into a nursing home. She always had a wombat. There were a multitude of rescued wombats. She was like a real-life Acountry Practice character, Marge, including the many, many wombats. She also was petrified of green tree frogs. Anyone who spent any time at the Pioneer Village knows how many green tree frogs there are down there. Marge was terrified of them. I saw her—I'm not quite sure how old she was at that stage—but she wasn't that agile anymore, and I saw her move. I've never seen anyone move so quickly.

When a young kid—there was always a green tree frog that lived in the gent's toilet, in the toilet—and many a patron came out not always with their pants, having had a tree frog leap out while they were in there. But this little boy brought one up in a pot plant that he'd found, and he was very proud of it, and he thought that Marge must have looked like his nana, and he thought she'd be very receptive to his tree frog. And poor Marge took a flying leap off the end of the veranda to get away from the cute little critter. But look, apart from frogs, she was fantastic with animals of all sorts: horses, donkeys, particularly wombats, and dogs. She also had a great love of books and learning and history, which made her— Really , a terrific member of the library staff.

She always said she hadn't moved very far. She was born next door to Richmond Library when that was a lying-in hospital. She was a fierce defender of the Pioneer Village. She was our rock in that decade-long fight to save the village. And it's fair to say without Marge, the village wouldn't have survived. Many of the village practices were instigated by Marge. We always said that if it hadn't been done by Marge pre-1999, then you probably weren't going to be allowed to do it, particularly the way we ran the gate. As the Friends president, Kevin Weeks, said at her memorial service, Marge was always happy to discuss an issue and differing views on it, as long as everyone was clear that she was right in the end.

And she usually was. She had a fantastic way of gathering younger people around her at her memorial service. Many of those people turned up, you know, and we all stood around looking at each other going, Gosh, we've aged. But the people who were there who met and started working with Marge when they were in their very early teens or younger, she had lifelong friendships with those people. Everyone was equal in Marge's eyes. She was great at finding jobs for people, whether you knew you wanted a job or not. And she involved everyone in those spaces. When the village was closed, she went in voluntarily most days, doing what she could to keep the buildings maintained and caring for the animals, including the horses that had been the Clydesdale horses that had been born on the site.

And she cared for them throughout their lives. She never gave up on the fight to save the village.

She was also one of the real bastions of flood knowledge in Wilberforce, particularly for the village. There was an extensive oral history taken from Marge by Jan Barkley-Jack when the village was heritage listed. The flood plan for the village that was enacted—it's been enacted repeatedly in the last few years—is all from Marge's knowledge of exactly where the water comes and what has to be moved and where to and how. She was awarded an OAM last year, and it was my very great privilege to speak to the committee . I was, at that stage, I'd received a fairly ordinary medical diagnosis myself, and I found it really useful to reflect on somebody else's life and their achievements at a time when I was probably reflecting a bit on my own.

Marge was an extraordinary woman. She raised two daughters who remain, like Marge, strong, fierce and gracious women. She, and the OAM, I think, acknowledges Marge's influence on Wilberforce and the people around her, and that grace and strength. Her memorial service was held last month at the Pioneer Village, the place that she loved and gave her life service to. It began and ended with a Cob and Co coach, combining her great loves, her daughters, her horses and history and the APV. The service book shows my favourite picture of Marge. She's got a hat on her head, and look, this is mucking out day. You know, she's still got a skirt on, a keys in a hand, walking determinedly down to the church on a quiet afternoon in the village after everybody else has gone home.

She was always gracious, always dignified, and always generous. It's how the friends of the APV will remember her best, this quiet dedication to that place. To Marge's daughters, thank you for sharing your mother with us. Her dedication to the village took a lot of time away from your family. Marge will be greatly missed. And I think I can speak on behalf of all the friends of the Pioneer Village when we say that the village would not be what it is without Marge today. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that, Councillor Wheeler. I may add one more condolence motion, then we may take a moment's silence in honour of both of our motions. I'll just take a very brief moment to make a condolence motion about Jim Marcus. People may know he was the husband of Louise Marcus, who was the federal member for both Greenway and Macquarie for about 12 years in this area. Jim passed away last week from a long battle with illness. His service is to be next week. Jim was an absolute stalwart for Louise beside her throughout her parliamentary career, obviously throughout her life. He was a larrikin, he was much loved, and he had just recently become a grandfather. So in honour of Jim and of course Marjorie, if you don't mind, councillors, not quite a minute, but we'll just take a moment's silence in memory. Thank you.

Thank you, councillors, and thank you, gallery.

The next item on the agenda is item number 4.3.1, draft local approvals policy, caravan parks. We have three registered speakers, and before I call the speakers, I'd like to thank you for your patience this evening as we got through a very long motion before you, so thank you. I call on the first registered speaker, Robert Montgomery.

Councillor Kotlash, if you'd like to open the doors, I think that everyone's settled down. That'll be fine. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Councillors. I represent Del Rio Riverside Resort and have done continuously for the past 15 years or so over numerous development consents, approvals, and discussions and negotiations with council staff about the sorts of activities that we have down at Del Rio. Del Rio is at Webbs Creek, for those who are unfamiliar with it. It started as a family holiday destination in the 1970s, and it's since transformed into a major tourist destination offering a range of accommodation including 18 luxury villas, 14 waterfront villas, 22 tourist cabins, 100 powered camping and caravan sites, and 200 unpowered camping sites. Our facilities include a licensed bistro and a recreation club, a cafe, a golf course, two swimming pools, a splash pad water park, basketball, netball and tennis courts, jumping pillows, children's playground, and covered boat storage, just to name a few.

And I'm pleased to say that all of those facilities and all of those cabins have been lawfully placed on the land either by development consents or under the Caravan Park legislation.

We've got a mix of development consents at Del Rio. We've got development consents, we've got local government approvals, dating back to the original consent issued by Colo Shire Council in 1977. And that consent was for a caravan park, holiday apartments, a motel, a chapel, other accommodation and facilities. We also have a mobile home park approved for 72 sites , and 10 of those with 10 dwellings installed to date. So there's 62 sites still not occupied. There's two parts of Del Rio, if you like. The caravan park side of it is largely on flood liable land. The mobile home park is above the flood level. In general, we support the council's policy, the draft policy, and we applaud council. for seeking to apply a consistent set of rules to all caravan parks.

In fact, El Rio sometimes felt it was being singled out over the years for compliance work, you know, things like swimming pool fences perhaps or minor things. Even back 10 years ago, we removed 65 on-site holiday caravans because they wouldn't comply with the current rules at that time. We negotiated that outcome with the council, and we were happy with the outcome that those 65 sites on flood-prone land are now vacant. So we've always worked with the council, and it's pleasing to know that the council is looking at a consistent approach to all the parks. Our only concern with the policy is that we have 22 relocatable tourist cabins that were lawfully installed on flood-prone land some years ago.

While the draft policy is silent on this situation, it's unclear whether future approvals to operate a caravan park would include these cabins. I've had some discussions with the council strategic planning staff today and yesterday, and they agreed that it's a little bit unclear. The approvals part of the policy says that the council won't approve a relocatable dwelling on flood-prone land, but the approval to operate a caravan park, which has to be issued every five years, is silent on whether or not it will continue to allow lawfully installed cabins on flood-prone land. So we've suggested an additional clause in the policy. Councillors, I've sent that through to you last night, and I sent it to the general manager and the staff as well.

But what we're suggesting is that there's an... There is an inclusion in the policy under the part about operational licences that says, in the case of a caravan park situated on flood liable land, only relocatable homes, buildings or cabins which have lawfully been established will be recognised in an approval to operate a caravan park.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for Mr Montgomery? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Mr Montgomery. In relation to sheds on flood-prone land, the storage boats, people leave their boats in some of the sheds. I'm not sure whether Del Rio, I know some of the other places have, or just the storage of lawnmowers or tractors or like that's used for the purpose of the business. Is there an issue within the policy that that may be an issue?

Did I push— sorry, I don't think that causes us an issue. We specifically have boat sheds approved by development consent, so I don't think the draft policy would really have any impact on those. And we acknowledge that the policy won't have an impact on development consents which are, you know, legally secured and in place. We acknowledge that, and that's why we're not so concerned about the policy. But we do have boat shed, a couple, I think one or two, that were approved some years ago by development consent specifically and have been put in place. And there's a number of outbuildings that are, you know, for machinery and equipment that have been on the site for many years.

Councillor Veigel. Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Yeah, thanks for coming and talking. Can we just go back to the Mountables under DA or been approved? Yeah. Are they anchored to the ground to stop them from floating away during a flood?

Yeah. Look, we have, and I'll just go through this, it's the structures, if you like, that we have on flood-prone land. We have what we call 18 luxury riverside villas, and that was the last development consent that we received, and that was done as a development consent for tourist accommodation, as opposed to demountable buildings. And the reason they were done that way is the logistics of getting a demountable building to Del Rio really discount totally that that would happen . There's the hairpin bend at the bottom of Wiseman's Ferry. There's the ferry itself. You can imagine if you had 20 cabins in four pieces each, that's 80 movements. There's a bridge that goes over Webbs Creek, which is too high for a normal truck, so you need a truck with a hydraulic lift.

So it's just not viable to do that. And that's why, in conjunction with talking with the council staff at the time, we went down the path of development consent. So we've got 18 of what we call luxury riverside villas , and that approval includes 30, so there's 12 that we could build tomorrow, but after the recent flood events, I think it's very unlikely that we'll ever build the other 12 in that location

Because of the flood damage. They're constructed on site on concrete slabs, so there's no issue there. The 14 waterfront villas were constructed on site. If you looked underneath them, for all intents and purposes, they look like they've been moved there because they're on steel skids, if you like, but they've actually been built on site, and they are certainly tied down to withstand the floodwaters. Then in addition to that, we've got, we do have some older relocatable cabins, the more budget sort of friendly cabins. And those ones are relocatable. They were located, they were installed at a time when council approval was not required for those installations. They've all got their compliance plates and everything that they need to have, and they're all tied down.

I meant to say too that on a busy weekend at Del Rio, it's not unusual for there to be 750 to 800 people on site there in the various accommodation caravans. They come from all over Sydney. And I've really just touched on the sort of, you know, events and things that are held there. So again, I reiterate, if we would like to ensure that the policy is not misinterpreted in the future, I don't think it's ever been the council's intention to require a caravan park operator to remove something that's been placed lawfully. I hope that's not the council's intention. And we just want that clarified in the policy because who knows, five years, 10 years down the track, someone interpreting the policy may come to a different conclusion than what we might tonight.

And just one question finally, please. Did you lose any assets to New Zealand after the last sequence of floods at all?

We didn't lose anything off the site, but I think, I don't think the general manager will have a problem in telling you that the first flood, the cleanup was about 1.5 million. Yep.

And it wasn't quite that expensive the second and third time around, but it was very expensive.

Okay, thank you very much. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Mr Montgomery, and thank you for your contribution of that clause. Yes. If I could just ask you, how long were you aware of the process which has been undertaken to finalise this policy? Were you notified? Was it a few years ago?

Oh, look, I went through my records and I've noticed that there's been previous attempts at a caravan park policy, and I noticed that the, I think the current policy was on exhibition earlier this year, and the general manager of Del Rio informed me about it, and also about the consultations which they actually attended. I had a look at the policy and I said, look, I really don't think you've got anything to worry about. I think this policy is fine. It, for the most part, restates what's already the requirements of the local government legislation anyway. And so they came along to the consultation. I didn't come because I didn't think it was necessary. And when I was advised that it was coming to council over the weekend, I had another read of the policy and I said the same thing.

I don't think there's an issue. But when I read the report and after discussing the policy with the author, the council strategic planner, we both agreed that it could be a- You know, a legal matter, and it's not something that could be resolved. And when I suggested that we could probably have a different, you know, a clause like I've suggested, they responded that that would probably be okay. And I believe that the strategic planning manager today has agreed with that additional clause.

Thank you, thank you. I was just getting at, were the people that you're acting on behalf of satisfied with the level of consultation and the ongoing engagement around ensuring? Yeah,

They are. And I should also say, and it's probably credit where credit's due, is that they've built a pretty strong relationship with the people who are involved from the council staff that are involved in compliance. And, you know, some years ago I'd probably say that it wasn't a very— no one looked forward to a visit from the council staff. But lately, from what I hear, that everything's going quite well, and the council staff are quite open and quite willing to work with them to resolve problems.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Thank you. Thank you. I now call on our next registered speaker, Shane Earl.

G'day. My name's Shane. I'm the general manager, I suppose, along with my wife Rebecca, of Sackville Skye Gardens. We have permission to speak on behalf of the owners of the park tonight. The— I want to speak briefly about going backwards, and I'm lost for words, I'm sorry, but you asked the question of the gentleman previous to me about boat sheds and things like that. We also have a series of boat sheds that have been approved and built and constructed. And in this policy, it says here, enclosed associated structures such as sheds and garages and rigid annexes are not to be erected on a site in a caravan park. Now my question is, and my major concern is if we adopt this policy, that all of a sudden we've got to pull sheds down.

We've got 24 boat sheds down there that have been underwater three times now. No damage has been sustained to those sheds, and no debris has ever come from those sheds. Everything within those sheds, part of our flood evacuation plan, has been taken care of. Sheds were empty, doors were open, sheds are still there.

I agree that we need to protect ourselves from future problems. And a lot of what I read in this policy is very vague, and future problems can arise.

I suppose I'm seeking a surety from the people that are sitting around these tables that we've had a long established business of 146 caravan sites. Yes, we've been, you know, inundated with floods. We've worked with council very closely over the years to try and rebuild to the point where everything is completely removable in the park. The issues of debris and all that are a thing of the past. Our policy we put in place personally with our tenants is more than what's expected or accepted in this policy. But our big concern is the retrospectivity. You know, if we adopt this policy, that in the future things can change. And that's the scariest point that I need to rely on the part of the businesses in the river that I've spoken to, other caravan parks, is that if we go backwards, we may as well close our doors and go out of business.

Okay, we're responsible. I've got 147, six tenants down there that have all been given permission to rebuild after the first flood, to rebuild what they had. This policy changes what they actually had. Okay , after they've been given permission, they've spent the money. We've rebuilt the park. We've done everything to get our business back up and running in a quick time frame so that we're viable. And this policy turns around and says you're no longer viable

From the simple point of something like boat sheds, which derives an income from, gives people places storage. You know, we agree that rigid panel annexes bolted to the ground no longer have a place in our park, and we've implemented that. But some of those things in this document need further investigation, I ask. You know, hopefully you can defer this policy to consult a bit more. Councillor Buckett asked the question, has there been good consultation? It's been a mixed bag. No, I don't think there has been. The conversations about this policy have come out recently when we found out that this changed policy was up for discussion tonight. We heard about this one on Saturday and have had to go through it.

We read the original policy that came out in December, and again, we didn't have much problem with it. Like they previously said, it was good, it was fair. This is significantly changed from what that is, and I understand the democratic process, it changes it, but it also puts up red flags for our business owners.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Earl. Any questions? Councillor Lyons Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that and for speaking about that. We'll clarify, of course, the issue around retrospectivity in a moment. But aside from that, is that your only real concern around the boat sheds?

As far as changing of the wording of things like a caravan annex. Now, when you read through the policy, a caravan annex is something that's either a soft-sided canvas, or in the past it was a hard rigid panel structure that was attached to a caravan. The wording around what an annex is and what an annex isn't is up for debate, I think. Since we've been under the rebuild process, our annexes are no longer attached to a caravan. They're still, some of them are made of rigid panel, but they're on completely separate removable trailers that are no longer attached to caravans. And the reason we've done that is so that they can both be pulled out as quick as anything. So a caravan can go and the annex, or the extra living space, whatever you want to call it, is on the same wheels and tyres and tow bars and hitches, so they get pulled out at the same time.

So we've reduced from a theoretical 90-minute rapid knockdown of any caravan annex to as quick as you can hook it up and go. Okay,

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. So a follow-on question from that because that's really, that's really helpful. How long would it take you to evacuate

The site?

Just myself doing it or with help? On a normal— Okay, so on a normal— In a

Normal situation

The last flood event we had, which ended up being a minor level event, we evacuated the whole park completely within about four hours. Yeah, okay . So, and that's because everything that had been rebuilt, although we were given permission to rebuild to what people had, we took the initiative in telling people, yes, you can rebuild that, but it's got to be built differently, and it's got to be built so that it's up off the ground, on wheels, with a drawbar, so it can be pulled out as quick as the caravan can.

Thank you very much. That's it, Mr. Earl. Oh, sorry. Didn't see your light. Councillor Sheather.

Mr. Earl, I spoke to you some time ago in relation to the annex stuff, which you said compliance is something you've worked through and you felt that it was good. But in front of the vans where people sit under the trees and to, you know, be part of the boat crew and the like, that you have some sort of structure there. Would you like to explain exactly what that is? Because I'd like it clarified by the staff later, whether it's practical, because of the, you know, the danger of limbs falling, I've lived with it.

So I'll get what we need clarification on, and thanks for reminding me, Councillor Sheehan, that currently your living space at a caravan park is not in your caravan. We enjoy the outdoors. We sit on the river. We watch the river go by. We go up and down the riverbank. The way you protect yourself from the elements down there is with an awning. Now, currently in the past, and we've had all the approvals in place, we've got several awnings around the place that are not attached to the caravans, and they're just steel structures with a combination of either being timber rafters on top or corrugated iron, shade cloth, whatever it may be. Previous to the floods, some of these structures had insulated panel awning, which created a hazard once the floodwaters went through and ended up as debris.

When we were rebuilding in the rebuild process, we told all our tenants that insulated panels are no longer appropriate in our park because of that fact that it pops off, it goes down the river and becomes a cleanup problem. So when the rebuild process happened, again building to the original approvals that people had, they were allowed, because we gave them permission to what they could build, to be built out of steel, complete steel bolted together with corrugated iron, steel roof sheets. That was met with a lot of, you know, anger because it's not as pretty or it's not as insulating. But our justification was the fact that if something came through the park and knocked it, it was going to fall on the ground.

It doesn't float. You know, steel being heavy is going to stay in place. So regardless of whether something wipes it out, causes damage, it's not going to fall into our waterways . That discussion went on with our tenants for a while, and they all saw the merit in that. So they're going ahead and rebuilding those existing structures out of steel now. Again, our concern is that if we start changing policies, all of a sudden people don't have a place to sit out of the elements. And when you look around our all ski parks down the Hawkesbury River, there's trees everywhere, and we love them. We welcome them. But they are a hazard. You know, to sit on a chair and have your lunch or dinner with your family under something that's steel gives you a sense of protection, knowing that if a tree branch does fall down, it's not going to cause you too many issues.

We just hope that in this draft policy that we're still allowed to have those kind of steel structures stay in place. They're not the sort of thing that gets unbolted and moved away. They stay there, and they stay there for a reason, because they're built strong so that if something does hit them, they don't float. They fall to the ground. Does that answer that? Councillor Veigel.

Just very quickly, after the floods with the steel structures, how many were damaged

With the steel structures, as far as falling completely to the ground, none. Some were hit by shipping containers, other debris from coming down the river, as you can imagine, that might have been fallen over on its side, bent sideways. None of it floated. The things that did float and cause an issue, and it was more so after the first flood, were things that had floatable material like insulated panel. Okay? We changed our what we allowed people to rebuild down there to no longer have that panel there. You know, we live on the river. We see it. We don't want that hazard. All right,

Thank you very much, Mr Earl. Appreciate that. The last registered speaker on this item is Cathy Billards

Madam Mayor and councillors, I appreciate this opportunity that you have provided me to address the council meeting on behalf of the residents of Lower Portland regarding this draft policy for the caravan parks on the Hawkesbury River. As a long-term resident of Lower Portland and a shareholder of Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat, I am deeply concerned about the impact of this policy on ours and other caravan parks in our community. Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat has been an integral part of the Lower Portland community for over two decades. Personally, in March 2003, I purchased shares in the company and installed a council-approved manufactured home on my site. I and other shareholders have invested a significant amount of time, money and effort into the development and the maintenance of our caravan park.

We always have operated within the confines of the approvals by the council over the years. Since 2010, Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat and the council have been in negotiations to try to come up with a solution for Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat, which was satisfactory and workable for both parties. This has been a traumatic 12 years of negotiation. It has been an expensive 12 years for the 52 shareholders of Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat. Finally, in 2022, a development consent satisfactory and workable for both parties was agreed, which included a very strict and detailed condition to mitigate flood risks to Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat, which was recommended and supported by both the council and Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat's flood experts.

These 12 years have taken a substantial toll on my family, in particular my husband, who is a TPI war veteran suffering from PTSD. In 2019 to 2021 have seen natural disasters impacting on the Hawkesbury community. So when the final consent from the Land and Environment Court in 2022 came through, we felt relief. Finally, we could move forward in partnership with the council to implement our agreed consent. Over the past nine months, the board has worked tirelessly to implement all the conditions required by this consent, and specifically those dealing with the flood risk, only now to discover that the council from December 2022 had a draft policy that would be inconsistent with the conditions of that development consent.

We were horrified. Our approved and our approved cabin that we have owned for the past 20 years, our sanctuary, our secure holiday place on the beautiful Hawkesbury River is now under threat, not from a natural disaster, but from the potential impact of this policy. It will be felt far beyond us and to include all the caravan parks on the river. Is this what the council intended? Have they considered the impact on all the caravan park communities on the river? We have serious concerns that this policy, if passed tonight, will deliver a greater disaster to the river than any flood because it's delivering annihilation. The residents of the river have had two years of unbelievable stress and financial loss from floods.

Such stress will only be magnified with the confusion and the anxiety as to the consequences of this policy. This policy will devastate our community.

Sorry

Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat has invested huge sums of money to obtain and implement this development consent. Which includes a contemporary flood risk management plan recommended and approved by both its own and the council's experts, which will deliver a safe and resilient asset. In conclusion, I implore you to consider the impact that this policy will have on our community. We have invested time, money and effort into creating a home away from home on the Hawkesbury River, and we urge you to work with us to find a solution that preserves our community's integrity while balancing the environmental concerns. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. I'll just see if there's any questions from the councillors. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you for that. Sorry, I wasn't sure from your address exactly which parts of the policy are causing the issue for you. It's

The same one that's been mentioned previously. It's the relocatable or the approvals that have been granted to the caravan parks, which is now under question with this policy.

Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett, sorry, I can't see your line. Councillor

Lyons-Buckett, then Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for that. So when you said you've got the court approval, the consent, is that for—is your dwelling or your cabin currently got approval? Yes. Okay . All right. So I will clarify this, but I had read that it didn't apply to ones already with approval, but I'll check that. But you do have approval. And so the more recent consent, was that related to the operation of the caravan park? As a caravan park.

I'm sorry, I'm not clear on your question.

Well, you just said that there was a development approval from the court. There's

A development approval, which is subject to some considerations. Yeah. Right.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I'll clarify that. Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's actually a question for staff, which I'd like to put while the Speaker is with us to have some back and forth. My question for the General Manager is, is it possible that the amendment to clause 5.2.1 that you foreshadowed in an email to us earlier today would grant relief to Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat in the same way that it might grant relief to Mr Montgomery at Del Rio? I'm

Happy to put that question, General Manager. Thank you through you, Madam Mayor. They're slightly different, and we're in a reasonably convoluted area of planning law here, Councillors, where we have the policy you've got before you is a policy set out under section 68 of the Local Government Act. Okay. All this policy covers is where you have somebody seeking an approval to operate a caravan park or to install a manufactured home, movable dwelling or associated structure on land. Okay. So that's the channel we're looking at under the Local Government Act. We have another piece of legislation under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act. That runs secondary to this. So it also is something that an approval to operate a caravan park also requires a development consent under the EP&A Act, as do Mr Earl's boat sheds and those sorts of things.

So we're in two separate streams here. What— I've just been briefed by the Manager of Strategic Planning. The consent at Hawkesbury Riverside is to operate the caravan park and explicitly did not approve any of the structures contained on the park itself. That is a different scenario to Del Rio's situation. So inevitably, when we have 16, 17 of these caravan parks, they are very complicated in terms of their planning approval histories or otherwise, and so we've got a multitude of differing circumstances we're dealing with. So to answer your question, the answer is no, it wouldn't. We have a situation here where the Section 68 of the Local Government Act requires approval every five years for the temporary structures or the manufactured or movable homes, and the situation that we've got at the moment at Hawkesbury Riverside is that they have, as I understand it, and I will be corrected, a development consent to operate the park, but not for the structures themselves

This is becoming very complicated. Thank you for your patience. So while I've got you at the lectern, I just want to get—I want to find a way through for you if I can. And if that's the response from the General Manager, like Councillor Conolly, I'm unclear about what precisely it is about this proposed policy that's at odds with the agreement that you felt had been— Given to you through the Land and Environment Court ruling.

The Land and Environment Court ruling allows us, we have a conditional consent, which is going to be subject to 82 schedules. Two of those schedules will grant us, which have got a time frame of 12 months, will be granted once we complete flood evacuation policy and an on-site wastewater management policy, which we are in negotiations and we are

Proceeding with at the moment to the tune of $800,000, to that sort of figure. So the 52 owners, side owners or shareholders of the company, are making a commitment to come into this. Then there are another 82 schedules, which are, they sound huge, but a lot of them are just in the how you begin the next stage, the functional ways of doing things. And in that we then will be requiring a section 68, which is what here, and we are under the opinion that that will not be an issue at all. So our problem is, is again, it's about this policy saying that everything that we have in the park, while we've been waiting this 12 years of negotiation, and this is our issue, we have been negotiating with the council to come up with a solution to this problem .

Then on top of that, we've now, so we've come up with an agreement with the council. We have a way forward, which the court has ruled in our favour. So we are moving forward, and now this policy is saying it's inconsistent with the Land and Environment Court ruling in this regard, regarding these manufactured homes and the approvals that we have in the past. So we have this conundrum where we have a Land and Environment Court ruling and we have a , sorry, I can't read that, and we have a new caravan park policy which appears to be inconsistent, and that is our issue. Sorry.

Thank you. Yeah

Yeah, you're not a registered speaker, but I'll allow you to say one very, very quick point just to clarify for all of us who are probably a little bit vague on what's the issue, and we need to ascertain that.

My name is David Antor. I'm also a member of Hawkesbury Riverside Retreat, and Cathy is a member. Look, we, we in the past have had Section 68 approvals for all our manufactured homes on site. 2010, it was found in the Land and Environment Court that we did not have a consent to use the park. We've been negotiating for many years to resolve that. We've achieved the consent, and it was done in the context of we've had Section 68 approvals in the past. Council, nowhere on the way indicated that those Section 68 consents weren't going to be reversed. The assumption was, right up to the end and through the court cases, they would stand. Now, regardless of that, and Council actually has the discretion to honour that.

In fact, the whole consent was based on the assumption that the existing Section 68 manufactured homes in the past would be approved. In the consent, there was also specific conditions to do with the level of flooding and a variety of things were at odds with this particular policy. So roughly six months ago, we agreed with Council and the experts how to manage flood risk and the appropriate flood risk management and conditions to do so. This current policy contradicts it, and we can explain why, but probably not in this context today. What that means is if you believe a Section 68 approval doesn't exist, everything there roughly has to go. That's why we're absolutely concerned. Thank you for

Your contribution. Thank you, both of you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Do I have a Councillor willing to move something? Councillor Conolly.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I would like to move that we defer this for further discussion at a briefing session

Second that. Councillor Reardon. Anyone wish to discuss the—? Oh, sorry, Councillor Conolly.

It's very confusing. I'd like some more time to understand what we're doing.

Okay. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to support that. What I might just raise is that if we are going to do that and if that results in engaging with the various park operators again, that we have it done via individual consultation with each park operator, because they all have different issues, as it seems, and each one is specific, I gather, to their specific caravan park. So if we could have the consultation, or any further consultation, to really establish, I guess probably even before the briefing, what exactly the issues are around the policy, because it does seem from hearing people that it's either been misunderstood or misinterpreted when there was the raising of the issue around the definition of annex.

I did look that up. There's three different annexes in the definition, and I gather that that leads to some confusion as well. So I think that it's probably best to defer it and look at it again. But I would be interested to ensure that before we go forward, that we really have encompassed any of the issues that may arise. So if someone's got an anomaly to their caravan park, we would need to look at that specifically so that that can be addressed within the policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I was also going to move to defer with the proviso that we hear what concerns exist for each of the caravan parks. We know where they are. We also know what approvals they've got as the consent authority. I think we need, as councillors, before we make this decision, we need to know how that sits with this policy so that we can navigate a path forward. And then we've also got the additional questions of what happens with relocatable homes, what happens with the Section 68 approvals, what happens with retrospectivity and additional dwellings on site, like the boat sheds that we've heard about. And also, it would be really helpful if we could get an indication of how much the policy has changed from what went on, from what was discussed in December, so that we know what these caravan park owners' concerns are, so that we can make an informed choice.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter? Right of reply, Councillor Conolly

No, not required. I assume that sort of what was just said has been taken on board. Yeah, so good . Okay,

Thank you. All those in favour of Councillor Connolly's motion to defer, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. I declare that motion carried.

Now, councillors, looking at the time, we might have a 10-minute recess before.

Let me just have a look, sorry. Everyone's leaving anyway. Yeah, we'll just have a 10-minute recess. We'll be coming back to discuss the Mayoral Minute, but we will just have a quick break. Please resume at, let's give it a quarter to ten. What I will also say, councillors, most of them have left the room and not listening. We'll come back and do the Mayoral Minute. Then I'm going to possibly do a procedural motion to put the items that must be adopted tonight, and then we can see what we're left with after that. Thanks, councillors.

Thank you, Councillors, and thank you for those watching at home. I'd just like to, as we resume this meeting, just step you forward with the way that we're going to get some matters attended to that are of urgency. We'll be doing the Mayoral Minute first, then we'll be doing the items on block. Then I've just consulted with the staff about the items that must be adopted tonight. And if you wanted to write those down, they are items 4.1.1, 4.2.2, 4.2.3, 4.2.4, and 4.3.3. I'd like to, if someone could move a procedural motion to do those items in that order. Councillor Zamprogno, seconded Councillor Reardon, all in favour? Thank you, Councillors. That's how—

We will proceed. Okay. Therefore, we are starting with the mayoral minute,

Which is obviously my motion. You have seen this before, councillors, a similar motion that I passed last year as the mayor, calling on the then Premier Dominic Perrottet to come to the Hawkesbury for the outstanding list of items, and very boldly, will say disappointed in his non-attendance to address these issues. Therefore, we have had some significant movement to some of the issues by the state government, and that table of outstanding issues has been updated by our staff as to where we are currently at now with all of these flood mitigation, flood recovery and flood resilience matters. What my mayoral minute basically is calling on is to ask the new Premier of New South Wales, the Hon Chris Minns, to come to the Hawkesbury.

And the reason I want him to come to the Hawkesbury is because, like in all things in life, you don't really appreciate the gravity till you're here. And I know that he did visit last year, but I think that given we are one of the most dangerous floodplains in New South Wales, if not Australia, identified by the state government themselves, I do believe that the new Premier can make the effort to come to our community, sit down with our leaders, as per my point three, not just council but the state and federal representatives, and talk to us about what the Labor government plans to do. Now, I would like to go through each one of those items in that table with Mr Minns and discuss where the government's at.

If you look at some of the—I'll talk about the dam wall last—but if you look at some of the outstanding items, we still have private landholders who live on riverbanks unable to restore their riverbanks with proper planning approvals. That is just unacceptable. The repair of Cornwallis Drain—we know how much our Richmond Lowlands community and the farmers down there have been suffering without a pathway forward. Our Director of Infrastructure Services and the General Manager have been working very hard with the bureaucratic side of the state government to try and get movement there. Unfortunately, we are still no clearer. We need direction from the government. The emergency management charge we can discuss.

Not too worried about the $3 million fund there that's been completed. Warragamba Dam wall for immediate flood mitigation. Now, I'm going to touch on the dam wall in terms of the raising soon, but this is something I'd like to ascertain whether the new Labor state government has an appetite for that. The Betterment funding, of course. The Pitt Town evacuation route. Now, both Pitt Town and the Cornwallis Drain were mentioned in the Upper House inquiry, so I, which I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, councillors, I think that had more of a predominant Labor green membership in it. So I'm hoping with the Labor as the new state government, they'll actually listen to their own responses here to request to deliver that immediate funding both to the Pitt Town evacuation route and the Cornwallis Drain.

We have the other issues here, the pothole program, which of course we did receive some money for that, which we were very , very grateful for after the mayors of Western Sydney gathered together to do that. We need to discuss with them the funding of the damage to Rising Main C, which by some accounts so far have been some positive conversations there . And of course the extra $600 million that was floated around under WestInvest for our communities, we need to see what that entails. Now, the biggest thing that's an issue for me, I guess, with a council resolution and a council endorsed position approving the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall, I want to know where the new state Labor state government stands on it.

I can basically ascertain they don't support it from what they've said prior to the election, but we need to know for sure. And if they don't support it, and that's the way they want to move forward, we need to find out from the Labor state government what they're going to do to mitigate our flood risk. Now, the reason I say that, again noting we're one of the most dangerous floodplains in the state, is they can't leave us high and dry. Personally, I don't think the commitment discussed previously of levee banks and just money for evacuation routes is enough. I'd like to discuss the idea of levy banks. In terms of evacuation routes, we certainly need investment there, but it's not the golden ticket.

We also, if people can still get out in floods, that's wonderful, but that doesn't solve the question about the damage to our infrastructure, such as roads, sporting fields, homes and businesses. So there's a long conversation to have with the new Premier. I hope that he's open to that. I do want to clarify— excuse me, I knew I was going to come to losing my voice. I do want to clarify. If you are supporting my mayoral minute tonight, you are not. It doesn't mean you are supporting the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall. What you're asking is for the new Premier to come to our community and answer our outstanding questions. Thank you very much. Does anyone else want to discuss the matter? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to support that. I think that it's very important to have dialogue around those things with the new government. Particularly, I think it's important to ascertain the promises that have been made, the money that's been allocated previously in the government and whether that will continue, which things will continue. I did wonder if you would add a couple of additional points. Without internet tonight, so I couldn't email them, but I did write them out for Tracy, and I'm not sure if she had managed to— yes, she has. She's typed them up, and I'll just speak about them while they're coming up. But that was, given the situation that we're in and that we've just had an election, I think requesting clarification of and commitment to the specific funding announcements that were made for this region before the election would be good to include that in the letter.

So there was $200 million for evacuation roads, and that should say bridges; that must be my writing. Or maybe it was more, Councillor Kotlash is saying, but it was an allocated amount for evacuation roads, and I believe that probably— I'm not sure how that ties in with the previous announcement by the local member, local state member, for the amount allocated for an evacuation route. And then the money for levies, of course, we don't know if levies would work there, but that has been foreshadowed as being spent. So, and the mobile telecommunications systems, I think asking for that when that's been promised just— Just to clarify early up in the piece, and that was 9.6 million for Pitt Town levy.

Yeah, I think if you would be happy to include those, to get the answers around whether these promises are going to be forthcoming would be really good, rather than have the Minister come out and then ask afterwards, you know, what they're going to do. Yeah

I'm very happy to support that

And the second one is about requesting the information about the flexibility and timing of disaster recovery funding, how they are going to do it if they intend to have a different model to what currently was being done. So, in other words, you know, will they do that? Well, I'm happy if you'll add those, and I'll just speak to supporting your mayoral minute, which I sort of have. I think it's really, you know, we really need to take this time between floods that, between natural disasters, I guess, to ensure that we're doing as much as we can about filling the gaps that we know are there and moving towards preparation. So I think that it's really important to have this meeting as soon as possible, and particularly around the flexibility with those funds.

And, you know, the Betterment Fund as it currently exists, is that enough? I mean, how much would ever be enough, I guess, for building back things stronger and so on. But I think that that's a good thing to be doing. There's a number — the other issue I would ask you to raise, if you're the person having the meeting, would be the work around land use planning, which we know integrates so much into... into floodplain management. So I think both major parties committed to not proceeding with any development under the one in one hundred level. I think that was their commitment. But it would be nice to know if the new government is going to actually provide some of these new plans. And I saw today that the Coastal Management Plan, which is being led by Hornsby Council and includes us and other river councils, has begun, and it's an important body of work which will inform and drive a collaborative approach to management of the river and the adjacent land.

So I think that rather than just meeting about those existing things, if we foreshadow a whole integrated approach, we really have to move towards that to be able to distribute resources and to actually start getting some of these outstanding things done. So thank you for your mayoral minute, and thank you for taking on those additional points. Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Did you

Want to put your last statement into a point six?

Sorry, yes, number six would be to raise issues around land use management and planning, or land use planning really.

Yeah, that's fine by me. Thank you. Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to speak on the mayoral minute? Councillor, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would be happy to support this if it had a few changes to it. Firstly, I think in point one it should just say that the Mayor requests a meeting with the Premier to discuss all those things. I don't think we need to tell the Premier that he has to come to Hawkesbury. He's been here before. If you put that in there, then the whole meeting is going to collapse if he doesn't come here. I think we need a meeting. That's it. Where the meeting is is not that important. Secondly, point two, I think should start with the second last line, ascertain what flood mitigation options the new government will support to assist the Hawkesbury. And as far as inviting the federal and state members, I don't see that as important to this meeting, but if you want to leave it in there.

And I support the rest as put forward by Councillor Lyons-Buckett. So I don't suppose you'd be happy to make those changes.

Unfortunately not, Deputy Mayor. The reason I wanted the Premier to come here is to have the conversation with our other elected members of government. Excuse me, I know I'm losing my voice, on the state and federal levels . And the reason that I find that important is we have regular catch-ups with the state and federal member, and we discussed thoroughly this exact table of issues. We discussed how the disaster recovery funding will work. We've had discussions with the federal member about changing the guidelines of that funding to be betterment funding, not just like for like. So I believe, given that these issues are really important to our community, I think it would be too hard to get the state member and the federal member to the Premier.

And I would ask the Premier, if he's committed to his job like he says he is, to come to us. And as for the Warragamba Dam wall, Deputy Mayor, I won't be changing that because we have a resolved position of Council. I think the greater community deserves an answer. You can't have a piece of significant infrastructure that large to that extent sitting there without an answer. So he just needs to firmly say yes or no to us. Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

In that case, I will not be able to support your mayoral minute.

Councillor Sheather.

Just a clarification on a comment that Councillor Lyons-Buckett made about development below the floodplain. First, with the floodplain, we talked about 17.3 here in Windsor, and development, I assume we're talking about houses.

I'm happy to ask Councillor Lyons-Buckett to clarify. Do you mean the broader planning outside of our LGA and in our surrounding councils?

I just really mean there's a number of outstanding studies that have been done, such as the regional land use plan, which covers all the Hawkesbury-Nepean Valley, and then any other, I mean, obviously a new state government, I expect will have plans for how they will run their planning department. So I guess anything around flooding and land use management that they have. I'm not asking for specifics, just really the direction I think that they're heading. Yep . Thank you .

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. Councillor Reardon. Thank you, Madam Mayor. It's wonderful to see all the work that has been done on this. I'm definitely supportive of your mayoral minute. I think this is such an important part of critical infrastructure. We need to keep fighting for it. Thank you very much, Councillor Reardon. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to support the mayoral minute. I think it's, I think my position and the position of several of my fellow councillors on the Warragamba Dam wall is certainly on the public record, and I'm sure that the Labor councillors here can alert the new Premier to the fact that council's resolved position on the Warragamba Dam wall is actually not a majority position, is in fact just based on the casting vote of the mayor. And so I'm sure he can be given that heads up before he gets here. I agree that he should come out. We're only an hour and a half from the CBD, and many of our residents manage to make it all the way there and back every day. I did to exactly the same building as Mr Minns.

for a couple of years, so I'm sure he'll manage to get himself out here . I think this table is really useful in detailing, frankly, the failures of the previous Liberal National Party government in dealing with the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain. It confirms my view that they put all their eggs in one basket, raising the dam wall, and that we haven't had action on the things that we've been asking for. For years. It also highlights the vulnerability of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Basin as more and more development is foisted on us without the infrastructure to ensure disaster preparedness, and there I specifically refer to the evacuation routes, which, despite being slated for a fix-up, are still not fit for purpose.

And I thank Councillor Lyons-Buckett for raising the issue of land use planning, because I think until you drive down both Windsor Road and Richmond Road, and I hope the Premier comes one way and goes the other, you don't understand the magnitude of the development that's happening in the northwest growth sector and the implications of that for the Hawkesbury. Until you've driven past what was our soakaway and seen all the—and I hope it's raining when the Premier comes—and you see the runoff from particularly Marsden Park into South Creek, I don't think you realise the mess that is being created for our residents to live with. I think this report also highlights the fact that the Hawkesbury has been battered by cumulative disasters since 2019 and, unfortunately, has received less attention due to the devastating magnitude of disasters on the south and north coast, first fire and then flood.

And I think the impact of those cumulative disasters hasn't been fully appreciated by different levels of government. Again, it's one of those things that I don't think you understand until you really see the impacts and you speak to the people involved. The other point that I hope can be made to the Premier is that much of the money that has been given to council has pushed the responsibility back onto already stretched councils. It's like the State Government didn't understand that we needed real physical help, not just money being thrown at us. And you can see that when we get to the operational plan later tonight, where we've got this huge infrastructure spend, far beyond what Council is normally asked to do and what we're normally set up to deliver.

A question, and this will have to be a question on notice, I'm sure. How many houses do we have that are now uninhabitable due to flooding? I know of at least three in Wilberforce that are no longer occupied after being flooded now four times in 18 months. If we could get that information, I think that would be really helpful. This question of buyback, because I think needs to be revisited. They were dismissed prior to the election by a local member who said that they were too expensive. I don't think we're talking about everybody in the LGA who was flooded wanting their house bought back. But I think we do have some people who legitimately moved into properties where they were given planning approval below the one in 100 flood level and now have homes that are not repairable and they're not livable anymore.

And they need to be treated with the same care and respect as the people of Lismore and given some help to relocate.

Could we also get some clarification on what this meeting actually means? Is it a meeting with the Mayor and Deputy Mayor? Who is meeting with the Premier, please?

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. The Mayor, the State Member and the Federal Member and our General Manager and Director of Infrastructure. Deputy Mayor is more than welcome. I'd be happy to have a round table with all Councillors with the Premier, but I don't think he's going to agree to baptism under fire. So yeah, all three levels of government and our senior staff. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak on the Mayoral Minute? No, I'll just make a couple of final remarks. I do thank Councillor Wheeler for highlighting the buybacks because the previous state government did say that that was off the agenda at that time for the Hawkesbury, despite being on the table for the Northern Rivers because they were doing the Warragamba Dam wall. So if their position is going to be to drop the raising of the Warragamba Dam wall, then that conversation needs to be elevated to significant importance. We do have a lot of people still living in caravans on the site of their gutted-out homes, and they're silent and they continue to live under the radar, and we do need to continue to look after them.

So I won't delay any more. We've got a lot of business to get onto as well. I thank those councillors who are willing to support this Mayoral Minute, and I'll put it to the vote. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against: Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the Mayoral Minute carried.

Okay, councillors, we'll be going to items on block. If you look down the bottom of your speakers list, I'm actually pulling item 4.2.3 out of the items on block because I do have to declare an interest, and I still will be voting on the matter, but I have to declare that interest. Therefore, the items on block will be 4.3.3, 4.4.2 and 5.1.1. Can I have someone move that, please? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Wheeler. All in favour, please raise your hand. All in favour, thank you. Councillor Dogramaci? Thank you. All in favour, councillors. Thank you very much.

Okay, I'm going to move through the items, Councillors, as I suggested earlier. Can I have a procedural motion to— I think I actually asked to adopt the procedural motion already. Yeah, thank you. Let's just keep rolling. Okay, the first one we will call up based on that procedural motion is item 4.1.1, 3 New Street, Windsor, post exhibition and finalisation of planning proposal. Can I have someone put a motion, please? Move the—thank you, Councillor Reardon. Seconded, Councillor Wheeler. Did you wish to speak, Councillor Reardon? No.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. No right of reply then, Councillor Reardon? No. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 4.2.2, draft operational plan and draft 2023 to 2033 long-term financial plan. Do I have anyone willing to move the recommendation? Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Reardon. Councillor Conolly.

Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter?

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam, a question, a preliminary question on notice, if I may. Apparently the lights at the oval on Colonial Drive, Bligh Park, aren't

Fit for purpose. Are they going to be replaced or repaired, and do we have a timeline?

Do we have any plans to upgrade the lighting?

Thank you, General Manager.

I'm going to have to take that on notice, Councillor.

It's ringing a bell with me, but I would like to— I would be happy to take

That on notice

Thank you. It just didn't response to an email I received this evening. No worries. I can't support the operational plan in its current form. We're still— my major objection is to the calculation of rates. We're still using low-value properties to subsidise high-value properties, and that's fundamentally inequitable. I have concerns about the governance of the Sports Council at this point. We've received a number of sets of minutes which have raised more questions than answers for me at the moment, and I hope to receive some answers soon. But I'm not — I'm not content to allocate $ 1.2 million to , whilst we still don't have, several years now after Council asked for it, a third-party review of the Sports Council.

I have stated repeatedly in the last term of Council and in this term of Council that I would find myself at some point unable to support the Council's operational plan without a third-party review of Sports Council, in the same way that we have conducted third-party reviews of the Hawkesbury River County Council and Peppercorn. I understand that those councillors who have greater involvement with Sports Council don't share my concerns, but under my own responsibilities under the Act, I no longer feel that I can continue to swallow my concerns and just carry on. There are a number of things that are troubling in this operational plan, and they're troubling for the long term, I think, particularly the cost of infrastructure for new development at Vineyard, and I hope that the community make themselves aware of this and that we as a Council make our residents better aware of this.

We are talking about a long-term financial burden on Hawkesbury residents due to our inability under the law to get enough money from the developers who will profit from this development to put in the infrastructure that Council is required to deliver, and that is not equitable long term for residents of the Hawkesbury. The other thing that I think is worth noting is the $5.4 million in contributions to other levels of government through the waste levy, the emergency services levy, and the Sydney Regional Development Levy, and I think we should reflect on these contributions when we get really excited about the State Government's generosity with public money, because we're making significant— Contributions to the public coffers.

And I will also note that Hawkesbury residents pay a disproportionate amount of that waste levy compared to metropolitan Sydney residents, and also additional levies used for flooding and disaster recovery that are on our insurance policies. The other thing I think that's worth noting is that we're looking at a capital works spend of $169 million, much of that from grant funding. That compares to $10 to $20 million for our usual works. If residents of the Hawkesbury notice that our staff look harried and overworked, it's because we are working at 10 times our normal capacity, and I think we as a council need to be cognisant of that as well. Sewer remains a huge burden for the LGA. The only metropolitan LGA in Sydney required to provide sewer and sullage collection, and those costs on the rates notices are extraordinary , particularly for those on pump-out.

I'm very pleased to see the sealing of Greens Road and Packer Road. This is essential access for residents and emergency services, and it will make a real difference to those communities. So I'm very pleased to see that left in. I also note that inflation is currently running at 6.8%. We've allowed for 3.5%, and wages look to be about 2.5% increase. So we're asking our staff to take an effective pay cut. The worst-case scenario reported in this business paper, I hope doesn't come to pass, because it's quite scary and will have long-term implications for ratepayers with cuts to services and deterioration of infrastructure. It's dependent on us making sure that Redbank pays its way and that the state government continues to fund a portion of the running of the Lower Portland Ferry, which is an affecter movable road used by Hills residents and our own residents to access their homes on a daily basis.

So we've got some work to do in that advocacy space, I think, on a number of these areas, including the rate peg, these levies, sewer, and the Lower Portland Ferry. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I had some questions that I went through with the staff today, and I do propose to support the recommendation. But I want to touch on a couple of things that Councillor Wheeler spoke of. With Packer and Greens Road, I'd prefer that we didn't do that on the basis of the amount of work that's got to be done on other roads and the likelihood that funds are going to be needed for that. The other thing that concerns me is the comment about the Sports Council.

Thirty-five years, we haven't had any problems with the structure or running of it. But Councillor Wheeler asked for the review to happen, what, three years ago, and it hasn't. I have no issue whatsoever in relation to anybody offering better provision of service to our community, whether through the Sports Council or any other organisation. But what concerns me is that we've got a councillor here that says she's not going to support an operational plan on the basis that the inspection, that that hasn't been carried out.

Councillor Sheather, I'll just—I appreciate your point there. Councillor Wheeler is also allowed to decide not to do that. But I appreciate the point that you make. I think there was another few matters that Councillor Wheeler also

I'm not having a shot at Councillor Wheeler. I support what she says. If Council is going to review that, that's exactly what should happen. It takes three years. It's not quite acceptable. And because it infers there could be... Well, I don't know what infers. I'm not going to make any accusations on it, but she's got concern about it, and it should be addressed. In relation to the SAC for Ferries, one of the questions I asked the staff today, we're assuming down the track that the state government is going to take that on board, and we need to do something to encourage that to happen before we get to a stage we're going to be sitting around here arguing whether or not they're going to do it.

So how we proceed with that, I'm not sure. But the inclination that it might not happen and we might not provide a service is not going to sit well in this section of the table, I can assure of that. In relation to Redbank and the comments that were made there,

The contributions that were asked in the Redbank are there because we required Redbank to provide particular services in relation to the development. That was a request of Council. That was part of the conditions. And while they have the amenity of that immediate facility, the community at large has the opportunity to use it, and we need to be mindful in relation to long-term expenditure on maintenance on that program that that's the case, and it needs to reflect that in relation to the costs that's before us.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. I think Councillor Wheeler raised several of the points I was going to raise. I've got no issue with this going on public exhibition, although I have concerns around the operational plan itself and also the long-term financial plan if we were to have a couple of those scenarios occur. What I do want to do is I want to make it really clear to the public that it's really important for them to read these documents and to use the exhibition period to ask questions or to make comments, because this is how ratepayer money is being spent, and this is the opportunity now to have the input, and particularly to try and understand the long-term financial plan , because it shows the scope of what we have to deal with and what we have to do.

And part of our job is, as a council, we have to balance community expectation with available resources. We've received large amounts of grant funding in the past, and there's no guarantee that we're going to keep getting a lot of this money in. I mean, we've got a lot to spend that we've got to deal with, and we do know that grant funding always does have criteria around it that we have to meet. So I'm really saying to the public at the moment that they really need to try and understand this, because unfortunately what we often have is once the operational plan is in place, then people start coming back and questioning about this, that and the other. So this is the opportunity now. Some things to note is that there will be a 3.7% rate increase, and I also do not support the current rating model.

It also needs to be read in conjunction with the land revaluation figures to get a better understanding of how your individual property would be impacted. So having the change to the 50% base rate, 50% land value will again favour higher value properties that are of higher value and disadvantaged lower value properties. So that is the reason I don't support that structure. But I think I just had a conversation with some of the ladies who had come around the caravan park, and they were interested in what we actually do in here. And I think it really said to me, just straight out, that the general ratepayer doesn't know what we actually do. And they asked me some questions, and I said, can you please not just engage in something impacting you, but keep an eye for what you might be able to contribute to, because you can see it makes it easier for our job if we have the input from people, regardless of whether we agree with it or not.

So just getting to the Packer Road and Greens Road, I'm also pleased to see that there. That is SRV money. That is something we have committed to the community to in the past, so it's really important that we proceed with that. And the Redbank situation, of course, it was part of them getting the approval through was to agree to have that responsibility that down the track, you know, something would have to be done about funding the various maintenance there. I think Councillor Sheather, I agree that the Sports Council, of course I agree. I was one of the people instigating asking for it, the review of the Sports Council. But it's not, I don't think it's any question about whether the services that are being provided are adequate or could be done cheaper or anything.

I think it's around the actual governance of how it operates, and I think that we will probably hear more about that coming up soon. So yes, I... Can't support the operational plan in its current form, but I do really welcome, and I really do hope we get some feedback from the public. And I urge people, if they don't understand something in it, to contact one of the councillors or to contact the staff and to ask what it actually means, rather than spreading information around that may not be accurate, as we've seen happen sometimes. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Veigel. Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Some of you might know, some of you may know, but I was on the Sports Council for about 11 years, and every year there was a third-party audit. But I do welcome another check to give other councils confidence that that body is operating okay. So I would urge, if that's what you want to do, another audit on them or an independent audit, yeah, great, and just look at procedure and make sure it's okay. As far as I know, most minutes get handed up to council anyway and they're made available. So, and also, as I mentioned before, there's a licensed auditor that looks through the books on a yearly basis. But I get it, and it should be done. And I guess I'll make a comment on the Redbank levy.

I get why that's there because the dam is, I believe, is under heritage ruling, and it needs to be looked at and surveyed each year, I gather. But if that was the case and it was in the plan, then why can we go— this is what I don't know, and I don't really care because I do care because of history—but we might be able to move forward on another development proposal where it comes to a community title where they have to look after the infrastructure. I don't know the reason why Redbank was never a community... Structure, anyway, whether I could have paid the ongoing rate charges when it comes to the aerators, when it comes to the drainage. But it might pay council to have a look at Jacaranda or any other development in the future, and maybe we do go that way, so we don't have to have a discussion about maintaining the infrastructure in the future, because it's going to get a whole lot tighter when it comes to funds.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Conolly? Not needed. Okay. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Collash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. I declare it carried.

4.2.3, event sponsorship round two. I'll just quickly read out my declaration of interest. It's a less than significant non-pecuniary interest. I'll be staying in the item. My partner's daughter has flute lessons from the owner of Fantasia Showstoppers, but it has nothing to do with me, so therefore it's not pecuniary. So I will put— can someone please put a motion for 4.2.3? Thank you, Councillor Reardon, seconded by Councillor Veigel. Councillor Reardon, did you have anything you wanted to say?

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to discuss the matter? No. Okay, those wishing to vote for the motion, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.

The next item that we must get through tonight is 4.2.4, Floodplain Management Australia National Conference. Do I have someone wishing to move something, please? Yep

Councillor Conolly. I'd like to move that Council sends one delegate, if somebody wants to attend, but that given we've already exceeded our budget for the year, we only send one delegate and that we, I guess probably can't resolve this, but that we foreshadow that we're not spending any further than the budget going forward for the rest of the financial year.

Can I have a seconder for that, Councillor Veigel? Thank you. Anything else you wish to say, Councillor Conolly?

No, I don't think we should really exceed the budget at all, but I think it would be foolish for Hawkesbury City Council not to attend this particular conference. But I think it would be prudent to only send one delegate, given that we've already exceeded our budget.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter? Councillor Wheeler. Can I ask if we're sending staff to the conference? General Manager.

I would imagine so, yes. I don't have the details, but I would imagine so.

Thanks, and just note further to Councillor Connolly's point that we agreed to take the funding from Council's, what's it called, education fund or training budget , so that we get back to a budget neutral position.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno. Yeah,

Thank you. I just want to, this is tangential, I admit, but I just want to pick up on a question that Councillor Conolly had. My recollection generally was that with the various conferences that we could dispatch— Councillors, two across the year usually left us with a surplus in that budget. Can I ask what we've consumed our conference budget on in the last financial year?

General Manager. Through you, in the current financial year, so certainly there was the LGNSW conference in the Hunter, I think, and then there is an $8,900 commitment to the ALGA conference as a result of the resolution. I think you were sending five delegates to

That. I think I see what's happening there, because normally the New South Wales local government conferences here in Sydney, and wouldn't incur accommodation costs. Anyway , well, that answers my question. Thank you. I was just wondering where the money went.

Thank you, Councillor Veigel.

Just a question

Do we ask for expressions of councillors that want to go to this? Okay, I'm jumping ahead. Thanks.

Anyone else wishing to speak? No, I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McBain. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci. Deputy Mayor. Councillor Calvert is absent from the room. Based on the fact we've resolved to one person, I'll take a nomination of one person, please.

Well, I'd like to nominate Councillor Sheather, please,

If he's willing to accept, of course.

Was there anyone else wishing to thrash it out?

No, you accept that, Councillor Sheather? I'll just confirm, do we need another resolution for that or we just nominate? You need another resolution? Yeah. Thank you very much. So we'll be nominating Councillor Sheather to be our attendee at this conference. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Durie, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. Yes. Councillor Zamprogno. Yes. Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci. Declare the motion carried. Okay.

Councillors, that's got us through the items that we had to go through tonight and have a resolution on. So we will start back up at the top of our list and go through. Just give me one moment. We've done operational plan,

And okay, so we need to do 4.2.1, the six-monthly progress report. Do I have anyone wishing to move a certain way? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move that. I don't think I called it up, but I'll move it. Thank you. Seconder, Councillor Veigel. Do you wish to speak, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Anyone else wishing to speak? No, I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

Now we've done floodplain. The next item would be 4.3.2, a draft environmental sustainability strategy. Do I have anyone wishing to move anything, please?

Thank

You, Councillor Kotlash. Anyone wishing to

Second? Councillor Lyons-Buckett . Do you wish to say anything, Councillor Kotlash? No. Yes, thank you for— sorry, sorry. Yes, no, yes, no. I'd just like to thank the staff for the excellent job they did of dotting the i's and crossing the t's and bringing it up to speed. It's really good and, yeah, hearty congratulations. Wonderful job. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak?

Councillor Wheeler. Old pad while Councillor Lyons-Buckett finds her notes. Look, I particularly want to make a comment about the statement from the next generation. I think this is a really, really useful inclusion in this document, and it's something that, as decision makers, we should keep front of mind. It's great for us to be making decisions about what suits us today, but we really must pay good attention to the people who will inherit the space, both this council space and the LGA, and the LGA as part of a much wider system going forward. It's getting harder and harder, I think, for young people to do the things that we all took for granted: buy a home, pay for an education, have afford a family, expect a future in a country that is rapidly warming and experiencing natural disasters.

For us to— To give people the hope of a sustainable future, we have to keep future residents in mind. I also want to make mention that the land challenges raised here are things like urban growth and the maintenance of corridors. I hope that this document becomes a much referred to policy and something that guides our decision making around specific planning proposals, but also things like our LEP and DCP, so that all of our decisions have these holistic guides behind them. It's also interesting, I think, to note from the operational plan with the information about farmland rates and them increasing significantly, and then in the report elsewhere in the business paper about land values. If we are to maintain food security, which is referred to, but also to maintain farmland and constrain urban growth across the LGA, we have to make sure that farmland is viable in the LGA and that farming in the Sydney Basin and providing food for a hungry major city is viable.

And as decision makers, that falls to us and is a key part of both our sustainability, but our place in the sustainability of the state of New South Wales.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I did find my notes, but I think Councillor Wheeler found them before because she's pretty much said most of the things I was going to say. But I do particularly want to thank everyone who had the input, and for the input that Councillor Kotlash put into the some additional points, but particularly from our young people who have engaged in this process, and First Nations and the environmental and community groups. But the statements of caring for country and from the next generation, implore us to act responsibly and ensure we preserve and conserve our resources for the future generations. And I think this is a really, really important strategy because more sustainable Hawkesbury, of course, is a core priority for us, and this covers all facets of our work.

It goes into everything that we do and that our Council as an organisation does. So again, this is going out on exhibition, and I really strongly urge residents to engage with us and see if it covers the sentiments that they believe we should be including to ensure we have a future which is reflective of our commitments to addressing issues such as climate change and other important issues. Of course, we're obliged under the Local Government Act to consider long-term and cumulative effects of actions on future generations. And I think this is a strategy that assists us in doing that, whether it's a planning decision or a financial decision or a decision about what services or infrastructure we provide.

So I'll be really interested to see what comes back from it. I did have a note written here, and I have to be honest and say these were my notes from the last time it came here, and I'm not sure if I mean this is missing, but there's a snapshot, which is the overview of the natural environment, and I've got acknowledge not just the upper Hawkesbury, but the five river catchments we have here. So I think that needs to be included because it's not just the upper Hawkesbury. Aside from that, I think that it's a really good document, and looking forward to the feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Okay, thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel , Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno, Councillor McMillan. Those against? Councillor Sheather. Okay, thank you. And Councillor Dogramaci has abstained from the vote. I declare the motion carried.

The next item is 4.3.5, Western Sydney University Scholarship Program. I'll move that,

Madam Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Conolly. Do you wish to speak? Just briefly. I just really totally agree with the upgraded scholarship agreement as it broadens the criteria. I would like to see, once we get this kicked off and we get some students doing it again, I'd like to see the ambassadorial functions actually being implemented at some council events or to promote issues that relate to the students' studies or to their community work. We know we had the issue when we had a recipient change course and she couldn't stay the recipient if it was on another campus. So I think that this, although she did end up doing that, I think we're really fortunate to have a university campus here, but we know it is limited in what courses it offers.

So to expand it to cover all the campuses of Western Sydney University is really important, and I look forward to us resuming it under this new agreement and to seeing the wonderful students. I've had the advantage of being the delegate on the committee that chooses the scholarship recipients and attending a couple of the graduations of students who've benefited, and they're so grateful for the assistance that they've received. So it's a really good program. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Sheather.

Just a question, Madam Mayor. Is there a possibility of some of the students that may be introduced to the council, or the like? Is there opportunities in that regard?

I'll just seek some guidance from the General Manager.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think that goes to probably the ambassadorial functions that we're talking about as much as anything else, Councillor. I think that we're certainly looking for opportunities to improving that outreach, and that would include councillors in part.

Good.

Councillor Veigel .

Just to ask a question, just what's proposed and what was current, selective high school outside the area, well we've got a selective high school in the area. So why wouldn't you just go back to Richmond Selective instead of going outside? Keep it local, I say.

Would you like that answered? Well

I'd like it answered by somebody, if you could.

Or do you want to take it on notice?

No, I think we can make a decision on that and keep it local tonight, if we could, please.

Are you moving an amendment or you'd like

Staff to answer? I'd like to move an amendment on that, for it to go and keep the selective school local, which would be Richmond. Is that what we'd—

I'd have to ask the mover and the seconder if they wanted to agree. I don't want to agree only because there's such limited places at the Richmond one, and it's specific for STEM.

Well, I disagree. I think it's more agriculture.

Or agriculture, but it is a specific school. So some children might go to performing arts school. Some children may go to, you know— well, one of my daughters went to Penrith High School. You know, people go places for specific pursuits of what they're doing. I think that would be,

In a sense, discriminatory

I might just hand to the Director of City Planning for a comment.

Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor, thank you. Look, the intention of changing the criteria was to prevent limitations dependent upon the specialist area of study, if you like. So to make it available to any resident of the Hawkesbury to attend higher education under that scholarship arrangement, irrespective of the location. But it would be eligible to all Hawkesbury residents.

Yeah, okay, thank you. Councillor Conolly. Thank you. To avoid confusion, could the, the considered the criteria could just be that you'd lived in the Hawkesbury whilst attending high school?

Director of City Planning.

Rather than making it about where you went to high school.

Through you, Madam Mayor, I think the intention is really about similar to the way that we apply the community sponsorship program. It's about current residency, because it does, it is the allocation of council funds for the benefit of a Hawkesbury resident. So if a resident no longer lives in the Hawkesbury, the criteria as it's proposed, it would exclude them from being eligible for scholarship.

Sorry, I think I maybe asked that in a confusing way. There's two criteria: one that you live in the Hawkesbury now, and one that when you were in high school you went to a high school in the Hawkesbury or a neighbouring area. I'm just saying, why would the criteria not just be that you lived in the Hawkesbury during high school and now?

Yeah.

Confirm with staff.

General Manager. I'll take that one.

I think to Councillor Connolly's point, you can equally do it that way. I think whether you go to the effort of amending the criteria to say that they're a resident versus either having attended a local high school or a selective high school outside, the difference there is if you are, for example, capturing local kids who are going to schools outside of

The LGA. Yeah, being that it might not just be for a selective school, it might be for a religious school or some other school. So I'm just confused as to why we would say it that way rather than just say that they— They were a resident of the Hawkesbury while attending high school.

Did you want to make an amendment? I'm

Fine with that wording change.

You're happy to make that change, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? And you were the seconder anyway, Councillor Conolly.

Oh, there you go.

So you're happy with that, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Yes. I just checked with the staff that that's possible. Yeah, okay, so that's fine. Anyone else wishing to make comment? No? I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Oh, sorry, right of reply? No. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Improgno,

Councillor McMahon. The

Next item.

Item is 4.3.6, Upper Colo Reserve management status. I'll move that and be really quick.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Sheather.

I only called it up because I'm just concerned that these anomalies keep coming up around Crown lands management, and I'm not blaming the council. I think it's been poorly managed when the Crown Lands Act changed, and I'm just concerned that it actually appears now to be cost shifting because we're carrying the burden of doing these planning and getting advice and everything around it. And I would just, you know, I just want to—I don't even want to move anything else. I'm happy with it as it is, but I just want to be sure that there aren't any more of these situations. So I'm assuming at some point we must have listed all of these, and I'm hoping that we don't have other ones coming up because I think if it's going to keep happening, I think we need a stern word with the New South Wales Government.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks. Look, I agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and I have probably written sterner words.

We knew when this Crown lands review—I remember going to a briefing at the Local Government Conference in 2016 about this Crown lands review and the problem that it was going to cause councils and the cost shifting that it represented at the time. And not only have all those promises been lived up to, but we've now got all these stuff-ups that have come out. And so what we've got is areas like this that are really important environmentally, culturally, for heritage and for recreational potential, just left in limbo and local government bearing an unfair burden. And I think in light of the fact that we have a new government, if we are going to have a chat to them about the Crown Lands Act, then perhaps we should go in with some information like just how much these changes have cost us since 2017 when it came into place.

And also I think it's worth pointing out that we have, out of the goodness of our hearts, maintained this site at full cost to our ratepayers since 2018, and apparently we don't even own it. So I think a calculation of what we've spent might be helpful before we go in for our little conversation.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

Next item is 4.4.1, land revaluations. Move that way, Councillors Zamprogno— oh, sorry. Move that way. Seconder? Councillor Sheather.

Councillor Zamprogno. Yeah, I'd like to move the recommendation in the business paper, but also to begin a conversation about what the implications of this are leading to. The

Sorry.

That always strikes me as like it's an airline sound.

I

Feel like ordering an orange juice or something, or a cup of tea or a blanket. All of the above.

As

I was saying, land value is a significant input into our rating structure. Yes, as a separate question, we also alter the dial about the base rate versus the ad valorem rate. But I think it's becoming time, considering we only do this exercise every few years, when the Valuer General completes a cycle and then we pick over the end trails, to look afresh at the question that I've often opined on, and that is the nexus between the rates that we charge and what the Council rating and revenue manual states that we should be mindful of. The nexus between what we charge and a ratepayer's ability to pay, which is a function of their socioeconomic circumstances as well as their land value, and their access to Council services.

I fear that when we get this kind of analysis, it's just another reminder that one is becoming decoupled from the other. Which is why we always have heated arguments around this table about where we should set our council rates so that they're fair. And I, whenever we have that conversation, I always say there's a principle that we're supposed to be mindful of about ability to pay, access to services, what we charge in rates, and then that's further complicated by

Changes that are available to us in the way that we structure our rates, not just that mix between the base rate and the ad valorem rate, but the ability to have rating categories, communities of interest. I can see Ms Browning nodding along at this point. And I don't know whether this is the appropriate juncture. This is why I want to open for some debate, but whether it's becoming time where we have a workshop or a report about that principle of fairness in our rates. I mean, I could let the recommendation stand just as it is, or we could ask for a report or foreshadow the need for a workshop on this question. I'll leave it there for debate.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'm just conscious that we are reaching 11 in about five minutes. I might just pause this item and ask someone to move a motion to extend. Can

I move a motion that we extend to hear notice of motion one after this and then adjourn the remaining business to the following meeting?

Well, there's only one other thing. There's only one other thing and then questions

Let's press on

I need someone to move some way. Okay . I have a second. Do I have a seconder for that? Councillor Reardon. All those in favour of Councillor Connolly's motion, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Djuric. Those against? Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor McMahon, declare that lost.

Move a procedural motion that we move past 11 and complete the business paper.

Thank you, Councillor Zamprogno, seconder Councillor Sheather. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash. Declare the motion carried. We will resume debate on item 4.4.1. Thank you.

We'll be judging. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and looking forward to Councillor Connelly's evaluation . This is a very, I think this is a very important part of council business, the land revaluations. Of course, it's not our decision. We're merely the reporters of what valuations the Valuer-General applies. And of course, we know in recent times there's been quite a few changes to land value based on circumstances around disasters and around COVID in particular, with movement of people out of the cities and so on. I think that in this case, I have a few concerns. I did raise them in the briefing that we had, and I'm a little concerned with the reporting of how these tables are reported, that anyone reading through them may get not really the clearest idea.

There is a lot of explanation in there, and there's certainly good explanation around what land value means and how we apply it and so on. But I'm concerned that it doesn't add to the numbers, the 3.7 percent rate increase that we're having. So a number of people will think their rates are going down because people will just look at it and they'll say it says, you know, business rates South Windsor minus 3.4 percent, but then of course they've got 3.7 percent applied for that, so they'll have a slight increase, or, you know, that's an average. These are all averages. More importantly, in the residential categories, I think that the fact that the 3.7 being added on would change significantly how many places look like their change in average rates would be actually decreasing.

Many of them would be maybe similar or going up. And of course, we also know that within the average, we do have quite a bit of variation. Around that as well. So I think it's important that people understand about that. And the main thing it's important that they understand is that even though the land values have gone up, we don't get more rates. And I think that's one of the most misunderstood things. People think our properties are worth more, we're paying more rates, council has more money to be doing more things. And I think that's really well explained in the business paper, that that's not how it works. But I would urge anybody with questions to seek out this information and to try and really understand it, because I do think it's important.

And I'm not sure how many people have received their valuation, but I don't have mine yet, so we don't have it. So the other thing is that people may not understand that they have the opportunity to object if they think their land value is not correct, but that comes with the land valuation notice. But obviously our area maybe has not received any yet. I don't know . There is an interactive tool on the website that you can look and you can click on your property and just see what you're in for. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. So can I just ask, that interactive tool, is that with the increase? Sorry, I mean the

VG's interactive tool to see the property value, but I think

We are having an interactive

Tool for the rates. Yes, that's my next. Can we have an interactive tool for the rates, please

Chief Financial Officer?

Through you, Madam

Mayor, we certainly can

Develop that. Thank you, because I think that that will be helpful for people, particularly when they're trying to budget . Firstly, I want to congratulate Councillor Zamprogno on getting the words opine, entrails and nexus within the same ten seconds of a speech. Perhaps be a record even for him. I just want to flag here that further to Councillor Zamprogno's point, and I've raised this already, we need to have a conversation about farmland rates, particularly as agricultural land becomes increasingly rare. We can expect farmland values to rise, and that then has an impact on their rates and the portion of the notional yield that is drawn by farmland rates. I think it might also be helpful going forward if documents like this included a definition of what constitutes farmland.

I know I've asked this before, but not in this term of council, and I think that might be useful for all councillors and for anybody who sits at home at night reading business papers.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right, reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Unnative, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor

McMahon. Okay, item...

4.5.1 Major Project Reporting. Anyone wish to move? Councillor Conolly, seconder? Councillor Sheather.

Do you wish to speak, Councillor Conolly? Sorry, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just further, I did raise this when this came to Council before, asking for timeframes and trigger points. We've got timeframes; they probably exceed what I expected to come to us every three months. I suppose there's an advantage there in that they won't bang up, or the information won't bang up, and the problems won't bang up if we're going to change tack or find concerns with things. But I'm still not entirely sure what the triggers are for bringing it back to Council beyond that three-monthly timeframe. So I don't really understand what the paragraph on page 156 is saying around the Executive Steering Committee deciding to bring a matter to Council. I still don't understand what the trigger would be for that decision.

General Manager? Through you, Madam Mayor, there is no defined trigger. So what we're saying is we will provide you with quarterly reporting in a standard defined format that's covering off on all the key risks and project updates more broadly. But that if there is some other discrete particular matter that we feel like is of critical importance that needs to come at that point, then I think it would actually be unwise to sort of set a trigger point around what that might be. So it's a three months plus the trigger .

That's fine, thank you. That's the intent.

Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Conolly? No. All those in favour, raise your hand. Sorry, Councillor Reardon. Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

Notice of motion, item 6.1.1, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Kotlash, could you please read your declarations of interest?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As an elected member of the Hawkesbury River County Council, this item may seem as being in conflict with use of HRCC and as such, I have decided not to participate in the debate.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a pecuniary interest in item 6.1.1, hosting Landcare. I'm an elected councillor on Hawkesbury River County Council. The item has potential financial implications for the county council, and thus my fiduciary duty constitutes a pecuniary interest.

Thank you. I'll wait till you both have left the room. Councillor Conolly, could you turn Councillor Kotlash's off? She's coming back. That's okay.

Okay, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This item is not meant to be controversial. I'm simply asking for a report. With the change of government, I believe there's going to be a lot more money available for Landcare in the future. So what I want to find out is, is this council better off applying for that money directly rather than teaming up with other councils through another body? If the answer comes back that we should maintain the present arrangements, then so be it. I just thought it might be timely to ask that question, explore the possibilities and see what answer we get.

Thank you. I do need someone to second that. Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Anyone else wishing to speak on the matter?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'd actually like to move to defer this pending discussions with the River County Council by staff around this matter, because I think the issue I have with it is that I just consider it problematic in the sense that by nature of the code, our two representatives that are on the County Council can't participate in this item , yet it's based on the operations of that organisation. So it would be impacting grant funding around that. So I think it's imperative that any debate or any decision that we make, that we need to seek a report only after consultation with the River County Council first, because otherwise we would be making a decision that's potentially impacting people like that.

And I don't want to be wasting our staff time if it's not at all feasible, because any change to the arrangement of how landcare is administered by the River County Council would have to be supported by the majority of councillors on that council. I think I've got no problem with knowing if we're better off doing that, but I think we really, I understand that it hasn't been raised within the River County Council, within the HRCC, and to me that's an issue because— If all the councils that are member councils just decide to make motions about changing things without it going through their first, I think that's a breach of their autonomy as an organisation, and I believe it hasn't been raised.

The other thing is that we've got to be responsible in how we're acting in line with what resources we've got. We can get a report, but that would take staff time and resources. And, you know, if the decision, the ultimate decision, requires consultation with three other councils, why wouldn't we do that first? I just think this is round the wrong way. So I'd like to defer it until we hear what the— until it's taken by our delegates, or our councillors on that River County Council, for them to take it. Maybe that should be the motion, for them to take it to the River County Council and hear what the situation is from their point of view before we proceed any further. Is that an official amendment?

Yes. The amendment was to move to defer pending discussions with the HRCC by staff around this matter. Do I have a seconder for that?

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Conolly on the amendment.

Yeah, just briefly, I'll speak against the amendment. I understand the thought there, but I think it's important that we act in the best interest of our ratepayers first. And before we go and talk to third parties and other councils about what we might think is the best thing to have a firm understanding ourselves of whether this is something we want to look at. Is it in our interest? Understand what our interests are before we go and have conversations with external parties about that. I actually think this is the right way around, is to find our position first and then go and have those conversations. I think that's putting the Hawkesbury ratepayers' interests first.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment?

Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look, I concur with Councillor Conolly. We're not making any decision here. All we're doing is asking for a report. We're not making a decision about Hawkesbury River County Council or anybody else. We're just asking for information, and once we get that information, then we can go and talk to the bodies concerned if we need to. I think our primary responsibility is to get the best outcomes for our constituents, and that is what prompted me to write this notice of motion.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, could you just confirm, based on what's on the board, what you want the discussions to be? Do you need the wording changed?

The discussion, well, obviously it relates to this proposal, just around, because I think, well, we are seeking a report, but we're being asked to do so, and I've got absolutely no information about how this system runs and what the financial impacts would be, and I know that's what the report's asking for. But I don't think there's any point doing that if it has to be approved by the River County Council, and they're just maybe going to say no.

So perhaps add the words regarding the notice of

Motion proposal. Regarding, yeah, regarding the notice of motion 6.1.1.

Does that clarify?

Through you, Madam Mayor, it doesn't really clarify whether this is a job for council staff or the delegates.

I'm sorry, yes. Then I introduce the thing around the delegates. Maybe it should be the delegates. Take your advice, General Manager, on whether it's something that the council staff would feel they should do, or if we could just get the delegates to raise it first with the River County Council. Yeah

It would be my preference, Councillor, that it be raised through the board of the County Council, only because you haven't given us any direction about what you want those discussions to look like. We had anticipated in bringing a report back that we would certainly talk to and get the position of the County Council in providing that report back.

But you would be getting their position?

Yeah, that would certainly be our intent, was to write to them to say, could you get us what your position on this would be?

Oh, okay. That would form part of the report. That was the intent. Okay. All right. I didn't see that in the— yeah , I didn't see that in the notice of motion. So I'll

Just— I'll let Councillor Zamprogno speak, and I'll just then— I'll just consider that.

Councillor Zamprogno on the current amendment? Yeah

On the amendment, I was prepared to support the amendment because

It was clear that this has been advanced into a vacuum. It took the County Council unaware , as correspondence that I circulated this afternoon made clear. It caught at least one of our delegates to the County Council unaware, and it's now clear to me that there was zero discussion between our two delegates, who are the people whom we would expect to, as our delegates. And I'm speaking as a former chair. Go away, form a view that maybe this would be better if it was done directly with our council, and then come back and advance that view to the rest of us in the chamber. That has not happened.

And when I asked the general manager about this, she certainly indicated that no thinking had occurred about whether we had the capacity to do this in-house, whether it would be better to do this in-house. The deputy mayor suggests that that's precisely the purpose of the report that's being commissioned , but I think even that's premature, because to ask council to draw up a report, it takes time and effort, and I think this is thoroughly undercooked. Never mind that, if we were voting on the motion, which I'd have almost preferred, I'd have opposed that, because the answer is already perfectly clear to me. In fact, I suspect that this motion comes from people who have a fixation on unwinding our relationship with Hawkesbury River County Council.

Point of order.

But I won't opine on that. I will move on. Yeah

What was your point of order, Councillor Connelly? You can't

Reflect on other people's motivations. It's a very clear breach of the—

It is a breach of— it is an act of disorder that you can't— Yeah,

I'll withdraw, but I'll move on. Thank you . It is not controversial to point out that we pay, and I'm going back to when I was chair, so it's only within the last couple of years, about $200,000 per annum as part of our due towards our membership of the County Council. In the last financial year in which I was the chair, this council received a benefit back of $471,510. We pay one quarter of the upkeep by way of our dues towards the county council, and yet we have 73% of the area that's covered by the four council area. And yet, remarkably, the other member councils are fulsome in their support. Mr.

Colling , what was your point of order? Nothing to do with the amendment before us, sister.

No, you are correct. Please, Councillor Zamprogno, let's debate the amendment on the board.

All right then. Well, I'll catal my remarks and return to my current point when we argue the motion should this fail.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment on the board?

No. Therefore, I will put

I'll Councillor Lyons' bucket. Madam Mayor, I did wish to change it to this. I would rather the discussions be between the two delegates and the River County Council, that the two delegates take this matter to the River County Council and report back to us of what their thoughts are on it. Are you happy with that seconder?

I'll support that as a seconder. Okay,

Thank you. If no one else is wishing to speak on the amendment, I'll put the amendment. Those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno. Those against? Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor McMahon. The amendment is successful. The amendment becomes the motion. Was anyone else wishing to speak?

Deputy Mayor .

I'll just ask the staff to put that back on the board. As they do that, I'll refer to the Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would like to speak on the motion.

I think the other councillors who've put this up have missed the point. This original notice of motion was not about Hawkesbury River County Council. It had nothing to do with Hawkesbury River County Council. It was about our council and where we get the best deal. Do we get the best deal by sharing with Hawkesbury River County Council and three other councils, or do we get the best deal by putting our own hand up and saying landcare is something that we should be getting on our own? That's what I wanted to find out. And as I said in my beginning speech, if it comes back that we get the best deal by sharing with Hawkesbury River County Council, then so be it, we should keep that. But we don't know that.

I wanted to find out whether that was true or not. That's why I wanted the report. Sending the delegates to ask Hawkesbury River County Council misses the whole point. We don't need their permission to ask whether we would want to do landcare on our own. We don't need their permission to do that. If we are here representing the community, the Hawkesbury community, then what I've put forward is a question which should be answered. Is this the best deal for our residents or isn't it? That's all I wanted to know. And people have assumed that there's some hidden agenda. There's something else behind this, trying to wriggle out of Hawkesbury River County Council. That was never my take on this. As I said, it was to get information so we can make a decision.

I'm very disappointed with councillors who've misread this completely, and now we're going to go to the Hawkesbury River County Council and ask them for permission, and what are they going to say? No.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Conolly.

Can I move an amendment, please? The amendment would be the motion in the business paper, with a point four that Council requested its delegates have discussions with Hawkesbury River County Council

Regarding the possibility of sharing land care.

Do I have a seconder for that? Deputy Mayor, Councillor Conolly.

Yeah, I think some councillors, no one voted for that really spoke, but I'm guessing that maybe the feeling was that we should be having those discussions. Like I said before, I think that's pre-emptive to go and discuss with an external party when you haven't decided your own position yet. But I think if we're going to have discussions, it doesn't actually prohibit us from also getting a report to establish our own position. Those things can happen concurrently. So if there's a strong desire that those discussions should happen, then I think that can happen whilst we have a report. When a report comes back, we'll have the position from our delegates as well.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the current amendment?

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you. I'll speak to the now current amendment. Not only is this organisation headquartered in the Hawkesbury, but the notice of motion that was put by the Deputy Mayor and its associated background information, if you read it carefully, you will observe, speaks warmly about the successes of Landcare and what a wonderful program it is and how it assists getting volunteers and people with relevant expertise on the ground to look after our bush in association with a lot of other volunteer organisations, Landcare and so forth. It doesn't advance a single argument about why we might even speculate as to whether this arrangement would be better housed with Hawkesbury Council. It simply lists the successes of Landcare and says nothing else. So if it was the—

Point of clarification. Yes, Deputy Mayor. In page 172, the fourth line from the bottom, it says, Hawkesbury is seen as having different Landcare needs from HRCC's other constituent councils. That was the reason. That is the point.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Zamprogno.

Well, with respect to the Deputy Mayor, that's a speculative assertion. It is not proof. It doesn't even lean towards proof. It's a very thin basis upon which to ask council staff to devote their time to draw up a report on this question. Therefore, I can't support the amendment.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think that this does have to do with Hawkesbury River County Council. That's exactly how I read it. The first point is that it might take the form of a sharing arrangement with the current host. So the current host is Hawkesbury Nepean Landcare, Hawkesbury River County Council, or Hawkesbury Council. I don't really understand that, but it might take on—Council might take on the overall role of hosting, with River County Council playing a major role in the projects related to weeds. Now, if we don't have some input from the County Council about how that would look, how could we be making a decision? I just think it's back the front, round the wrong way, and I think it's great that the new government's going to give money to Landcare and so on, but I just—I don't really understand this, the intent of this until we've got two councillors on the River County Council.

My immediate thought would be that they would be the people seeking out what the likelihood of the impact of all this money that's coming would be in terms of how the River County Council would administer it. Isn't that what we would want to know first before we make a decision around it? I think that that, to me, would be a more logical one. So I won't be supporting the amendment.

Thank you. Just, can we get the amendment on the board? Because I think Councillor Lance Buckett, if you read, might have missed what I put in the amendment, because I did. That's exactly what I said.

Thank you, Councillor. As you can see, it's now up on the board.

Just to confirm, Councillor Conolly was the notice of motion plus the other amendment.

The idea being that when Council was considering the report, it would also have that feedback from HRCC from our delegates.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the current amendment? No, I'll put the current amendment. Those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon. Those against: Councillor Lance Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno. The amendment is carried. The amendment becomes the motion. Anyone else wishing to speak, or I'll go to right of reply, Deputy Mayor. Oh, sorry, Councillor Sheather.

Just briefly, Madam Mayor. I was on the council, the Hawkesbury River County Council, I don't know, 12, 15 years or something. One of the reasons that they have success in all those Landcare programs is that they're out in the paddock every day, and they're extremely successful, and they've got to be to negotiate the weed harvesting, you know, that they need to do. We're not anywhere near equipped with that, and I'm not suggesting we head down that track in any way, shape or form. The county council there does represent the Hawkesbury well. The, and I think that if, if we— As we are, with many councils party to a group, as the county council is, and we had a council that was going to play part of our role and diminish those options that they have and involvement, I'd be a bit disappointed about it.

And the county council is something that was set up many years ago to look after the interests of our community, along with three others. And they do a good job of it. And I think any relationship we have with them should be encouraged. And I don't know, and that's why I supported the amendment originally, because we've got delegates there who go there, they can discuss it. And if they want to opt out and want a partner or a relationship with us or any of the other three, then I would hope if they feel there's a need to it and that it would be better, that that happened. While the comments that Councillor Calvert made are prudent in relation to the relationship with our residents and the like, we've got Penrith, Blacktown and Baulkham Hills, financially structured much better than us, that could probably, from a financial perspective, do a great better job.

So I wonder what the benefit of the long term is. I supported the amendment as it is. There's a report coming back, and I would hope the staff take on board the long-term view of heading down that track.

Thank you, Councillor. If no one else is wishing to speak, I'll go right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. All I'm asking for is a report. This notice of motion was not aimed at discouraging our relationship with Hawkesbury River County Council or the other member councils. In fact, it was about evaluating our relationship, and we have the right to do that, and we have the duty to do that, and that's all I was putting forward.

Thank you very much. I'll now put the motion as it was on the board. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the matter carried

The last item on our agenda tonight is 7.1.1, responses to councillor questions taken on notice. Any issues there for anybody? No? No issues there. Excellent. I will declare the meeting.

Closed at 11:25 p.m. and thank you all for your participation. Good night.