12 September 2023 - Ordinary

Good evening everybody. Thank you for attendance and those online and welcome to the Hawkesbury City Council monthly meeting for the 12th of September 2023. 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 5.3.3 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 that 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 persons participating in or attending the meeting this evening have their mobile phone that they turn it off or turn it to silent. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. The first item for tonight is item 4.2.1, the election of the Mayor. Councillors, can someone please move the recommendation on page 8 of the business paper, which states that an election for the position of Mayor of Hawkesbury City Council for the September 2023 to September 2024 mayoral term be carried out. Moved Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Reardon.

I will now put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are 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. I declare the motion carried. I'm now going to vacate the chair and hand the meeting over to the returning officer, the General Manager. Councillors, at this point you have all been provided

With nomination forms. I have received nominations for the role of Mayor from Councillor McMahon and Councillor Zamprogno. Are there any further nominations, Councillors?

No. That being the case, I can confirm that I have the following nominations, that being Councillor McMahon and Councillor Zamprogno. I have received confirmation from all the councillors, from those councillors, that they have accepted those nominations in writing.

As we have more than one candidate, Council must determine by resolution the method of voting for the role of Mayor. The options are: one, open voting by way of a show of hands. Two, an ordinary ballot being a secret ballot, and three, a preferential ballot, also a secret ballot. Do I have someone to move a motion as to the method of voting, councillors?

Yes, I move that vote occur by open show of hands.

Thank you, Councillor. Do you have a seconder?

Yes, I'll second that.

Councillor Reardon. Any further discussions on that, councillors? Right of reply, councillor? I'll now put the motion. All those in favour of voting by open ballot, Councillors Opranio, Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Calvert, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Veigel, and Councillor Reardon. I declare that carried.

So it has been resolved that the method of voting for the position of mayor will be by show of hands. Each councillor is entitled to vote for only one candidate in each round of voting. I will now write each of the candidates' name on a slip of paper and deposit in a box. The first name out of the box will be written first on the tally sheet, with the second name being written second on the tally sheet.

Councillor McMahon.

We'll now draw the names out of the box to record those details on the tally sheet in the order of selection, because it's critical.

So, councillors, the first position, Councillor Zamprogno's position one on the tally sheet. Thereby making Councillor McMarn position two on the tally sheet.

Councillor McMarn. Okay . With those councillors voting for position one on the tally sheet being Councillors Zamprogno,

Please raise your hands.

I have Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Djuric and Councillor Dogramaci.

With those councillors voting for position two on the tally sheet, Councillor McMarn, please raise your hands. Councillor Calvert, Councillor McMarn,

Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Veigel and Councillor Reardon. That's seven votes for Councillor McMarn, five votes for Councillor Zamprogno. Councillor McMarn has the highest number of votes and as a result, I declare that Councillor McMarn is the elected mayor for the Mayoral term from September 2023 until September 2024.

Now, where do I go to, Giles? I'm lost.

Over

24, sorry.

Over there for 41? Yeah

Yeah. I'll now ask the Mayor of Hawkesbury City Council, Councillor McMarn, to chair the balance of the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you very much, everybody, and thank you to the councillors who did support my following term as mayor. Your support is greatly appreciated. There's no need for big grand speeches tonight, but I do thank you to be able to continue with the job of looking after this community and getting on with prioritising the Hawkesbury in a unified way. Okay, the next item for tonight is—

Item 4.2.2, election of the Deputy Mayor. Councillors, can someone please move the recommendation on page 13 of the business paper, which states the following: that an election for the position of Deputy Mayor of Hawkesbury City Council for the September 2023 to September 2024 mayoral term be carried out. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Veigel, thank you very much.

I'll now put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried. I'm now going to hand over the meeting to the returning officer, the General Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councillors, you've all been provided again with nomination forms. At this point, I have received two nominations for the office of Deputy Mayor from Councillor Calvert and also Councillor Zamprogno. Are there any further nominations, Councillors?

Nope. That being the case, I confirm that I have those two nominations for the office of Deputy Mayor, being from Councillor Calvert and Councillor Zamprogno. I have also received confirmation from those two Councillors that they have accepted their nominations in writing. As we have more than one candidate, Council must now determine by resolution the method of voting for the role of Deputy Mayor. The options are: one, open voting, show of hands; ordinary ballot; secret ballot; and the third option is by preferential ballot. Do I have anybody to move a motion as to the preferred method? Councillor Conolly.

Move that it be by open voting.

Councillor Conolly, seconder? Councillor Reardon. Any discussions, councillors? In which case, I'm going to take Councilor Collingdon looking for a right of reply, so I'll put that motion. All in favour of voting by open voting.

Councillor Reardon—oh, Councillor McMahon.

Councillor McMahon, Councillor Reardon, and Councillor Varg, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zampranio, and I will declare that carried.

So it has now been resolved that the method of voting for the position of Deputy Mayor will be by show of hands. Each councillor is entitled to vote for only one candidate during each round of voting. I'll now write the name of each candidate on a slip of paper and deposit it in a box. The first name out of the barrel will be written first on the tally sheet, with the second name out being the second on the tally sheet.

So, Councillor Zampranio.

Councillor

Calvert

The first name on the tally sheet is Councillor Calvert.

Oh. The second name on the ballot is Councillor Zampranio.

Okay

With those councillors voting for position one on the tally sheet, Councillor Calvert, please raise your hands. That is Councillor Calvert, Kotlash, Conolly, Sheather, Veigel, Reardon and McMahon. That is seven votes. With those councillors voting for position two on the tally sheet, Councillor Zampragno, please raise your hand. Councillor Zampragno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Djuric and Dogramaci. That is five votes for Councillor Zampragno. Councillor Calvert has the highest number of formal votes, and as a result, I declare that Councillor Calvert is elected Deputy Mayor for the mayoral term from September 2023 until September 2024.

And I will now hand back to the Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. The next...

Item is 4.2.3, appointment of committees, delegates and representatives.

Do I have someone move the recommendation, please? Councillor Bygell. Seconder? Councillor Reardon.

Thank you, councillors. Just checking some process there. Thank you for moving the recommendation. We'll go through—now, I'll just double check—we'll go through and nominate each person before voting on the recommendation. I'll just check with the general manager. That's correct.

That's a perfectly acceptable approach

Thank you, general manager.

Madam Mayor. Yes. If I could ask Councillor Bygell to include a Part 4, and that's the current members as recommended on page 20 and 21 until December 24. It's over two pages, and it's recommended the Civic Risk Mutual Limited, Peppercorn, Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils, and Hawkesbury Western Sydney University Scholarship be included in those four.

Thanks, Councillor Sheather. That's already Part 3 of the current recommendation, those committees.

All of them read there?

Just have another look to make sure you're satisfied. I think they're all there.

Happy with that? Thank you, Councillor. Okay, if you turn to page 18, I will go through each committee one by one. Now, as you can see, for the Heritage Committee, that is not to be voted on tonight. That's to be left as is. The Disaster and Emergency Committee is all councillors. That will stay as is. The General Manager's Performance Review consists of the Mayor and two councillors, and potentially one nominated by the General Manager if they so choose. Current councillors are myself, the Deputy Mayor, and Councillor Conolly. Did anyone wish to nominate anything different in that regard? No, thank you. We'll keep that one as is. The Local Traffic Committee, there is currently one councillor, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Did anyone wish to nominate anything differently? Councillor Veigel? Sorry?

Do you accept that

One? I would decline that nomination, thank you though. Thank you,

Councillor . Anyone else wishing to nominate?

I nominate the Mayor to take that position.

Thank you, Councillor. Does someone second that? Thank you, Councillor Sheather. I'll accept that nomination. Does anyone else wish to make any other nominations?

No other nominations? I'll declare the Mayor will be on that one until we vote on it. The Club Grants Local Committee, that currently has the Mayor. I'll just check that has to be the Mayor. Is that correct?

It can. It can. Okay.

Traditionally

Has been the Mayor, that one. So unless anyone has another nomination? No. The Greater Sydney Local Land Services Local Government Advisory Group, one councillor, currently Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Any other nominations? Nope,

Thank you. It doesn't even exist. I don't even know what it is, and I didn't even know I was on it.

I was on it in about 2012 for a few years, and it used to meet, but I don't know what it is.

I'm sure we can get some clarification on that by email.

Madam Mayor, question. Normally when we do this, we have reports on each of the committees. There's no reports.

I'm not sure why that is. I can take that on notice. Okay. I'm not sure.

Sorry. I'll just get some advice.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, it's usually just the council committees that are reported on.

Oh, okay. I thought we had attendance and things like that reported, but yeah, okay. So we haven't really had any council committee meetings. Thank you. Okay,

Thank you, councillors. The Bush Fire Management Committee is currently the director of infrastructure services and the Parks Officer Land Management.

The McMarn Park management— Question on that. Sorry, Madam Mayor, is there a position for a councillor on that, or is that—

I

Will check for you

With the general

Manager. Director

Of infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, it's a statutory committee established under the Rural Fires Act and allows council to have two members, and the regulations of that Act provide guidance on who those members should be. One, it was sufficient seniority to direct or have influence and control over council's activities, and the other is the officer responsible for carrying out council's functions with respect to bushfire management.

It is a no. I'm just wondering then how that ties in with us feeding into that then . Because it was always the mayor on that committee.

Was there anyone wishing to answer that, or we're just leaving the status quo? Any councillors? No? Okay, thank you. Okay, the McBarn Park Management Committee. It has currently one councillor, which is Councillor Reardon, and an alternate councillor, Councillor Veigel. Anyone else wishing to move in any other way? No, thank you. The Hawkesbury Sports Council. Currently one councillor, Councillor Sheather, and an alternate councillor, Councillor Zamprogno. Anyone else wishing to move in any other way? Could you just pop your mic on, Councillor?

Sorry, Madam Mayor, alternate Councillor Conolly, please.

Councillor Conolly. Seconder for that? Thank you, Councillor Conolly yourself. Any other nominations for that position of alternate?

No. Then that will be Councillor Conolly there. The Western Parklands Council. That's a position for the mayor, I believe, regardless. The Hawkesbury Sister City Association. Two councillors. Currently councillors Lyon, Buckett— we've got three names even though it says two. I think we resolved that way. Yeah. Councillor Lyons, Buckett, Councillor Sheather, and Councillor Wheeler. Anyone else wishing to nominate anything differently? No. Thank you, councillors. The Forum on Western Sydney Airport. Currently one councillor, Councillor Veigel. Anyone else wishing to nominate anything differently? No. The New South Wales Public Libraries. One councillor, Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I've found that I've not been able to participate in most of those meetings, so I've spoken to Councillor Reardon, who was happy to accept the nomination. You

Accept that, Councillor Reardon, as seconder for that nomination? Thank you, Councillor Veigel. Any other nominations? No, thank you. I'll put Councillor Reardon there. Western Sydney Academy of Sport, one councillor. It's a not compulsory role, and that was myself. Was anyone else interested in that role? Madam Mayor. Yes, Councillor Sheather.

I wouldn't mind being involved with

That one. I'd be very happy to step down if you'd like to take that one. I would. Excellent. You'll second that? I'll

Second that, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to nominate? Nope. We'll pop Councillor Sheather on that one. And I think we had advice regarding the Greater Blue Mountains Area World Heritage Advisory Committee that there's a possible merger or something down the track, but we were going to nominate someone in case that came to fruition. That current councillor is Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Anyone else wishing to move anything differently? No. Okay, thank you. Based on everything I have just said, councillors, was there anyone wishing to make any comment?

No, thank you. Who was our mover? Councillor Veigel, did you need a right of reply? No. Thank you very much. I'll put the recommendation and the names as just read out for each committee as is. If you are in favour, please raise your hand. In favour: Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried. Thank you.

Your participation in those three items, Councillors, that's greatly appreciated. Okay, back to the agenda. Obviously there are no apologies because we do have all councillors here today. Does anyone have any declarations of interest for the remainder of the meeting? Councillor Sheather .

Could you just, which item and your interest. You don't have to read out the interest, but what you're declaring.

It's item 4.3.

2.

It's Fire Safety Compliance Action.

Thank you. I'll be declaring an interest in the same item, 4.3.2, a pecuniary interest. Any other declarations of interest in any other items, councillors? No. Thank you. Confirmation.

Of the last minutes from the meeting of the 8th of August 2023. Do I have someone move that way? Councillor Veigel, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno, and Councillor McMahon.

The next items are agenda items subject to public address. We have one registered speaker for items tonight only, so that is item 4.1.2, LEP Commercial Road Vineyard Amendment to Schedule 1. The registered speaker is Chris Shannon. Now, is he here tonight? You are here in person. I'll just check if you're here or on Zoom. Chris, if you'd like to come up to the microphone here.

You've got five minutes there. Thanks, Chris.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and Councillors, for the opportunity to talk to you tonight in relation to the planning proposal at 172 Commercial Road, Vineyard. My name is Chris Shannon. I'm a director at Mecone Urban Planning, and I represent EG Funds Management, who is the owner of the site. We've read through the council officer's report. We accept and note the advice from the local planning panel and the amendments made by council officers, and we therefore support the recommendations in the council report. By way of context, EG has purchased the site with its existing conditions, existing buildings and existing storage items stored outside of buildings. It's seeking to regularise those uses, to improve the condition on the site, the environmental management on the site, improve the visual amenity on the site, replace some of the older buildings with a new purpose-built building, and relocate some of those items that are stored outside into a new building, and formalise the parking and access to the site.

But in order to do that, they're seeking to permit three uses: depot, light industry and warehouse or distribution centre. With a provision that requires a development application to be lodged within two years of the LEP coming into force. We met with council officers prior to lodging the planning proposal and the Department of Planning. We met with them as well. Following that meeting, we've lodged the planning proposal and it has been updated with two additional clauses, one relating to the gross floor area on the site, so capping that, and one relating to the limitation on the type of light industry that has to be associated with the existing depot and warehouse or distribution centre. And I have any questions from the councillors, I'm happy to take them.

Any questions, councillors? Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Thanks, Mr Shannon. I've got a couple of concerns about this site. Firstly, there's a number of comments back from the planning panel in particular regarding the vegetation that is claimed to be on the site, or was supposed to be on the site under the 2012 LEP. Now, obviously, your client has purchased the site since that vegetation was cleared, but there's quite a lot of plant— there's undertakings in here that there will be vegetation, particularly vegetation on the boundaries, to ameliorate some of that, what I suspect will be a conflict of use with the residential sites next door. Is there an intention from your client to replant that vegetation?

Sorry, your microphone's not on.

There's a concept plan attached to the planning proposal, which shows indicative of what a building could look like, and it shows a 15 metre setback to Chapman and Commercial Road, which is quite a generous setback for the type of use. But the renewal of the site would involve additional plantings. It would remove the storage buildings that are below the 1 in 100, down near the creek line, and put them into a new purpose-built building outside the flood line, and enable that riparian corridor to be replanted along that corridor as well.

Thank you. And my second question relates to that conflict of use. Could you elaborate on how you, that you're surrounded by large-acre residential development. This is an area that's already feeling significant impacts of the development that's going on in the adjacent LGA. How does your client intend to manage the impacts on, you know, going—we already know that there's impacts on the site. Could you elaborate on how they're going to manage those going forward?

So the very intention of allowing these uses is to enable a purpose-built building to remove all those bits and pieces around the site. If you've seen the site, there's a number of machineries and other storage facilities all scattered around the site. We'll be moving those inside a building to improve the visual amenity. So you're looking at the site with landscaping around the fringes of the site. You won't be looking at storage items everywhere on the site; they'll be inside a building. That in itself also enables the reduction in any sort of noise levels associated with moving those items around. The new buildings will be outside the flood line, so the riparian corridor will be improved, access will be improved.

There won't be parking on site; it will be more formalised than what it currently is. As you know, if you've seen the site, you drive in and then there's its unsealed areas. There's dust probably flying around as you're driving on the site. When it gets renewed, that will all be formalised to improve that overall environmental management on the site.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, councillors? No. Thank you, Mr Shannon. Appreciate your time.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Do I have any councillors wishing to move? The recommendation. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'll move the recommendation.

Seconder, please. Councillor Veigel. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'd like to open with a question, if I may, and this concerns process. Why are we doing this by way of a planning application to permit a use in this zone rather than rezone? So it's a question about process. Why aren't we just rezoning to a zone that automatically includes this permitted use?

Thank you. I'll refer to the manager of strategic planning.

Yeah, so for various sites, it's better to look at specific land uses and additional permitted uses versus changing the zone, because changing the zone opens up a whole lot more. If we were to, say, zone it to a commercial zone, it allows additional uses that may not necessarily be appropriate on the site. So it's specific to the site in terms of those additional land uses that we're potentially allowing as part of the planning proposal.

Through you, Madam Mayor, Mr Kearns, would this additional use right extend to subsequent owners of the site?

If it proceeds and there is a LEP amendment, it remains with the land, yes. And

Is it fair to say that this request is to formalise an existing use right that's de facto been there for many years?

Yeah, it would be fair to say that there are obviously existing uses on the site that are inconsistent with the current zoning. So it's to regularise those uses and to allow for potential additional floor space as well.

All right then. Thank you. I'm satisfied with those answers, and I'll confine my remarks to this. As a local that's lived in the Oakville area all my life, this has never not been a depot. So if this simply clears up an existing use right that's been there since I was a little kid, then I have no objection.

Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to speak?

No. No other councillors. Right of reply? Not necessary. Okay, thank you, councillors. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMarn. I declare the item carried.

The next item is item 4.1.1, 4 Hall Street, Pitt Town. Do I have anyone wishing to move the recommendation? Councillor Sheather, wish to move that way? Seconder please?

Councillor Veigel. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Question first up. Part of the recommendation is to introduce a height building control of 10 metres. Is that what we're classifying as two storey?

Thank you, Councillor. I'll just refer that to the Manager of Strategic Planning.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Obviously it would depend on the design of any future development on the site, but typically that would be around two storeys, yeah. But

I'll just say why I ask that, that if there was to be a three storey, considering the environment around it, and I look at R5 zoning, it's to protect the residential housing and rural setting in the area to ensure large residential lots don't hinder properties around them, to maintain conflict between land uses and zones. There's no three storeys that I'm aware of in Pitt Town, and it just concerns me that is 10 metres, it's part of that zone, but is it appropriate to, or would it be looked at with an application of a two storey house? I guess that's— I don't want something on the corner of a street down there that would conflict with residential housing in the area. That's what I'm getting at. Thank you, Councillor. Is there some way that that can be addressed, or should it be addressed now?

I'll ask the Manager of Strategic Planning to respond.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So the site currently has no building height limit. The 10 metres building height limit is consistent with the rest of the R5 zone in and around Pitt Town. So all applications that are received within Pitt Town are obviously assessed against that. So the 10 metres is proposed to make it consistent with the balance of Pitt Town that has a 10 metre height limit here.

Thanks, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the motion. I'm concerned that after the last couple of years that we've had that we would release any more land for residential use in Pitt Town without the infrastructure to get people out. And I note that the SES have objected. They've talked about the flood island effect that we know exists in Pitt Town. We saw it writ large in 2021 and 2022. We saw the difficulties with the evacuation route and the stark inadequacies of that evacuation route, particularly given people's expectation of how an evacuation route performs in a modern economy with people needing to get in and out daily. The SES flood evacuation capacity that we're relying on to say that this is okay dates back to 2007.

It's now out of date. Climate change, the loss of soak-away upstream of Pitt Town, and the performance of evacuation routes in recent floods mean that we can't rely on that 2007 document. There's no guesswork here at all. We know that this is a bad idea. We've seen what happens in this place. I'll quote a member of the New South Wales Department of Planning who said, Pitt Town, it's you and the snakes. Now, are we really seriously willing to put more people into that? It's currently used as open space and I think it should remain as such. This proposal doesn't meet the minimum lot sizes surrounding it. It's in a heritage conservation area. We still have no bypass of Pitt Town. We still have not enough infrastructure in Pitt Town.

The promised infrastructure hasn't been delivered. We still have no proper evacuation route. And so I honestly cannot support it. If this motion fails, I foreshadow that I will put up a motion to refuse. And frankly, this belongs to a public entity. This is not a private purchaser. It's not a speculative development. It's a public entity owned effectively by the people of New South Wales, who much of the Hawkesbury pays to provide an essential service. We should be asking Sydney Water to hand this back to the Hawkesbury for passive recreation, revegetation and urban cooling, not to put other people on the floodplain.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look , I agree with Councillor Wheeler on this one Having read the business paper, I was a bit confused with why we went down this road. And have we actually talked to Sydney Water about what other options there are? Because it seems to me that it would be good if we didn't have a house on this site. I mean, as Councillor Wheeler has said, this is not— This is already publicly owned, and what we might do instead of putting a house on it. So I'd just like to know

Is the process we have to refuse this first, and then we start some other dialogue?

I'll take that as a question and refer to Manager of Strategic Planning.

So obviously, yeah, Council will determine tonight where it goes with this particular planning proposal, and obviously recognising that we do have the delegation to finalise the consideration of that. If Council resolves to refuse the planning proposal, then essentially that planning proposal is finished, and, you know, potentially dialogue could occur with Sydney Water, but that dialogue couldn't occur, you know, with this pending if Council refused it tonight, yeah.

Could I ask a follow-up question, Madam Mayor? Has Sydney Water gifted land, or has this sort of situation happened in other jurisdictions? And were there other —does Sydney Water always go down this path of a planning proposal to rezone for residential?

Do you know?

Director of City Planning. Manager of Strategic Planning.

We'd have to take that question on notice and discuss with Sydney Water, yeah.

Thanks. Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Thank you. I'd like to move an amendment that we defer consideration of this matter to a briefing session.

Do I have a seconder for that, or do you have a seconder? Yes. Thank you, Councillor Reardon. Councillor Conolly. Thank you. The reason I'd like to defer it to a briefing session is because I think I agree with what's been said tonight. However, there's obviously been years of work by a lot of people into this, and I don't feel like we've just nailed it right here and squashed it without talking to anybody is a great way forward. I also don't think that we can take into account who the applicant is when making planning matters, even if it is an entity that's publicly controlled. I still don't think that's the right thing to do. We should be making fair and independent assessments of planning matters regardless of who the applicant is.

And I don't—I'm also not keen to set a precedent that we should sterilise the entirety of Pitt Town. However, I'm also not really ready to support the recommendation, but I would like to give staff the opportunity to explain further how they came to this decision and how the Gateway determination came to this decision as well. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you. I'll speak against the amendment because I'm prepared to make a decision on this tonight. Generally, asset recycling is a healthy thing. So as a principle, asset recycling is something that tiers of government are entitled to do. But I do hear the concerns that have been raised, and I'm familiar with this particular site. Sitting as it does very, very close to flooding, it's a bit of a cacky site. My question is this: can somebody untie this knot for me? If the relevant minimum lot size for a zoning of this type is 4,000 square metres, and the subject site is 3,598, and therefore falls below the relevant threshold for a housing lot, how can it be offered up as a housing lot if the minimum lot size should be 4,000?

Thank you, Councillor. Manager Strategic Planning.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So the minimum lot size basically dictates whether further subdivision is possible, and in this case, with a minimum lot size of 4,000 square metres, if Council did agree to that, the lot size doesn't allow for additional subdivision. So you're essentially locking in that as one single lot, not with the potential to subdivide into further lots.

Okay

Thank you.

Any other councillors wishing to speak on the amendment? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the amendment because we did have a briefing on this a couple of months ago. I think that, to look at it further, I think there are just the issues. I have the same issues that both Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Kotlash raised around flooding in particular and reliance on something from 2007. The SES audit from back there, you know, raised a lot of problems at the time when that was a proposal for the development out there. And since then, we've both in terms of natural disasters, but also consequences of the built landform out there now, have, you know, have really changed what we notice, what happens in flooding, as well as having all the updated flood mapping and so on.

And as Councillor Wheeler said, the island effect that occurs in Pitt Town. There's also drainage issues around that area, which I know some still need rectification. And the absence of the flood evacuation route is really problematic in that we should not be increasing. And I understand that back in that audit that was zoned, or it was considered that it was a residential block, but it hasn't functioned as a residential block in that time. And even though it's above the one in 100, it is increasing an area where there are difficulties getting people out until that's done. I think that it just isn't a suitable time. Now, I'm also happy to make my decision around it tonight because I think putting it off unless they're going to, if there's other opportunities, then they probably won't involve a planning proposal, I'm expecting, if they want to change it to something else.

But I think that, you know, reading and seeing that perhaps something like a childcare centre could be Could be considered on such a block of land to me is ludicrous when we know there are such issues around it. I think there's too much risk for the perceived benefit to come from it, and I don't think having a briefing will probably change many people's minds. I think that I'm happy if we continue discussions with Sydney Water about its use, but I think in terms of this specific planning proposal, there's not a lot of point to do that. Thank you.

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

No. In that regard, I'll put the amendment— sorry, Councillor Sheather.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, nearly to the day 12 months ago we discussed this and supported what was put before us at the time. And as Councillor Connelly said, there's been a lot of work done by the applicant and the staff to get to where we are, and it's listed on page 25. And now we turn around and tell them after all that. We get phone calls from residents all the time talking about our inter-decisions or the likes. This is a good example.

When we spoke of 12 months ago, we knew what was happening. We discussed it then and supported it, and consequently it's gone on. The SES back in 2007

Did allow for 1,100 homes to be evacuated before they got to a situation where it was impractical to evacuate more than that.

Apparently, there's no up-to-date information from the SCS in relation to that, because it certainly is not in the business paper.

And if we're going to start limiting houses to be built above the one in a hundred, it is, it goes into a small portion of the bottom of the property. It's a steep property.

Then Pitt Town's not the only place we're going to hamper the possibility of someone with the opportunity to build a house. And I'm not suggesting that we go building them all in little knolls all over the place. There's not a lot of them left.

But Pitt Town's a bit different, and it's close to evacuation areas , close to high ground and the likes.

I think we set a bad precedent. Firstly, if we're going to knock these things back to talk about and then 12 months later change our mind. And secondly, that if we set an example by not following what our policies are now, then what can people expect? You know, the planning powers were taken off council for just actions is what we're talking about tonight. There's policies in place by state and local government. We're supposed to follow them. And by doing any of the other than what's recommended in the business paper here tonight, falls foul of those policies. So, Madam Mayor, I don't have a problem with having the briefing, not necessarily on this, but about flooding and how we're going to deal with the future, because it is going to change and we need to deal with it.

But if we're going to add hotly when someone's halfway through an application, chuck it out on CA, then we've got a problem. So, Madam Mayor, I'd ask the council to support it because of the role that's been played up to now and the role that we've played. And if there's issues in relation to the comments, and I don't disagree with Councillor Wheeler in relation to discussions need to take place in relation to how we're going to deal with matters that are concerning the community on floodplain, I just don't think tonight's one of them.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? Now that I'll put the amendment. All those in favour, which is to defer it to a councillor briefing session, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor McMahon, Councillor Veigel, and Councillor Conolly. All those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. I declare the amendment failed. The motion is now the original motion moved by Councillor Sheather. Which was the recommendation in the business paper. Is there anyone else who hasn't spoken who wishes to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you. I'll speak against the motion, Madam Mayor. I think I am concerned by some of the things that have just been said, in that the process when a planning proposal is voted in the chamber to go to Gateway is not a final decision. It's not inconsistent to change it. We've heard time and time again people say, Well, let it go to Gateway and see what happens, and then when it comes back, we'll make the decision. It's not falling foul of any policies around that to make this decision once we've got the feedback from Gateway. That's how the system works, and I think that's a misunderstanding to suggest that this is being inconsistent because the reason there is Gateway is for them to engage with the other agencies and then to give the feedback and for then the decision to be made.

And I know that is something that's used again, saying that there's been money spent on it. I mean, while that may be unfortunate, that isn't a grounds to approve something because somebody has spent money on something. That has also been used in this chamber as excuses to push things through when there are other concerns raised, and I think the concerns raised about this are very valid concerns. And it's unfortunate that we are still reliant on information that is so old that we are using things from 2007, and even though the SES has had input further on, to use that to justify something to proceed when we have seen the devastation around the flooding that has occurred in Pitt Town is a little disappointing to me.

So I won't be supporting it. However, I do in principle support engagement for the use of that land if Sydney Water are keen to, you know, use it in some other manner.

Thank you, Councillor. Question

Madam Mayor. Yes,

Thank you, Councillor Sheather. Could

We have the staff indicate the process of what would happen if this was to be supported tonight, if it was.

Thank you, Councillor. I’ll refer to the Director—oh, sorry, Manager of Strategic Planning.

So if the planning proposal was supported to be amended, it would be forwarded to the Department of Planning for the finalisation of the planning proposal and then subsequent gazettal on the New South Wales Legislation website.

Thank you. And yes, Councillor.

I just wonder, with the Planning Panel, where they fit into that.

Thank you. I’ll refer that question.

So the Hawkesbury Local Planning Panel provides advice at the beginning of the process, so it’s provided before councillors see the initial report that comes for consideration as to sending it to Gateway.

And that work’s been done?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Correct, yes. So we’ve had the advice from the Local Planning Panel.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? Oh , sorry , Madam Mayor ,

Could I just clarify something through you in response to Councillor Sheather? The Planning Panel gives advice; it doesn’t make a decision. I think that’s what the Manager of Strategic Planning just said. He did say that, but Councillor Sheather said then it’s all done. But they are making a decision.

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

No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather? Not necessary. Okay, all those in favour of the motion as per up on the board, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zemprogno. I declare the motion lost. Councillor Wheeler, you foreshadowed a motion. Yes, Madam Mayor, I’ve sent that through to the staff.

We'll just wait for that to come up on the board.

Okay, everyone can see that there. If they can have a read. Councillor Willer, can you just step us through your foreshadowed motion, please? Sure.

So I think it's still worth us—we could have allowed this to just lapse and it would have just been hanging there. So I think we probably need to tidy it up. So it calls on us to note the outcome of the consultation and provides three grounds: flooding, lack of adequate flood evacuation route, and incompatibility with the surrounding area. I'm happy to alter those under advice from both the staff and the other councillors, and contact Sydney Water to discuss other potential uses of the site and possible transfer to Council. Obviously, we would have to look at ongoing costs, impacts of any acceptance by us of that land, but I certainly don't intend to shell out lots of money. That's not the proposal there, is to pay Sydney Water a lot of money for that patch of earth.

So it's just a clear indication that we are not happy with putting any more people into that space. And I think it's worth noting that the buck stops with us. I remember when I was first elected in— Sorry

Councillor Willer, before you begin, I'll just get a seconder. Yeah, I explain. Sorry.

Councillor Kotlash, thank you. Please continue. Thank you, sorry. I remember when I was elected in 2016, having one of the senior planners from Council say to me that she promised when she first started in planning that she would never find herself sitting in front of the coroner when someone had died due to a planning decision that she had made. And that— I remember sitting in this chamber back when we had DAs and thinking, who am I to be making these determinations about where people get to live and how? And it was a real—I guess it was an eye-opener as to the magnitude of the responsibility that we'd taken on, and I take that responsibility really seriously. And I think that's—we all felt sick, both during the bushfires in 2019, 2020, and in the repeated floods in 21, 22, knowing that it was our LGA that was so badly impacted by these disasters, that we also know are getting worse.

And shortly we're going to discuss our climate change risk assessment and adaptation action plan . Part of this risk mitigation is not sticking any more people into these flood islands, into these places that we can't reliably get them out. And when we do, we ask volunteers like the SES to put themselves on the line to get these people out safely. Now, they do that willingly, but that is a very big ask. We have the ultimate responsibility, not the planning panel, not the process. At any point in the process,

The decisions are made. In this instance, at this point, we are the decision makers, and I think the only reasonable decision that we can make, after really having illustrated what happens at Pitt Town, the only reasonable decision we can make is to refuse this planning proposal. No one's losing their house here. Nothing—this isn't one of those, you know, things where mum and dad have invested a whole lot of money and it feels—and you feel mean because you're knocking it back. This is a piece of public land owned by a public entity, and I hear Councillor Connolly's take that we should be making decisions independent of who has put those forward. But this isn't one of those sad stories about someone losing their fortune because they've taken a punt.

This is us deciding whether a public entity gets to flog off an asset and someone's going to put a house on it and a family is going to live on a flood island with no evacuation route. I can't live with that. I hope that the rest of you can see that this is a better way forward. Thanks.

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

No one else wishing to speak. Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler? Not necessary. Those in favour of the foreshadowed motion that's on the board, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillor Zamprogno, just confirming that's six. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Dogramaci, and Councillor McMahon. Looks like we're going to the casting vote of the mayor, and I declare—sorry— and I declare that that motion has failed in line with my original vote. Just refer to the staff there for one moment.

I refer to the general manager.

Yeah, effectively we've got no resolution, Councillors. So in this circumstance, it's probably best that the staff do actually bring it back via a briefing potentially before we take advice on potential next steps with the applicant.

Thank you, Councillor Connelly. Is it too late to move a motion? I think the item's— it's up to you, Madam Mayor. I think it's—we haven't moved on and it's your call if you want to take it. If you'd like to move an amendment, move a motion in that regard, Councillor Connelly. To make that last motion, I didn't want to argue for the sake of it, but if we could just have that last motion, just points one and two without the dot points or point three. Well, that would be the motion you're now moving. Yep.

The one that— So get rid of number three, get rid of points one, two and three under number two,

And get rid of the words after refuses the planning proposal.

Sorry, leave number one. On number two, make number two refuses the planning proposal, full stop.

If the staff have recommended it, don't we have to have reasons?

I don't believe so.

Yeah, we do. Yeah, we have to have reasons.

I guess we're getting advice. Thank you, Councillor. Before you finish that, would you ask—you're after some advice? Well, the suggestion from all around me that it's... I can see the heads all working together. I'll just let the staff see what is the actual way to deal with this now that we have no motion on the board and it has— Yes

We have. Well

We have a motion, but that's not your final outcome, Councillor Connelly. You want to ask a question? Yeah. No, I was just going to speak to it, but only if it's— I'll just refer to see if there's anything legal that's potentially a problem here.

I'll just refer to the general manager, just for the way forward, councillors, legally.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Look, councillors, I think it's prudent if you're about to refuse a planning proposal that you give reasons for doing so. If not legally, then to at least give some directions to the proponents as to your preferred path forward.

Thank you, General

Manager. I was just discussing with the— sorry, with the manager of strategic planning about the rights of review and appeal for Sydney Water that may or may not come out of this, and I don't have that advice on hand right now. But it is something, if Council was of mind, we can certainly provide that at a later date if need.

Thank you, General Manager. Councillor Conolly. I'll withdraw the motion then if it's not valid. My concern was that I wasn't able to support the previous motion with those grounds on the precedent based on the precedent that it would set.

And, Amir, could I move that the information be received and a further report to Council be provided?

A further briefing?

We've already had that, a further report.

Come to Council. Do I have a seconder for that, please? Councillor Feigel. Thank you, Councillor Sheather. Do you wish to make any further remarks?

Yeah.

I'll just get that up on the board, if you don't mind, from the staff.

I don't know how the staff wish to deal with it, Madam Mayor, but it seems a briefing would be appropriate, but seeing there was a motion lost on having a briefing, it's inappropriate to put one in an amendment now. So what I'm suggesting is that we receive the information, that'll cover what the concerns the staff have, and that further information be provided from the staff in relation to those discussions.

Thank you, Councillor. We'll just get that wording up on the board so that everybody knows what we are discussing.

I believe it's just to come back to Council in a further report at the next meeting. Not the next meeting, just to come back in a further report. All right, and we have a seconder. You're still happy with that, Councillor Veigel? Anyone wishing to speak on that matter? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question. What is the report about?

What is the report to contain? Because we have a report in front of us.

Getting out of the situation we're in right now.

Okay. Thank you, Councillor. I did allow that question, although it was your response was completely inappropriate and unprofessional. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion when we do get it up on the board for a further report to come back to Council?

General Manager, did you want to make any further comments? No?

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I only to suggest that the further report can outline those potential next steps scenarios if there is other avenues through the Department of Planning or other agencies that we can outline that at that particular point in time.

Thank you, General Manager. Councillor Conolly. Thank you. Just to clarify, because whilst this is kind of what I originally asked for, it doesn't seem like it was necessarily the will of the Council. My problem with the previous motion was that we were listing flooding as a reason to refuse a planning proposal that dealt with land above the PMF, and we were, in my view, showing a clear conflict of interest in refusing a planning proposal and in the same motion asking if we could have the land now that it's worth nothing. And on that basis, I wasn't willing to support that motion. But I don't mind if this is what goes through, but if somebody else moved a motion that didn't have those concerns, I probably would vote for it. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion on the board?

Councillor, do you have a question?

Just to clarify why I didn't go further with what the General Manager. I don't know what the answer is, and I was hoping that the report would cover how we deal with this or move forward either with this applicant or with applications. I

Think that's what the General Manager touched on, that there would be options regarding what might happen depending on how the Chamber votes next time around and what that means.

Yeah, I just didn't want to lock the staff into reporting on what the motion was, rather than what the issues are that they're going to do moving forward.

I think the staff understand the direction there. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? No, right of reply, Councillor Sheather? Not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Cotlach, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zemprogno. You're abstaining. Thank you, Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the motion carried.

Councillors, I'll do the items on block here. That's items 4.4.1 and 5.1.1. Do I have someone move that way, please? Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Reardon. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno and Councillor McMahon. Thank you, Councillors.

Okay. The next item on the agenda is item 4.2.4, Local Government New South Wales Annual Conference. Do I have anyone wishing to move that way? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll move that, Madam Mayor. Seconder

Councillor Veigel. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll just speak briefly to it about the inclusion of the motion of mine that's in there, which is the same one which was in for the Australian Local Government Conference, but I actually think it is more apt in the state conference because it's more relative to the state level of funding. It did pass at the ALGA conference, albeit taken in with several other motions of a similar nature, which were all about, you know, wanting some flexibility around grant funding and so on. So, yep , that's all.

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

No. Councillor Sheather. Thank you,

Madam Mayor. We haven't discussed the motion, but consider the submission of additional motions, the motions later in the business paper, I don't suspect anyone is going to oppose it. How do you wish to deal with that, or just there needs to be a Part 3 that we support any motion that's forwarded from this meeting or something?

There's one motion only in that item, which begins at the bottom of page 70. Have you seen that motion?

And that's referenced in Part 1. It refers to the motion regarding grant funding, which is the motion in italics at the bottom of page 70 continuing to page 71. That's the only motion we're referring to. Okay. Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett?

Not necessary.

Okay. Just on advice from management, if there are no additional motions from the floor, we will remove point 2 from the motion. Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Veigel, are you happy with that? Yes. Thank you. Therefore, with no right of reply needed, all those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, 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. I declare the item carried. The next.

Item is 4.3.1, Draft Climate Change Risk Assessment and Adaptation Action Plan. Do I have anyone wishing to move the recommendation? I'll move it, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Anyone wishing to second that? Thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think I'm really pleased to see this action plan. Pleased that it's here, ready to go out on public exhibition because, of course, it's something of quite a degree of urgency around it. I think I consider it probably one, if not the most important of our plans, given what we've witnessed over the last few years and the impact on how Council can be ready to continue operating through subsequent disasters. It gives a reference point for the discussions and review around risk assessment and incorporation of adaptation measures, and that is to increase Council's adaptive capacity to deal with the risks associated with the climate emergency. Our Community Strategic Plan articulates the commitment to take action to combat the risks associated with climate change, and we are actually a little bit late to the party in terms of the incredible efforts which have been made by some councils, and of course often bigger and better resourced councils, and the local government sector overall, which has actually been a leader in dealing with the risks around climate change.

It makes it really important that we get this policy right and to prioritise and get on with the actions within it as soon as we can. We've lived through several climate-related disasters, and we've seen the burden that the cumulative impacts put on our community, our economy, and our council. And we know and acknowledge our high level of vulnerability with our river and waterways and our large amount of bushland, and being located in the Western Sydney region, which is forecast to be one of the hottest places on the planet in coming years. That equals significant risks, and we know that climate and disaster risks go hand in hand. The number of days greater than 35 degrees is forecast to increase, and we've got our first one coming next Monday, going to be 35 degrees.

So council needs to manage these risks so that in times of flood or fire, the isolated sections of our community can continue to access services. So we must be as prepared as we possibly can as an organisation to deal with this. So this plan and the reports that go with it outline the hazards, exposures, and vulnerabilities and the consequences of these. It works to address how council can identify and implement adaptation measures to minimise the detrimental impacts and disruptions to council operations. In doing so, it's mindful of what council has control over itself, what statutory obligations it has, and what it can influence through collaboration, advocacy, education, and communication.

A crucial requirement is collaboration across all levels of government and between sectors of society. This plan comprehensively outlines how our assets and services may be impacted, identifying how this will play out in terms of service delivery, the effects on our workforce, wellbeing and productivity, the financial costs, which are potentially very high, and ultimately how we can have a plan in which adaptation addresses and minimises these risks. The key adaptation measures are needed across all areas of vulnerability and need to be done with regard to medium, short and long term. But we have no time to waste. We must act now and establish priorities to facilitate the implementation of the actions in the plan as soon as possible.

Whereas change needs to be transformational, there is a community expectation that we will do all within our power to act as swiftly and recognise the urgency of the situation. There is a wealth of data, information and links to resources in this report for the community to read and absorb. So feedback is welcome from people that we, you know, that we accept. We need to be mindful. I know there's people who think there's too many people on the planet. I could address that, but I'll run out of time. But of course, we know that a small minority of wealthy people produce the majority of global greenhouse gas, and therein lies the problem. Their consumption habits have a greater impact than the overall population numbers.

We can focus

On the numbers of population, but the real figures we should be concentrating on are the amounts of carbon dioxide, the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, because that's the figure we need to bring down and reduce. We need to lower emissions. We know it will continue to warm. The global water cycle will continue to intensify. Seas will continue to rise as more ice melts, and the heat extremes will continue. So as an organisation, we need to be adapting as fast as we can to minimise the risks that come with those increased vulnerabilities as climate change and the global warming continues. Spot on, thank you

Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the recommendation, on the motion that's been moved?

No one else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll also speak for the motion. This is currently , I think, a missing piece of the puzzle. We, particularly in the previous council, we started to do our part to reduce emissions and to act responsibly in the face of climate change. And it's actually put us in a strong financial position in a number of respects. And I think we'll also hear about further plans to increase resilience when we get to item 6.1.1 around community batteries. But cutting emissions and doing our bit with regards to climate change is only one end of what needs to be done. What we really need are the tools to make sure that our LGA is as safe as possible. If you look at the Venn diagram on page 77, and as someone who spent a lot of time playing with stats, I'm quite partial to a good Venn diagram.

The sad fact with this Venn diagram, though, is that we are right at the centre of that climate risk intersection . So it's the intersection of climate hazards, events or natural disasters. Well, we've had over the last several years, in fact, since the time I was elected at the end of 2016, we have experienced drought, extreme heat. In fact, we were the hottest place on the planet at one point. A mega fire, a bushfire of unprecedented proportions that burnt for months, and repeated floods. We are clearly a bit prone to natural disasters. We've also got greatly increased exposure in that high ground in this LGA is hard to come by, and most of ours is covered by national park, which is vulnerable to bushfire anyway.

So we have lots of people and much of council's assets and infrastructure in the way of natural disasters, which leaves us really vulnerable, which is the third section. And vulnerability here is what makes those impacts from events even worse. And I think systems failure and social isolation are things that council has front of mind. But the other thing that we have to think really seriously about is social impacts. And I think we saw particularly in times of flood, and when whole communities like Colo and St Albans were cut off and Bilpin during fire, that it's those points of isolation where our really vulnerable populations are most seriously affected in terms of whether they can earn any money, whether they can get out, whether they can eat, whether they can have electricity to do routine things like access water and flush the toilet.

Our vulnerability to natural disaster is huge, and it's getting worse. We've still got people on this council who deny that climate change is happening and happening to us. But science doesn't care what you believe. Climate change isn't like religion. You don't get to choose your own adventure. We are front and centre in terms of climate risk, and we must mitigate. This is real leadership to get these systems in place. And this thinking needs to be at the front of all our plans and actions, because if we don't, we are leaving our communities exposed to and much, much more vulnerable to risk. Much of this is consistent with the findings of the New South Wales Flood Inquiry. It's consistent with the Sustainable Development Goals, and it puts us on a level playing field with our neighbours like the University of Western Sydney, who are already thinking in this way.

It will make us more resilient. It'll also save us money in the long run, and it, most importantly, will save our residents from loss of life and loss of property. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? I'll just make a couple of comments and just remind councillors that there are a variety of views in this room, and people should not be belittled or criticised for having a different point of view. It's their elected right to represent that different point of view in this chamber. I have some misgivings about this policy, but what I'm prepared to do tonight is put it out on public exhibition and then wait for those responses to come back before I go into a little bit more detail. So I'm happy to support the motion as is to get that feedback from the public and then go further from there. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I don't think it's necessary, apart from saying that it is really important to get the community's point of view because I'm quite mindful that there are different points of view, although there has been a big shift towards more understanding around this matter. But it will be interesting to see, and I think that in the best interests of getting the best policy, people should feed into it when they have this opportunity.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried. The next item is item 4.

3.2 Fire Safety Compliance Action Various Properties. Councillor Sheather and I will be reading a declaration. Councillor Sheather, if you can read your declaration into the microphone, please.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. It's 4.3.2. The matter refers to Windsor RSL, and I'm a director there.

Thank you, Councillor. Obviously, in the same item, I'm declaring a pecuniary interest due to the mention of Windsor RSL as I am a director. I'll now ask the Deputy Mayor to come and share this item while we leave the room. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. There has been some further information, I believe, on this item, and I'd ask the Director of Planning to give us an outline of that. Thank you. Yeah,

Thank you through you, Deputy Mayor. Look, subsequent to the report being placed... Out to the public last week, we actually received advice from Windsor RSL that there had been an administrative error made by council staff and that the correspondence referred to in the report dated the 4th of August had not actually reached Windsor RSL due to an incorrect address. Windsor RSL were able to provide advice of significant work that they have already undertaken to address the matters that were identified in the New South Wales Fire and Rescue report that's tabled in the report. Windsor RSL have been advised that councillors were advised of this administrative error and it's been rectified, and that ultimately the information received wouldn't change a recommendation in the report, as the report was simply just to receive a note, and it was the intention to engage with Windsor RSL further as suggested in the report rather than move to issuing a notice of intention.

Thanks .

Thank you. There's a recommendation on page 82. Would someone like to move that or something else? Move that way. Councillor Conolly, you're moving the recommendation. Councillor Kotlash, you're seconding it. Councillor Conolly, would you like to speak to it?

No, that's okay. That's self-explanatory.

Any other speakers? Councillor Wheeler, you've got your light on.

Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. Look, largely questions at this stage. I don't really understand the process and where we fit into that process. It seems to me from reading the report that in each instance Fire and Rescue inspected these premises because complaints were made by members of the public. Is that the normal process? Do we have an obligation to be inspecting these regularly? And if so, how often do we do that, and how up to date are we

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Deputy Mayor. Look, the timing of the reports coming in to date have been quite sporadic. This is the largest amount that Council has ever received from Fire and Rescue in one hit. There is a requirement in the legislation for the reports to be tabled at a council meeting, so that's actually a legislative responsibility. So we are up to date. We're not in receipt of any other reports that haven't been reported to Council.

So just so that I'm clear, we don't actually—we don't have a responsibility to check these sites. They just carry on until someone says, I think that's a death trap. Maybe you should do something about it. Is that the deal?

We do have responsibilities, but I'll actually refer to the building coordinator to answer.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. So Council has a fire safety program in place. That program is in its infancy, though, at the moment. Council's obligation in relation to these matters is we are the authority having jurisdiction. So the Fire and Rescue typically refer these matters to us where they've become aware. They leave it to us to investigate and take action as we see fit. Sometimes that might involve upgrading. Sometimes it may just involve, in relation to fire safety measures. So these are emergency lighting, exit signs, hose reels, that kind of thing, that those measures just be maintained. Now, I mentioned the Council's fire safety program. Let's go back 10 years ago. Council had still— Well, Council did not have the legal obligation to require people to maintain these measures.

However, that obligation rested with the owner under the legislation. Now, Council took the view that if members of the public and building owners weren't aware of these obligations, what would compel them to do it? So we decided to implement this fire safety program to tell them what their obligations were and have these measures inspected and certified every year, so that is the obligation under the Act, and that they supply to Council an annual fire safety statement. So that is what—there are two letters there that Council sent each of these owners. The first was in relation to the complaint that we'd received. The second was in relation to the fire safety program to make sure people were aware of their obligation.

Councillor Wheeler. Thank you. So

The obligation is on the owner. What obligation is on Council

Under the legislation

Thank you. Through you, Deputy Mayor. The obligation on Council is to ensure that it has a current fire safety statement against each property. And—sorry—and also there are responsibilities to respond to reports it receives from Fire and Rescue New South Wales, where they delegate the responsibility to address concerns identified to Council.

And do we know if we have an up-to-date fire safety statement on all the buildings that we're responsible for?

Thank you through you, Deputy Mayor. That's certainly a process that we're working through at the moment. So Council's recently been in receipt of an internal audit with regards to its fire safety program.

I would probably have to take on notice the specifics in terms of how comprehensive and up-to-date the full register of properties are, but certainly one of the actions that's committed to is to maintain and get that system completely up to date within the coming financial year.

So could we have that— could I ask you to take that, could I ask that that be taken on notice, and could that be reported back to Council with a time frame for us getting to the point where we are compliant with our legislative requirements? Yep, certainly. We'll take that on notice. Because I'm concerned that we're not, and that really troubles me. It troubles me more that we were blissfully unaware that we were non-compliant. What really troubles me the most about this report is the facilities that are included here. Two of these facilities provide emergency housing to the most vulnerable people in our community. It behoves us to ensure that these facilities are compliant with all parts of the legislation, specifically those that keep people safe, because the people who are being housed in emergency housing in two of these facilities are not in the position to necessarily be noticing that they are incredibly vulnerable in these spaces.

And it concerns me that we are reactive in our approach to this, and that reaction requires that someone is knowledgeable enough to look at a site and go, This isn't good enough, and that's not good enough for me as a decision-maker on this Council, when we have members of the community at risk. Now, I know we don't own these facilities, and I know that the— That we are not responsible for them not being, not meeting these, but we are responsible for making sure that they do, and we therefore should be. I'm also concerned that we have another facility that makes millions of dollars in profit from gambling and alcohol revenue, $15 million last year, Windsor RSL, which is not compliant for fire safety and that has hundreds of people go through it every day.

I find that really, really troubling. We need to tighten up as a regulatory authority, and hopefully the knock-on effect of that will be that we have less places who think that they can skate through without meeting fire safety legislation.

Councillor Wheeler, I might just ask, based on the information you read earlier, I believe Windsor RSL is now compliant. Is that the case?

No

I think the suggestion from Windsor RSL was they were largely on their way to. I think there may have been one or two residual matters, Councillor. Okay, thank you.

I share Councillor Wheeler's concerns, and I'd like to say I've been here for 24 years and this is the first time I've ever seen this. But the problem has been identified and now we can move on it. Any further speakers? Councillor

More questions, if I may. Windsor RSL would have got an occupancy certificate. No doubt Fire Rescue would have gone in there and judged it and passed that, or if they didn't, they would have found faults, I would have thought. But I've been doing compliances for 18 years after a building that I've done and I still occupy it. Every year I do a safety compliance audit, right, and it's linked. I'm not going to. For those who don't know, it includes just about everything: egress, fire extinguishers, monthly, quarterly, fire sprinklers, alarms, the whole lot. And you do get non-compliances to get it done before you get an inspector to sign it off. Cumberland Council, where we are, ask for it each year, and if you don't get it timely, they'll go and charge you two grand.

Now, that's just to happen this year, but it's up to the owners. I can sign it off and declare it. It's up to the owners to submit it. The question is, what are we talking about here? I don't know. I suspect it's probably not enough extinguishers or whatever. It could be emergency lighting, whatever. That's one point. Very easy to fix. I have got a concern about the boarding house as though it's relevant. Was it just a random inspection that Fire NSW went into these places because they know they can do it, or was it based on a complaint? Having said that, we've got to get them compliant. If you need to put a notice on those places, then I think you should do it to kick them into gear and get it done.

It costs a ginormous amount of money to keep the place safe, but I could assure you, looking after about 150 people on site, I'm not going to be standing in front of a coroner and say, Recording in progress. Yeah, I'm not going to stand in front of a coroner and say, Hey, yeah, I didn't have an extinguisher or fire hoses or the sprinklers not working, or the smoke alarms are no longer valid after 12 years, or the fire pumps weren't inspected within 11 years and they were leaking, no water in it, and you've got a problem.

You've put several questions in there. I wonder if you could—

So just to say, just based on that, if

The boarding houses aren't compliant to safety, they need to be, so I would put them on notice. If you haven't got a response, then I agree with this. To say a fine is pending if you don't get it, right? I don't know how much that is and what you can do, but it should be substantial to get them to get it. It's not that costly to get it done. There are places all around Richmond that can get this done, or Windsor.

You're moving away from the question. Sorry,

Mate, but I know, but I'm just— So you

Want that question answered first

Yes, please. I think you need to go and find the boarding houses to get them compliant. With regard to Windsor RSL, I think if they've already given you, they've got a compliance ... then so be it. Sorry. General manager.

Yeah, I might just take that. So, Councillors, what you've got in the report is a suite of proposed actions associated with some of that. And yes, I think it's probably fair to say that the council officers have varying degrees of concern around the levels of compliance on some of these particular matters. What the staff have indicated is that a comprehensive and robust fire safety program is being developed at council. It's still in its infancy. That's not to say that we haven't been doing this sort of work, because we absolutely have been. What we're doing is putting a framework and some rigour around that to make sure that without fail we continue to get these annual fire safety statements from the buildings that need to give it to us.

Okay, and where they don't submit it to us, that's ringing alarm bells with us, and then the staff will proceed down those regulatory paths, okay? So we're more than happy to provide a briefing to councillors on that if that gives you some comfort on progress on that.

Any other discussion? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor. And I think, I mean, it's good to see this happening. I know from the audit committee and the audit that was done that it's something that has to happen, and I'm pleased to see it underway. Just in terms of what the general manager just said about the framework and the vigour, I'm hoping that we have enough resources allocated to get to the priorities of doing this, because as has been said, the priority is to identify the vulnerable situations. In terms of most of the commercial buildings operating, it's generally in a landlord's best interest to have proper fire controls, and of course for many people it's simply getting the actual safety certificates and things done.

But we know that there are many vulnerable buildings. So I hope that if we don't have enough resources, I hope that would be brought to councillors so that we can ensure there are enough resources because of the priority to ensure that at least until we get this into a rhythm of having it done regularly enough that we are adequately resourced. Thank you.

Councillor Djuric.

I've just got a question, if I may. It's being such an important matter, and we want people to comply, just around sending correspondence to a wrong address and expecting a reply, that we've then listed it in front of a public meeting and suggesting that they didn't care enough to respond. I mean, we've heard from the RSL and clearly they want to comply. What can we do something going forward, like a second point of contact to make sure? Because, I mean, it's pretty embarrassing for all involved that we don't find ourselves in this situation again. Are we able to, if we get no response from a business, are we able to follow up with a phone call or an email or something? Is that possible?

General Manager?

In many instances, in a lot of instances, absolutely not, because we won't have those details. So, yeah, look, we take on board this. Part of this, when I talk about a framework, is making sure that we've got templates and documents all sitting in a system that are basically error- and foolproof, so to speak. So that's all part of establishing this program so that we're not relying on human intervention and human error at times for these types of processes. So we certainly take that on board. As I've said, yes, a phone call would be ideal if we've got those details, but in many instances, on some of these, you're talking industrial, commercial premises, boarding houses and the like. They're often controlled by entities where we may not necessarily have a telephone number. So we will do our best, but it's not something that we can commit to, unfortunately.

So the recommendation is—the motion, the recommendation is to receive a note. No one wishes to change that.

No further speakers. Councillor Conolly, do you want right of reply? Not necessary. I'll put the motion. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Semprognano, Councillor Calvert. Those against? Abstained is Councillor Dogramaci. Absent is Councillor Sheather and Councillor McMahon. I declare the motion carried.

Okay, thank you, Deputy Mayor, and thank you, Councillors. The next item on the agenda is 4.4.2, Draft Property Policy and Draft Property Management Policy. Do I have anyone wishing to move the recommendation? Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Seconded, Councillor Kotlash. Councillor Conolly.

Yeah, no, look, I'm okay. I'm just going to move the recommendation that we go and move ahead with these policies that we've been asking for for a long time. I think it's pretty exciting, and I'm happy to endorse everything in them.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm happy to support the motion. I'm pleased to see these policies also, after quite a while, to come to fruition and to be ready to go out to the community. I think that they are complex properties. I don't know how much the community understands around the property portfolio and so on, and I think that this work has been done to assist in how best to manage that portfolio and get the best outcome for ratepayers. So. Most of, if not all, councils can no longer rely on the revenue raised from rates to allow them to deliver the services and facilities that communities expect. So, and cost shifting over the years from other levels of government has increased statutory functions that council has to carry out, as well as filling in gaps to ensure certain services are delivered.

So over the last few years, in areas struck by natural disasters, there's been rounds of grant funding that has enabled crucial infrastructure and community activities to be delivered, but the grant funding is drying up and can't be relied on long term. So one of the biggest challenges for councils is to guarantee long-term financial sustainability and, as such, to tap into additional revenue streams where possible. I'm just saying this so that if anyone wants to comment, they can, you know, maybe understand a bit more about what it's all about, because I think when you just read it, it doesn't necessarily, I mean, it explains it, but the general population aren't really aware of what we're trying to achieve in our property management necessarily.

And also, I think that they may not understand the differences between being a private property manager in terms of how you would manage your own investments or something, as opposed to the responsibilities that councils have . So these policies ensure prudent management of the properties and provide guidance for how our properties are sold, leased and repurposed. And this is done in line with our community strategic plan, which I think is a very important thing in terms of delivering transparency around, you know, any time that we decide to make changes, for example, to any of our community buildings which are under licence, such as our childcare centres, such as our community halls. And when we say property, of course, it explains quite well in the report and talk about assets that this includes everything from footpaths and parks, and there's so much of it.

And I think sometimes people say, Why don't you just sell such and such and do this? And yet it's quite a complex area to actually comprehend and understand how we manage it and how we can actually turn opportunities into revenue streams for into the future, which is, of course, what we will have to be doing. Another problem that we face, of course, is the ageing infrastructure, and all councils face that challenge, and we need to know how to manage and maintain and upgrade all of these assets that Council is responsible for. So I don't know how, you know, how the community will respond to this because I think it's a difficult thing. Ultimately, it's determined by the policies that internally the council staff deal with, but also that councillors in this council body will make decisions about potentially repurposing or restructuring some of the community-based facilities that we are responsible for.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Councillor Mary Lyons-Buckett stole some of the things that I wish to speak about, and it's about long-term arrangements on council asset land and community passive activities, one that I don't want to discuss tonight. It's not appropriate, but I'd like— The staff's response where there is long-term arrangements with an organisation where it might be terminated for the purpose, you know, for an appropriate purpose, and the repercussions of that organisation and how Council might deal with that , where we've had a relationship for some time, I guess. And is it on-the-street type stuff, or are we looking to support in other ways or other places, those sort of organisations, whether, you know, and they could be a variety

Of things? I'll take your question. I think it may be difficult for staff to answer without being specific, because I'm sure that every organisation would have a different set of circumstances. Yeah, I'll just refer to the general manager. Yeah,

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think, as you've alluded to, it would absolutely be a case-by-case basis as to how we would deal with those. In some circumstances, you know, we may well look to find accommodation elsewhere or consolidate tenancies or land uses or something like that. And in other circumstances, we may not cancel. I guess what I can guarantee is if there was any of those sorts of circumstances in line with our existing protocols, it would be this chamber making those decisions, not that of staff.

Great, thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I think that this—I'm very keen to see the feedback that we get from this policy. Unfortunately, this is the dry back end, I think, of the policy. Unless you're a bit of a policy wonk, it's a dry old read in that it doesn't really refer to any particular place. It's a set of principles that will guide Council into the future. I think the use of it is that it should lead to far less potential for bias in decision-making, and that should be helpful. What I think is essential that we maintain, though, as a governing body, is the capacity to look at things on a case-by-case basis and make decisions that plug gaps where we have the capacity to do that. And I think, for example, the women's cottage is a classic case in point where provision of domestic violence services is not a local government responsibility, but when the tiers of government who are supposed to meet that responsibility fail, then Council has stepped into that void, and that's something we should be very proud of.

I would, I note that— That we currently provide the women's cottage free rent using our community sponsorship program, I don't think that's the best outcome long term because it doesn't provide security for the organisation. It provides them with better than they had, but it's still not enough, you know. And I think there will be cases that come to council, this council or the next council, where there is a specific need. And I think that's probably going to be a much more interesting part of our property policy development is when we get to that next tier, which is the action plan. And that's when we get to make a clear list of needs and wants, you know, that identification of what we need to have and what we can prioritise either the building of or the acquisition of.

And some of it will be really basic, like toilets in Windsor, you know, potentially commercial space that allows us to influence activity in main centres, which we've lamented with our work in the livability projects. Things like whether we have the capacity to influence social housing or the housing mix of, you know, better provision of one- and two-bedroom units, for example, fully accessible spaces that we lack, both housing and commercial spaces and community spaces. This is the stuff that actually would have been really helpful for us to have going into WestConnex, so that we had a better list—Western West, sorry—a better list of what we needed to provide in terms of community provision.

And I think that's going to be far more interesting than what we're about to put out for public comment. But I hope the public does engage with this because it's their land that we're talking about. And I think it's one of the holes in our capacity as decision makers that I'm not sure that we even know exactly what we own as a council, and whatever brings us closer to an understanding of what we are in control of. And what we can be providing that's missing, I think, is a good thing. So I hope people give us some input, and some of that input will probably feed into the next stages, and I hope we get that too. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No, I'll just make a couple of comments myself. I too am extremely excited by these policies, which, if you can get excited by policies, you know, that's an interesting thing too. But I think that we have been craving this direction as a council. We really need to have a framework set down that solidifies the property portfolio that we have, and then what we can do with that to look at generating other forms of revenue, but also filling the gaps in our community. Things—we know one of the biggest issues is addressing car parks in our town centres, and I think that this, having the strategy to back up any future decision that we make in this chamber for things like car parks or for potentially redundant assets or ways that we can be a little bit more creative to generating income, is going to be wonderful, and this provides that basis for that.

So I know they may seem boring to some people, but these documents are actually one of the most important things that we, as a council in this term, will be putting forward to be able to make some really tough and interesting decisions down the track. Anyone else wishing to make comments? No. Right of reply, Councillor Conolly?

No, I think everyone was just agreeing with each other, Madam Mayor.

You are spot on. Okay, thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.

The next item is 4.4.3, Draft Councillor and Staff Interaction Policy. Do I have anyone wishing to move something? I'll move that. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconder?

Councillor Wheeler. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll just be brief. Just , I think this is another essential policy because essentially it defines the various roles for local government to function in terms of staff and councillors. And I'm pleased to see the expanded list of authorised staff that councillors can engage with, to have that made clear. And I think I asked in the briefing, and I can't recall the answer , but there was one area that there's not a direct contact to, and that is around compliance. Will we have a direct compliance officer contact put into that, or are we to go through the Director of Planning?

Thank you, Councillor. Director of City Planning? Oh, sorry, General Manager.

At this stage, the intent is for that to be via the Director City Planning. Okay,

Thank you. I think it's interesting for the public to see how the councillors can engage through the Councillor Request System, which is the way that we pass on the things that people ask us to find out about, and to see this clarified within a policy because it is, as it states in section 6.5, it is a complex political environment. And it's not like a parliament, of course, there's no government and opposition. So there's 12 of us who are all representing the whole area, and that's, you know, we decide as a group what the resolutions and the plans and policies are. So there's no one person directing staff at all where to go through these channels, and— I think in an area where the council is a big employer of local people, and there's a lot of local people work with the council, for the council and their families.

And so, of course, as councillors, we come across these people in the community. So it's very, it's very important to have clear lines around what the interactions are to be. And this policy sets that out quite well. So thank you for that .

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I'll be supporting the policy, but I just wanted to make the point that I think it's important that whilst council trusts the general manager's decisions around that list of authorised contacts, I think it is important that we continue to empower and grow the management team in particular to enable councillors to have more direct contact with people when that's appropriate, because there's probably a few people in that list that I'll no longer speak directly to that I would have thought before this I could have. So I think where that's possible, it should be looked at as we go.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, when we had the briefing about this, and I'm glad to see the changes that were made from the briefing, and appreciate that , there was one that wasn't changed though, and I'll get to that in a minute. But the policy objectives is to establish effective professional work relationships between council and the staff. Essential. Enable councillors to work together appropriately and effectively support each other and the staff in the work they've got to do. The policy objectives are clear . When you read through the document, Dale,

The policy itself, the principles and responsibilities and the like don't truly reflect that interaction that I'd like to see. One can't operate without the other, nor should it. And I mentioned at the briefing, and I'll mention it now, where it says the councillor's request system,

I don't have an issue with most of it, except for the last line, where it says, This right does not extend to matters about which a councillor is merely curious. That bothers me, because I'm always curious. And as I suggested at the briefing, curiosity can easily be fixed in a very , you know, stand around a cup of coffee on a phone or whatever about some questions that might be asked that might lead councillors to a motion perhaps down the track or whatever, or a simple no might stop it. And rather than go into some detail in a request form and the like, and I think that it's appropriate from time to time that councillors should be curious in relation to, and I'm not talking about the workplace of staff or the like, I'm talking about opportunities within the community where the community, somebody might say, you know, is a councillor involved in that, and that might spark an idea or something.

That would further support the community in some way.

With the rest of it, I can understand it, and it's really up to the GM

How, I suppose, how sharp these positions are set, because in most cases they are flexible. And I can understand, with some of the frustrations over the last few years, why the policy is written like this. But when there's issues between staff and councillors, or indeed councillors amongst themselves, we should be big enough to be able to get over it. God damn. The community expect more of us, I think, than what we deliver. And to talk about a project amongst ourselves, possibilities, to enhance the community we live in, could start off from a curious perspective. And so I'd like the staff to think about how we might reword that in some way, that a simple question, as curious as it might be, might not be limited to, It's not good enough for a question.

We're an elected body, and we should be able to, I guess, approach an issue on reasonable ground. I'm not suggesting through an argument or something. I'm just talking about a civil conversation. And if you've got a relationship with the staff . And they tell you you're barking up the wrong tree. Well, you're probably barking up the wrong tree. But you could go to a lot of energy and put the staff to a lot of energy with the request that may not be necessary. So I would ask the staff to address that, and I'll support the motion. But, you know, I'm really a little bit uncomfortable that the policy itself

Doesn't truly reflect what I expect between staff and councillors.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm interested in Councillor Sheather's comments, and in part I think they interest me because Councillor Sheather has seen the evolution of council from being elected previously, and this is, I think, now a much more regulated environment with a much greater focus on both transparency, but also on corruption prevention. And I think that's where, to a degree, policies like this stem from. I come from a system with very clear chains of command and rules for interaction. They're very well understood, and by and large they are very well adhered to . So I find things like this fairly—I'm quite comfortable with situations like this, but... But I will say that for those systems to work well, they require two things: that those at the top of the chain uphold their responsibilities and don't abuse their power and influence.

And it's worth noting that it's us that are responsible for upholding those responsibilities, that junior staff shouldn't be put in a position where they have to say to a councillor, It is not appropriate for you to approach me about this matter. That's on us, not on the staff. It should always be on us and never on the staff. And that's particularly important in small communities where you bump into the staff all the time . The second thing that it requires, though, is very clear and equal access to information without bias or without the perception of bias. And I think that's much, much more difficult in a political environment. And I think this policy certainly helps with the first need.

I don't know that it will help with the second. I do have concerns about clause 9.1(a), where it says that the general manager can refuse information to councillors where it's not considered necessary for the carrying out of our civic responsibilities and is considered operational in nature. Now, as the elected representative, I would like to be the person who determines whether it's relevant to me carrying out my civic responsibilities. I'm the one who has to face the electorate, and I'm the one who pledges under the Local Government Act that I will both take in and consider sufficient information to allow me to carry out my role. I also have enough friends in local government to know, and I'm not making an accusation of this to this council, I'm looking at this policy as something that will sit here for a good decade, guiding the what happens for future councillors, and I may or may not be one of them.

But I have seen enough times the phrase, that's operational in nature and you don't get to know, used against colleagues of mine on other councils, where they have wanted a piece of information and they've had operational in nature used as the fob off. And I think that that's really problematic. There is actually, if you go through the Local Government Act, there is not a single time where that Act states that something is operational and can't be passed on to councillors. I'm happy for this policy to go out as a draft policy for public comment. I suspect it's one of those things where we're not going to get a lot of bites. I hope it comes back to us because, like Councillor Sheather, I have concerns about, I think the spirit of this policy is excellent.

I'm concerned, though, that it could be manipulated to withhold information from councillors who require it. Thanks.

Thanks, Councillor Wheeler. The General Manager will just respond to some of your comments.

Oh, to both of you, if that's all right, through you, Madam Mayor. So the essence of, so Councillor Sheather brought out— Clause 7.1. Clause 7.1 is actually directly related to clause 9.1A, because they both go to a right to information to exercise your civic functions, is the definition. And this particular subclause is drawn out, I think it's through the Local Government Act itself. Okay, that is set out in there, also through the model code of conduct and indeed Council's adopted code of conduct. So this isn't new. You're actually already covered and bound by this. And I will point out also that this, particularly 7.1 as well, is a model provision, as we've indicated in the report. A substantive portion of the policy that you've got before you is a model policy endorsed and promoted through the Office of Local Government as best practice for adoption for all councils in New South Wales.

Okay . So to the substance of the commentary around merely curious, I think that needs to be read in the context of the sentence or two above it, that again reiterate the provisions of the legislative framework in which we're operating. All of that said, Councillors, I don't actually envisage any change to the way in which our existing council requests are being managed operationally. So this is just us picking up the model and adopting that. And whilst we've got a system where we are, you know, in I think 99.9% of cases, more than happy to provide the information that Councillors are seeking, there will from time to time be circumstances of information requests by Councillors that would stray well outside of clause 7.1 and 9.1A, and that's the rare circumstance that I would see Council staff enacting those clauses.

Thank you. Any other councillors wishing to make comment? Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the councillors for raising those points, which are very valid. I think particularly Councillor Sheather's point is he's identified a gap that we have where we don't have any avenue to maybe introduce ideas about future projects or, you know, once we probably would have discussed at a committee or at a longer briefing or workshop or something. If somebody had ideas that they wanted to feed into something for a direction we could take or a project we could work on. So, but I don't know that that really fits into this policy necessarily. I think it's additional to this, and I think the policy wording is replicated in the other policies that we have similar to this, and I would always hope that, you know, it wouldn't just be an excuse that something was operational to not give information.

I don't suggest it is, and I don't suggest it ever would be. But again, I think it's a policy that is really valuable because it does give quite a good framework and make it very clear around the roles involved with the interactions.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, 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 motion carried.

The next item is 4.5.1, draft memorial policy. Councillor Conolly.

Thank you. I've sent a motion through to the staff earlier that I'd like to move.

I do recall all councillors were on that email. If anyone is happy to second that, please let me know. Thank you, Councillor Reardon.

I'll wait for that to come on the board, but if you'd like to start speaking to it, Councillor. Okay.

So the motion is that Council not adopt the draft memorial policy, and that the policy be amended to reflect its original stated purpose, which was to convey to the community the threshold for commemoration. I think there's a number of problems with the current policy, the current draft policy. This came up because when Council was considering whether and how to commemorate the late John Miller, it was brought to Council's attention that we really had no objective set of criteria to make that decision, or no criteria or guide at all. It was just up to Councillors to whether we wanted to, and therefore we recognised there was a gap, that we really should have an objective eligibility criteria that Council could then use to make decisions about who was worthy of commemoration, which is why the stated purpose of that policy was to convey to the community the threshold for commemoration.

What we got in this draft policy instead, it does have a small section on eligibility, but most of the policy is about a detailed set of rules around how, when, the application process, how it would be removed, all the nitty-gritty about commemorations, which I don't think is what Council was requesting, certainly not what I thought . I also think that, very clearly to me, a decision about whether to publicly commemorate someone based on their contribution, their civic contribution, should be made by an elected body. We shouldn't be delegating that kind of authority to a staff member, as is suggested in the policy, that we would make it the general manager's problem as to who should be eligible for small commemorations.

I don't think that's appropriate at all. I think if someone's made a contribution worthy of public commemoration, certainly their contribution is worthy enough to have a discussion at a Council meeting, and I think that the appropriate way for that to happen is by it to be initiated by a councillor, perhaps at the request of a family member, but it should be initiated by a council member by motion . The current draft policy also has no eligibility criteria for small, what we're calling small commemorations. So the idea being that anybody can decide that their family member or loved one was eligible for commemoration in a public space, and anywhere in the Hawkesbury that's public open space would then, if it fit in the rules of this policy, would then be open for anyone to put a plaque on every bench they can.

We can plant trees wherever it's appropriate. And I think it's clear that, I don't think there's a community expectation that anybody could have a public commemoration at all. I think the community would clearly expect that there would be some discernment applied to that kind of decision. The policy itself actually even mentions the possibility of reaching a saturation point in the public spaces, which I think is a little bit, if we think about what that means, it's a little bit silly. We're suggesting that we'd have so many plaques and trees on our benches and in our parks that we wouldn't be able to fit anymore. Is that really what anyone intended when we talked about a draft memorial policy ?

I also think it's quite distasteful and likely to cause a significant problem at some point or offence to have two different classes or ranks of commemoration and council to sit here and decide whether somebody's contribution is worthy of a large or small commemoration. I think that's clearly problematic. It's bureaucracy we don't need . And as a result of all those problems, I don't actually think this is a huge problem that needs solving right now. I think this is something in my time on council over the last 10 years, this has come up twice that I can remember. If council made a purely subjective decision once every five years, I think that's probably a better outcome than having this policy as it is right now.

If at some point we get the resources to do the policy again, well, we should, which is why I put that point 2. But from my perspective, having no policy would be a lot better than having this one.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak against the motion. I think there's, we've been through this. We did have a briefing where we discussed it at quite length, quite lengthily, and where we were concerned about having someone judge the worthiness of people, and therefore it was adjusted to agree with that. I think we did have the issue when we were discussing the memorial for the late John Miller, which we all agreed to proceed with. But there were other circumstances arose, and they were things where there was no guidelines at all. So, for example, for someone who had lost their life in a car accident, and the parents wanted to donate a seat in the area where that person used to enjoy to go, we had nothing to guide us on that.

Then we also had somebody who had lost somebody who used to like to go into a national park, and we had nothing to guide them into how they would remember that person. So I think that the, well, I would have to foreshadow another motion if this one lapses, because I think that it would be interesting to see what the community had to say. I don't think there's a lot of people running about. The cost of this falls to the person who wants to do it, and they still have to apply. So I don't think there's a lot of people running about who actually want to do it, unless it really is a contributing factor to their grief when they have lost someone, somebody. And sometimes, even though it will be quite a transient memorial in terms of it won't last there for a long time, such as the roadside memorials, or even the planting of a tree, which hopefully will last a long time.

But, you know, the plaque near the tree, the policy clearly says, the existing, the draft policy says that, you know, Council doesn't guarantee the longevity or the maintenance, you know, the replacement. of such things. Of course, there's various competing objects, factors to be considered around it, and I thought the criteria were quite indicative of who would be able to do it and who wouldn't. I do agree that the large memorials that are going to be permanently placed and are of a higher, bigger nature, you know, in a significant public place for people who have made significant contributions, I think that's very fair that that comes to Council for a decision. But I would hope it would never be politically manipulated to the point that somebody who wasn't of the same flavour as the dominant people in Council would be rejected if they had made such a significant contribution.

That would, yeah, be unfortunate. I think the general manager having the delegation for small requests is very pertinent and very good because we don't want to consider every single request that comes for a planting of a tree in an area, and because of the criteria and the accordance with these objectives that are listed there, then I would trust the general manager's decisions around who would be granted in doing that . I think it's a greatly improved policy on the one that we were initially shown, and I would prefer to see it move out to get public input into it. And because this motion before us actually suggests that we don't have a policy at all, I oppose the motion. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Sheather.

Yes, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, I read through the policy and.. . I thought it was quite well put together. In the time that I've been on council, it's probably half a dozen times that we've had people in the gallery , and I remember one not far from my place where there was an accident where there's a young child that passed, and the family put a roadside memorial there, right outside someone's house.

They were sitting in the gallery because they'd come to council. They were sitting in the gallery, a family crying over the loss of a child, and people there were saying, Memorial's great, but they didn't want it in their front yard, and that's exactly where it was . Those that watch the news may reflect on a golf course downtown somewhere where there's a whole family killed, and the issues that that caused. That council had no policy at all either . When someone passes, people deal with it differently , and this chamber is not the place to deal with those issues. We've got a place where there's the passing of a chap at Woorawa Forest in a public park. The residents around that park don't want it.

I suspect the people that sit under that tree do want it very much. Our staff have got to deal with that. It's inappropriate. If you walk past and have a look, you don't know what it is, but there's a lot of things that have been left there by the friends of the person that passed. Our staff has the ability to go out and discuss the best options and hopefully inform people around there what the situation is and what's suggested in this, that there's limited times in most of those places. On the other hand, with, like, the roadside and this park, two situations that I would not like to see a debate here amongst 12 councillors , where I think the staff could do it properly and appropriately. In relation to other memorials, like the seats and stuff like that, I don't see a big deal about it.

If someone's prominent in our community and needs to be reflected in that way, I'm sure that it would come before this chamber. So, Madam Mayor, taking into account that what we're talking about is extremely sensitive, that those are going to require the services of council to conduct their activity after an event like this, I suspect that Councillor Buckett's proposing the move , and I suggest that we support it.

Thank you, councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Madam Mayor . I'm not happy with this policy either . I've had mixed feelings about it, and I know we had a briefing, and we had a couple of briefings, and we discussed this

Issue. But because it's such an emotive issue. I've been going in so many directions, and I guess where I've landed is, is that I don't think it's appropriate to have personal

Memorials on public land. And I know that might sound a little harsh, but I could just see that , I

Can just see that this possibly getting out of hand. And whilst people say, Oh, there's only a few people that would want to do this, that that's not the way you should write a policy. You should write a policy that's clear from the outset, I guess .

I think that having two types of memorials is also problematic. I think we should stay out of this space entirely, and we do

Consider memorial — I won't get that out. If we do consider doing a memorial for somebody, that we do it as it comes to the chamber . I really don't think that it's appropriate

To have private memorials that cost somebody some money on public assets. And I think that if we start from possibly that direction, then we can maybe think of other ways that we can remember people and allow our— And give options for our community to do things that aren't necessarily about our infrastructure . I'll just leave it at that. I won't vote for this to be put on public exhibition. I think we need to rethink how this might pan out in the long term . And I'm happy to have those discussions. And this is not as simple as it seems. There are quite a few things and pitfalls that we have to consider now . And I think it's fair to our community that we have these appropriate sort of directions.

And that's where we make those decisions, that we won't go down the, you know, that's all right on a bench. You know, I can't imagine what it would be like to go to a seat in a public place and have, I don't know, what's the limit on a number of memorial plaques you can have on a bench? It just doesn't seem appropriate that a seat in a public area should be used for that purpose. I know people do it, but that's my opinion, and that's the way I think I'll be guided in this policy. Thank you.

Thank

You

Councillor. Councillor Conolly?

I was asking a question, just to clarify based on something that was said earlier, just to want to make sure my understanding is correct. I've read this policy and section 5.1 around the placement of small memorials. To read that — There is no criteria for who is eligible to have a plaque on a seat in a public space, that the only decision the staff would be making was around, you know, public amenity and the size and so on. Is that correct?

I'll refer to Director of Infrastructure.

Through you, Madam Mayor, that's correct. And the other prevailing criteria is that the person being memorialised or remembered has passed away, of course.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm happy for this policy to go out on public exhibition, so I'm speaking against the motion and hoping that we get to the foreshadowed motion. I hear other councillors' concerns about things that we could improve on in this policy, and we are quite able to do that whilst we put the policy out on public exhibition and take on the feedback from the community as well. And look, if that means that it goes to a second iteration out on public exhibition, then so be it. I'm not satisfied with us not having anything. I don't think that every decision needs to come to the chamber. I think Councillor Sheather has expressed very well the difficulties with people, usually when they're grieving, and even when they're out of that immediate grieving process, bringing it all back to talk about the person.

For some people, is fine, and people look forward to it. But in many instances, people find that incredibly traumatic, and they shouldn't necessarily have to go through that process. There is a trigger for this to come to the chamber. Councillors still have the capacity under this policy to bring something to the chamber for discussion in relation to a large memorial. The problem with not having a policy, well , I think there's several problems, but there's two big ones. If we stay out of this space, as has been suggested, we leave the staff with no guidance, which means that every person who comes with their idea, and these people who want to memorialise a particular individual are usually convinced that the person is the most righteous, upstanding and beneficial person.

They are heavily invested in these decisions. That's a lot for a staff member to have to deal with, with no policy guidance whatsoever. Now, whether that means that we need to insert in here some criteria in a similar way to the way we allocate grant funding under our grant policy, I'm comfortable with that coming back to us, but I don't think that that means that we stop the progress of this policy at all. The other problem with us not having any set guidance in this space and no policy is that we leave everything to the political realm. So that means that there's a real potential for bias, and it leaves memorials open to doing exactly what has been done in our history, where they, by and large, we memorialise people in positions of power, people with money, people who have influence, people's mates, and people who are working for fashionable or politically approved causes.

And I don't think that's a position that we want to be in either, because that's deeply problematic. And that's what leads to, for example, I don't know if anybody saw it, I've spoke about it in this chamber before, the change of street name in Hills Council, where it turned out that the person that a street, a prominent street in the Hills was named after, was actually responsible for systematic abuse of Aboriginal children in his care. Now, and that's taken years to get rid of that. The problem with having no policy and no guidance is that you leave that space open for a political vacuum to fill it. And I don't think that's a good position for council to adopt. So I would urge councillors to let this go out on public exhibition.

Let's hear from the public about what they think, because I think the people who want to put up memorials, and I'm not one of them, are likely to be the people who buy into this stuff. But , and if we want to make changes, if we want to add insert criteria into this for future use, then by all means do that. But leaving a vacuum, I don't think is any sort of leadership going forward.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Could

I just make just a point of clarification? I wasn't suggesting we don't have a policy. I was suggesting we have a policy that specifically says we don't allow any memorialising.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you

I am very genuinely on the fence about this. When I read Councillor Connolly's email, I thought his argument was lucid, and then I heard Councillor Sheather, and he's right. There's a real, genuine sensitivity that we need to be aware of. And this is a very rare occasion where the council engages in a debate about semiotics. In other words, the things that we invest meaning into. I do not share Councillor Kotlash's view that we should live in public spaces that are devoid of meaning, nor do I believe that government is the only authorised entity through which meaning is assigned. To a park bench, a tree, or another location

We've invested meaning in places for a variety of reasons throughout history.

One

Of the holiest objects in a particular religion is a meteorite. There are enough skulls of John the Baptist to put together four complete skeletons. They have meaning for those people, and in the same way, I think if somebody wants to memorialise a loved one or a person who's made a significant contribution, they should be allowed to do so within reason. And I don't know that what Councillor Conolly says is right in the sense that he's put this binary proposition, that this policy takes it totally out of our hands and makes it an organisational question to be adjudicated by staff. But I don't see anything in the policy that precludes Council or a councillor from initiating a discussion if a person makes a conspicuous contribution and requires some additional kind of memorialisation.

It doesn't exclude that. It simply provides a mechanism by which other people can memorialise a past loved one or a person who's made a particular contribution or who was associated with a particular place. And I think in the kind of world that we live in, those kinds of meanings are things that we should enrich our spaces with. So I think I've just convinced myself to oppose Councillor Connolly's motion and to look forward to the adoption of the policy.

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

Thank you. Just to clarify a point there

If you look at the— putting aside the fact that there is no criteria for small memorials, and it's not a decision really being left to anyone. It's a decision we're making right now— well, not right now, but if we adopt the policy, we're making the decision that anybody can have a plaque, and there is no criteria and no judgment on that . If you look at the criteria for large memorials , there's a whole lot of criteria that could easily be assessed, and, you know, we'd have total faith in it being assessed by a staff member. And then point six, whether the proposed memorial commemorates a person or group who made a significant contribution to the community, including to the cultural or social aspects of the development of the region, considering both the period of time dedicated and level of achievement.

If a council— if anybody is making a decision, a community decision about whether a person has made a contribution that meets that threshold, is that decision— should that decision be made by council or should that decision be made by a staff member? Because this policy says at the next clause, the general manager has the delegated authority to approve or refuse memorial proposals and may delegate this authority to other staff . Those big decisions about our large memorials and whether a person has met that threshold under this policy is being suggested to be delegated authority and made by somebody else, and I would say that's entirely inappropriate. If you disagree with me, and you agree that anyone should have a plaque and that's not an issue, and that there's no issue with having two different types of— two different classes of memorials and making a distinction between someone's entire life as to which class they fall in, then I think you should still have an issue with that, that we are delegating the authority to make a significant decision like that to a staff member rather than to the leadership of the community.

Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour of the motion as it appears on the board, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Sheather, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillor Zamprogno. Being six votes all, the motion is carried on the casting vote of the mayor. The next.

Item on the agenda, Councillors, before we go on to notices of motion, questions and confidential, is anyone wanting a five-minute break? Yes, can I have someone move that way? Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All in favour? Thank you, Councillors. Five-minute break. Actually, a bit over five. We'll come back at ten past nine. Thank you.

Thank you, councillors, and welcome back to tonight's meeting. We'll now move on with our agenda. Item 6.1.1, notice of motion, community batteries, Councillors Zamprogno.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Do I need to seek a seconder? Yes.

Thank you, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Zamprogno. Okay,

Thank you. And I've sent a mildly zhuzhed form of words, mildly zhuzhed form of words through to staff, based on some consultation with staff to improve the wording. And it is only mild, and I'll explain what the differences are. So this notice of motion is inspired by some research I was doing recently, when I myself have been looking into solar. Many households look into solar, and many also then contemplate the expense or value of getting a battery. And the general wisdom is, you know, if you add a battery, it can easily double the cost of a solar installation and put the return on your investment out from five years to ten years or more. But there's a middle ground. There's another alternative that's beginning to take hold, and it needs to be a part of our energy matrix, our energy infrastructure moving forward for a whole variety of reasons.

Firstly, the economies of scale, I think, are more compelling. Secondly, because it builds resilience into our grid, and we've spoken a lot about resilience in our community, and resilience in energy, I think, is something that we're really going to have to focus more on. I saw a story in the news just within the last week saying that this uneasy, awkward transition we're making from non-renewables to renewables could leave parts of Australia without power at increasing blackouts. So when I started to look into this, I realised that community batteries are something that we should be doing more in this space. And I'm not inviting you, my colleagues, to kind of take up something new or novel or expensive.

I'm asking us to give a little tickle to something that we've resolved in the past is desirable and is backed by a variety of documents and initiatives. And I've laid them out in the background paper, in the business paper. Certainly the Western Parkland City draft blueprint talks about community batteries specifically, and specifically in our area. Our own council's environmental sustainability officer was tasked in July 2021 to look into community battery programs, and I think that if it's been more than two years and we haven't heard anything concrete, it's entirely appropriate to bring a notice of motion to say, hey, look, things are moving in this space, and I think council could be doing more.

The form of words that I've put up here reflect , after consultation with staff, the fact that there are already some programs that are active. For example, the Labor Party made an election commitment to fund $220 million worth of community batteries, 400 or more locations around Australia, and one is scheduled for Hobartville. Council's had nothing to do with that, and I'm not sure that residents had much to do with that either. I don't know how that location was chosen. Our operator here in this area is Endeavour Energy. What's seeming to be happening is that operators like electricity providers get these grants, and then they go out to the community and try and find locations where these could go.

And I'd like to think that council could have more to do in this space. Integral Energy, when they got their share of this funding, went out and asked councils, and I'm looking here at a website where Canterbury-Bankstown Council, Lake Macquarie Council and Northern Beaches Council, working with Ausgrid, Integral Energy, were invited to participate in how that funding that they've acquired could be spent in their LGAs. Well, our provider is Endeavour. Although I might say, whenever the power goes off at home, Mum says that we should call Prospect. She probably sends her cheque for the phones to the Postmaster-General's Department as well. But there you are. There's money sloshing around for this.

I'm looking at another website. The Australian Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water have a huge funding program, and the funding opens 13th of October 2023. If people are interested in community batteries, how can they register their interest? Where do they even start? Do they go to their provider? Do they go to the federal government? Do they apply for a grant themselves? Councils should be doing more, and we're being invited to do more in this space. So the purpose of this notice of motion is to give a kick along to something that we've already given our in-principle agreement with. It asks us to partner with organisations that are alive in this space, like Endeavour Energy and Wesroc.

It asks the question whether council could be doing more to act as the meeting point, the crystallisation point, the catalyst for community battery programs. So if a group of residents in a particular locality say, Yes, we'd love to do this, but we don't know where to start, council can facilitate that process and see what sources of funding there are, and we can build some resilience into our energy grid. This is a starting point for our discussion, and I'll close there and invite further discussion.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Calvert, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I endorse this notice of motion from Councillor Sam Brogno. I think it's great that we're going to look at this, but I have a few problems with how we're going to go about it. If you think about the electric vehicle charging stations, for example, what's tending to happen right at this very moment is that private companies are looking for places to put them, and the places they're going to put them are where they can make the most money. So what you've got is areas that are far-flung, which don't have as many customers, won't get the service. And we saw that happening with phone towers in the original days. If you lived around, I suppose even today, if you lived around a large centre, then you got access to the phones.

If you lived out in Colo Heights, you didn't. Now, I don't know how we address that, but I would like to think, and I noticed in the original motion in point two, you talked about the placement of community batteries, and in your new motion you've left that out. So I would like to know, Councillor Sam Brogno, whether we can reinsert something about looking at locations that provide equitable outcomes for the community, or something like that.

I can clarify on your indulgence, Madam Mayor. That's fine, Councillor. Yeah, that changed because that original point referred to our LEP, and then council staff informed me that it had nothing to do with our LEP. It was the Infrastructure SEPP, and the Infrastructure SEPP overrode us and set the criteria and how you pick a location. I agree. That our planning instruments should be worded in such a way as to welcome these investments. And I don't know whether we could reinsert a clause that insists that any subdivision, any development in an area, particularly what we're contemplating in Glossodia or in Pitt Town and the remainder of Redbank, makes room for community batteries. But that's why I'm initiating this discussion.

I wasn't suggesting that we be prescriptive. I was suggesting that we have conversation about it, because the motion you've got here doesn't talk about the location. So I'm only asking whether we can put that back in in some form that doesn't have to be associated with the LEP.

If the councillor wants to propose a form of words, I'll welcome it.

I thought you'd say that. I'll have a think about it.

Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Veigel.

Ah, yeah, community batteries. I simply don't know enough about it, albeit they are expensive and there's a number of models you can go with this. You can either partner or council goes and buys it, but you need to get something back in return. What I can understand, and this needs to be clarified, you charge the battery with excess solar, for those who have solar panels on the roof. So what do you do with those who don't support the battery within the community, who don't get that benefit? And what do you charge back? It's affirming, I guess it's supposed to stabilise the grid and firm it, whereby the grid is becoming... Less stable because we haven't got firming power, and we won't have firming power for a long, long time.

Lithium, as soon as you switch lithium on, right, it starts to heat, and you can see the efficiency scales going down very, very quickly. And there will be a cost to community, and it'll be ongoing for 15 years in perpetuity. While staff up, you'll come back, and you can get thermal overloading, and you can get issues. I simply don't know what's being asked here, whether we should be. Probably I think what you're asking, Councillor, is let's go and investigate it and see whether it's worthwhile for interest. And I kind of accept that. I'm not convinced there's a return on investment on community batteries. I accept the notion that putting a battery on a house is completely non-viable. It just doesn't pay, not within 10 years to 15 years, because they will fail at the type of price they are asking for at the moment.

If it means sustainability, maybe we should push it over to sustainability and have somebody to investigate it more and bring more information back to Council. That's what I think. Okay.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also welcome this. It's been a long, a long time. We've been discussing with known community batteries have been in existence for some time, originally started off by community cooperatives who invested to have them installed. And I welcome that this is a very rapidly evolving space. There's a lot going on in this area. And at the same time that we're still speaking about that, of course, there have been very rapid advancements in the availability of household batteries to connect to your solar as well. So I think that we need to get this information. I do recall when the announcement, I was at the announcement of the community battery for Hobartville, and Hobartville was selected due to its big uptake of solar in a system that had a gridded system.

So to put a community battery to make it viable, it needs to be in an area, of course, where there's enough houses already connected to solar to make it worthwhile. And to do that. The other day I was listening to Michael Reagan, who some of you may know, who's the former mayor of the Northern Beaches and now an independent MP in the parliament. And he was speaking about what he and some other independents were going to be bringing forward around the space of initiatives to deliver individualised batteries to households and the combined solar and battery packages through interest-free loans for people to be able to connect and get underway. He had figures, and of course I can't remember them offhand, but they were extremely viable in terms of what it would cost the government over 10 years, which would be simply to have loaned the money, getting it back without interest.

But this was of great assistance with the baseload power issues that— that are possibly projected, and the reduced costs, of course, to consumers of their electricity. So I think there's a lot in this space we could be looking at. The household batteries. I don't know if anyone's been to Michael Mobbs' house in Chippendale, but he has a sustainable house that's completely off-grid, and he lifts up his floorboards, and underneath, he's got this construction of a whole lot of what look like car batteries to me, which are all connected up, and they actually provide enough power. So with innovation, we can either move down into what individuals do or, as Councillor Zampronio has suggested, look at the viability of community batteries.

The unfortunate thing in our area is how remote many of our people are. And so even if you've got quite a bit of solar on your roof, if there's not other people who are close enough, the costs to put the connections and so on will outweigh the benefits that you'll get from that. But I think it's very worthy to be looking into. Something else I'd also like, while there's just an opportunity to raise something, and I don't know if Councillor Zampronio would be happy to add to it, but there are also now available, I don't know how to describe them, but they're water filtering systems that are also power banks, and they are solar-powered. Move on a trailer, and you unfold the solar panels to do their thing, and then you can set up a power bank for emergencies, so for remote area.

It would be really good if we could investigate this because it would solve many of the issues we had around St Albans with the issues around the water cartage, and that wouldn't give big volumes of water, but enough for people to survive. So I'm just wondering if—I know it's a different thing. It's not that —I'm happy to bring it back as another notice of motion, don't worry. It's just we don't, as you know, we don't always have opportunities to raise these potential things to follow up, and I think it was a very valid solution along the same line as providing a community with some sort of power source, not huge, but enough to— In times of emergency when we do lose power. Anyway, I'll do that, and I'm happy to get more information back about community batteries.

They work well in some places. In other places, I think they have limitations around the grid and how, as I think Councillor Feigl brought up about, you know, sometimes about the viability and the longevity of them. So.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm still hoping that the— I'm hoping that the Deputy Mayor has some words around equitable placement. If he doesn't, I'll foreshadow an amendment. I haven't got any words either because I was waiting for you to think them up before I used my own brain. I

Do have some words if you'd like to hear them

I'm happy for that, Deputy Mayor.

What guidelines can be introduced to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of community batteries within our LGA?

I'm happy to accept that as a point five.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett as the seconder. Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor, and thank you to the Deputy Mayor. I think that's helpful. I think it will be complicated, and I think, you know, equity is one issue. Increased resilience and vulnerability, I think, is the other major issue that I hope we can address. We had an interesting presentation down at the Australian Local Government Conference from Saul Griffiths about electrification, and I spent probably too much time today reading his book on— and his thesis basically is that we should electrify everything and get off gas in particular, in part because electricity is much more efficient as a power source. And also that gas is an incredibly damaging fossil fuel, particularly in its mining. And there is no real environmentally sound alternative to gas.

So whereas we can produce electricity through renewable sources that don't have the same impact, this council's been ahead of the curve on renewables on a number of initiatives, and we've seen the financial benefits from that. And yet street lighting under the Westrock program is one of them. I can't count the number of councillors, councillors on other Western Sydney councils who didn't take up the streetlight program, who said to me, I wish we'd done that when it was offered. You did it, and look how much money it saved you. And, you know, and I just look smug, as you do occasionally. We've also put solar panels on our buildings relatively early, and we took on a power and electricity agreement that meant that our electricity was supplied from renewable sources.

And the added bonus of that was that it saved us a lot of money at the time.

This is an interesting LGA in that our power has traditionally been quite unreliable. I lost power at my place for about four hours the other morning. Of course, it was the four hours that I was going to spend doing all the things that required power. And I had to go to the garden, and everybody came out in Wilberforce and wandered around because nobody had any electricity. Those of us with gas stoves went, Yay, you know, we're fine. But I think, you know, that batteries and firming up grid supply for electricity in vulnerable areas is the missing link to getting everybody off gas. I know, you know, when it happened to me, I thought, Well, right, that's all. I'm not shifting. I'm not dumping the gas stove because I can at least make a cup of tea.

But batteries are the game changer there. This has already been done in various places. Western Australia has microgrids with solar and battery. It's become much cheaper and more reliable, and they've worked on a modular strategy. There are estimates that full household and vehicle electrification will be cost effective by 2025. But getting that power out of the grid will be the key thing. There are pilot electrification projects, and what they show is that people become much more conscious of their power use. The advantage of microgrids and community batteries is that it encourages economies of scale and sharing, which means that people who use power at different times can all benefit from that power.

There is a community grid going into Borl Point, down on the south coast, in partnership with Endeavour Energy, as a bushfire resilience strategy. If you're home and you're using the electricity that you're generating, great. If you're not, your neighbour next door can use that power, or it charges up the grid that everybody's connected to. It means less batteries, less solar panels, less resources going in, and less money that has to be spent. So the idea really makes sense from an economic point of view. But we need to work out which levers we press, because if we leave this to the market, it'll be like everything else in this space. Suddenly, nothing will happen. The big electricity companies are doing this because they've basically been pushed by other tiers of government.

We need to make sure that we're controlling how this happens in our LGA so that we get the most benefit from it, both in terms of saving money for our residents, but also making a resilient grid that makes us disaster ready. This is consistent with our climate risk mitigation strategies.

Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the notice of motion? Deputy Mayor?

Could I just add one point, is that Blacktown Council has just recently put in a battery at Bungarribee near the Blacktown Zoo, and perhaps we should talk to them as well and see how that operates and whether that can be adopted to our area.

Thank you very much. Right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.

Thank you, and that was a very fruitful and collaborative debate. We're not doing this because we're just greenies that want to introduce some kind of top-down environmental boondoggle. We're doing this—well, one of my colleagues may be—but we're doing this because it's entirely sensible. This technology has arrived, and the economies of scale, I think, are compelling. And I think if Council can play a role where people are genuinely interested but they don't know where to start, we'll let them come to Council and we'll say, Oh, if you've got a group of, you know, 20 houses in a particular street in a reasonably built-up area where a proportion of them have solar and may want to leverage that and get a community battery where they couldn't contemplate an individual battery on each house, then let us advocate to our partners, whether it's an electricity provider or a network operator like Endeavour, apply for the relevant grant funding that could make that much cheaper, and then go for it and become an exemplar in this area, because we are an area that badly needs more resilience, and energy resilience is just a part of that process.

So I commend it to you.

Thank you. All those in favour, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargo, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. Councillor Dogramaci. I'll start again. Councillor Dogramachi is absent

From the room. I declare

The motion carried.

The next item is 7.1.1, response to questions with notice. Are there any comments, councillors? No, thank you very much. Item 7.1.2, responses to councillor questions taken on notice at the Council meeting of the 8th of August.

Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. Sorry, I was too slow on the buzzer for 7.1.1, but I'll deal with that when it comes to the briefing. In relation to committees, and I know this was my question, can I just suggest that we look at Blacktown Council as a model? They bring the Hawkesbury River County Council minutes to council meetings, so they may have some other solutions to that question.

Thank you, Councillor.

With no further comments, can I have someone move that we go into confidential. Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour? Carried. We'll move into confidential session now. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillors. We are back in open session, and I'll refer to the General Manager to read the motion approved in the confidential session. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. In regards to Item 8.4.1 regarding waste management facility capping of the landfill, whilst in closed session, the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Kotlash, that Council, one, does not proceed with Portion B for capping Council's waste management facility based on the original landfill design contract T00112, design and construction of a leachate system, construction of Cell 6 and capping of Cells 1 to 5. Point two, receive a future report on the outcomes and strategic guidance provided by the Beyond 2026 Strategic Review. For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Djuric, Kotlash, Lyons-Buckett, Vargel, Reardon, McMahon, Sheather, Wheeler and Zamprogno. Absent for the vote was Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, General Manager. That concludes tonight's meeting. I again thank a majority of my colleagues for their support for the next 12 months, and congratulate the Deputy Mayor on his re-election. You're a great teammate to have, Deputy Mayor, and thank you for your support. And that's the end of the meeting, concluding at, just getting it right, 9.46 or 7 from the clock up here, 9.47. I'm going to have to get a digital clock down here. We'll make it at 9.47. Thank you, and good night.