This transcript and its speaker attributions were generated with AI assistance and may contain errors. Speaker names may be corrected in later releases. It is provided for search and accessibility; the official Council minutes remain authoritative.
Good evening everyone. I'll call the gallery to account please, thank you. We're starting our meeting, thank you. Good evening and welcome to Hawkesbury City Council's meeting for the 13th of August 2024. I'd like to welcome those who are attending in the gallery tonight and also via online streaming. Thank you for that. 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 will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I would also like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve 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 and live stream 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 gallery can be seen in the live stream video. If you do not wish to be recorded in the live stream, please move into the foyer and we will turn the foyer speakers on for you. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system and uploaded to Council's website. 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 you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting.
This request relates to both your address to Council and in any answers given in response to questions from Councillors. Finally, it is also requested that any person participating in or attending the meeting this evening has their mobile phone, can you please either turn it off or switch it to silent. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thank you, General Manager. There are no official visitors to acknowledge tonight, although I would like to just pay tribute to two Councillors who are not standing again for re-election, and that is the Deputy Mayor Barry Calvert and former Mayor Patrick Conolly. I think it's prudent that we thank you for your service to this community and to the Hawkesbury and wish you well in your future endeavours. I can see that all Councillors are here, so there's no apologies to note. Yes. Oh, thank you. Yes, thank you, former Mayor. Nice to have you in the gallery. Thank you so much for your attendance. Okay, declarations
Thank you. Can I have a confirmation of the minutes from the last meeting? Councillor Reardon, seconded. Councillor Kotlash. 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 Zamprogno. I won't be voting as I was not present at the meeting.
Thank you, Councillor. You can turn your light off and wait till we finish moving the minutes. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor, it's not going to happen tonight. We're going to be respectful to one another. Thank you. Thank you very much. I declare the minutes of the meeting carried. Item subject to public address. Or did you wish to— your light's not on, Councillor. Do you know the rules of how the chamber works? Yes.
Yes. I wish to move an item of urgent business to make a case for urgency. And since you are the person under the discussion , I think that you should recuse yourself and let the Deputy Mayor take the chair. So
Councillor, again, because I know that you're not up to date with how the Code of Conduct works, you can't ask another councillor to recuse themselves.
Councillor, you haven't even stated what your case is yet for me to be able to make a decision. So what you need to do, you've asked for a motion of urgency. Now you need to say why, and it is a breach of the code for you to tell another councillor to
Recuse themselves. Well the last time, last time I made it quite clear that I didn't need a seconder. So, because you are the person under the discussion, I think that you should be kind enough to leave the room.
Again, Councillor, I remind you under the Code of Conduct, you have breached the Code of Conduct again by demanding that another Councillor leave the room. Okay
Do that. And it's a shame you didn't ask before for me to tell you that, but I'll tell you now. Please. You want to move a matter of urgency, you have to firstly explain what the motion is that you want to move. Without mentioning anything about why you want to move it, without mentioning the name of the person you're moving it against, just what the motion is. And secondly, you then have to explain to me why that motion is urgent. As the chairperson at the moment, I get to decide whether I think it is urgent or not. If I think it is urgent, we will debate the issue. If I don't, we won't. And that's the rules, and those rules don't just apply to you; they apply to me. I've got to follow those rules.
Last time I followed the rules and got accused of blocking you. I'm not blocking you. I'm just following the correct procedure, okay? So can you firstly tell me what it is, the motion that you want to move, please? Certainly
I will do that. Thank you very much for your explanation. I appreciate it, and I'm still learning. Now , please do not interrupt me like you did last time. I will interrupt you if you don't stick to the procedure. Yeah, regardless of that, you know, I'll just carry on. The procedure is—
The motion is that the mayor is not suitable to represent us, the 70,000 people, for what she has done. And you are an extraordinarily knowledgeable in this matter, in council matters. However, you are not a magistrate or a judge. Since 7th of August 2024 at 12:17, 27 p.m., something came up, and I spent a good amount of money and time. I'll read it to you, and then you make a decision. What
Yes. Tell me why it's urgent. It's urgent because this is the last meeting and we'll be on caretaker mode. We want to clear this mess before we don't know who is going to be elected. We don't want to leave this burden on the new councillors. You
And I rejected it because there was still another council meeting to go and you could have brought it to this meeting and put it in the business paper. The fact that you didn't put it in the business paper says to me that you didn't think it was urgent. And now here you are after the business paper is printed telling me that it's still urgent. If it was urgent, why didn't you put it in the business paper?
Well, let me read it. I'll read it anyway. Convince me that it's urgent. It is an indictable offence under the Local Government Act 2020 for councillors to intentionally misuse their position to... Councillor Dogramaci... and a
It was urgent, you would have put it in the business paper. The fact that you didn't do that says to me... Well, it doesn't matter. You've had a couple of weeks to put it in the business paper. This
CP - Liveability Project - Windsor Town Centre Stage 1A and Stage 2
Sarah McMahon
Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Okay, the item first subject to public address is item 10.3.1, Livability Project Windsor Town Centre Stage 1A and Stage 2. The first registered public speaker is Darren Peat.
Good evening, everybody. First of all, I'd like to thank the Council staff and the Councillors for allowing me to speak tonight. It's not the first time I've been here speaking on this matter, but I'm more than happy to be here speaking on this matter again. Before I address the points in the business paper, I'd just like to also thank the Council staff and Councillors for the single best thing that has happened in Windsor in the 19 years that I've been running a business in Windsor, and that is the reconnection or re-operation of the gas lamps in the Windsor Mall. Windsor has the biggest network of gas lamps in the country, being 25, and they've been working for the last several months, and they have turned out to be a very good and popular attraction to bring people to Windsor.
And I've seen more people in Windsor over the last several months taking photos, looking at, sharing, talking about the gas lamps in the Windsor Mall. So the fact that those gas lamps are now operating as gas lamps is an outstanding achievement, I believe. And one that's going to definitely help the economy of Windsor and help the businesses of Windsor. And I do own three businesses in the Windsor Mall, and I'm saying stuff that, you know, I've got the proof that these gas lamps are bringing people to Windsor because my businesses are showing the benefits of having the gas lamps in Windsor. And the other thing that shows that Windsor is on the right track is currently in the Windsor Mall, there are only two buildings vacant for lease.
That is, there's more than two vacant, but there's only two buildings in the Windsor Mall that are currently for lease, one of them being the old National Australia Bank building, and the other one is a small, a very small shop opposite Simon's Cafe. There are three other major buildings that are currently under refurbishment, being Lower House, the shop next to the Fitzroy Hotel. They've currently been refurbished, and the Fitzroy Hotel has just been sold in the last couple of weeks. So I'm positive that something good is going to come from the Fitzroy Hotel. So I often hear Windsor's dying, Windsor's dead, Windsor's this, Windsor's that, but I can assure you that Windsor is far from all of those things.
Could Windsor be busier, and could it have more visitors? Absolutely, 100% guaranteed. And I'm personally, through my own money and my own businesses, and working with the other businesses in Windsor, I'm doing everything I can to promote Windsor and attract more visitors to Windsor. But I just wanted to thank the council staff and the councillors for the work that's been done so far in Windsor. It's been an outstanding effort, and I'm looking forward to that continuing on in the future. Now, getting to the point that's in today's business paper, the Windsor Liveability Project. I've read through the document thoroughly. There's three options being put forward tonight. I must admit, I'm not overly— Thrilled about any of those three options, because it's not what we have been working towards for the last five years.
But out of the three options, Councillor Sheather is putting forward a slight amendment to option number two, and I just want to say that I fully support Councillor Sheather's amendment to option two tonight. And I just want to see the Windsor Liveability Project done and dusted and benefiting everybody that comes to Windsor and benefiting the businesses in Windsor by June next year. So if Councillor Sheather gets the support tonight, we just need to make sure that that project is implemented by the end of June next year, and it's going to be the best outcome that's possible at this point in time. So that's all I've got to say, but we're definitely on the right track in Windsor, but we need to get along with this liveability project and get it finished because it has been very frustrating taking this long.
But, you know, we've got less than a year and we can get the job done. So thank you.
Most of you know me. It's been five years. Unlike the previous speaker, I don't get a bloody cent out of this, so I can be bloody bold. But like the previous speaker, who is a genius at finding out what is world best practice and... Countless times in the year has gone overseas to see what that is, and bring it to bear here. That pretty much makes him unique. I'd like to begin with this invitation . The Lady Mayor of Paris is the first lady mayor in the history of Paris saying something. I'm going to quickly say this because I want to conclude with it. I want you to, and this is leaning towards option two and Les Sheather's work, but imploring every councillor to consider , will you dare say to the First Lady Mayor of Paris, which is Anne Hidalgo, you know, Nous sommes la troisième plus ancienne ville d'Australie.
Venez visiter notre rue de George. Would you like to come to our George Street? And you will see, I know that in three minutes I will be buried by the 10,000 words of all the other things you've got on your mind. Do we dare say, just as we are in sport and we beat you, as you may well know, with our 18 gold medals, yes , we are aiming for the highest quality. I think that echoes a bit of what Darren said about option this, option that. The best of a mediocre uppercase M bunch is two. But let's not kid ourselves. Let's go on with this. If Mr Ian Jack was here, I'd like to begin as I have in the past, those beautiful five words: Old Windsor has suffered dreadfully. And he goes the ten better.
This is all a great pity because Windsor deserves better. Then can I quote Greg Hansel, who spent an hour and a half with me going up and down every line of trees. And I may say that of the four times a day that I do that, I think Mr. Sheather has done that more than everyone else combined. If I'm wrong, tell me, tell me, okay? But this is what he says in the one sentence of many, but time will allow for one. In reference to the mass planting of the crepe myrtle trees in George Street, Windsor, this is a great choice because of the visual beauty in the document of 240 pages today, you will not see the word beauty, nor the 700 pages of the previous three months. I get it, you're all overworked.
I get that, and we salute that, but that's where we come in. When you don't have the highest quality, let's call it Olympic quality, and I bloody well will, applied to this, you don't get the Olympic standard. I'd like to quote—we're talking about previous leaders —how about Councillor Michael, who said, There'll be no ugliness in the mall, and the mall will contribute to the history of the town. How does anything that is planned in the mall contribute to the history, given that when I look at the budget, 90, 95 percent could be done in Chatswood, East Lakes, Bondi Junction. I invite anyone to question that. Now, we'd like to mention this. The comments received to the council have been regarding trees—this is trees—and we'll touch quickly on the mall.
One of the benefits of the option two is that small details, they're worth 20 seconds only. You don't plan a Callistemon even though that's in the plan next to a water feature because it sheds constantly. On the other hand, if you plan a crepe myrtle, they only shed— These are small details that we're going to pass over, but we continue down the wonderful, wonderful thing, and now we segue into the congratulations. Everybody who's been involved, and some of you on the staff have been, congratulations to everyone involved to the beautiful, beautiful, long-awaited crepe myrtles. And where did they appear? They finally appeared next to, according to Council's own study, the outstanding, significant grove of crepe myrtle trees that are there that surround the Boer Memorial.
So rather than continuing, and so great credit is due to them, the very much taller, twice the height of this room, brush box, which would be L-O-C-K all the five times a year, Mayor Sarah, Susan Templeman, and the others appear there, and many of you, they will not be blocked. They will instead be enhanced because crepe myrtles have appeared, so there's a double benefit. They've enhanced what Council says is outstanding in terms of the grove of trees. They don't block it, but they pave the way to say, can we not continue those? We note that two-thirds of the trees in South Windsor—
Okay, yes, and we'll close with this, and that is that two-thirds of the trees, and so we close with a final thing. Do you dare say to the Mayor of Paris, Nous sommes le troisième plus ancien ville d'Australie, veni, visiter notre rue George. Do you dare?
Thank you very much. Thank you. I don't know whether you would agree with me or not, I'm not an expert on trees. Now the project, you know, has gone. I don't know whether we run out of money or not. When you mentioned brush, box trees, do you agree with me that in my limited time that I investigated, when they have the seeds dropping, am I correct to say that rats would be attracted and we'll have flying foxes will coming and they may attack residents around the area? And what would happen when they start, you know, dropping their feces? Do you think that, you know, we made a wrong decision on that particular trees instead of replacing every single one of them with crepe myrtle?
Well, thanks for that. Everyone is in favour of bird-attracting trees. Down there by the station, there are eight more that have gone in as of three days ago. What a wonderful place for them, as also the great parks on Macquarie and the rest of it. However, as we get closer to the mall, you do note that there are businesses that have outdoor tables. The truth is, according to the Royal Botanic Garden, I don't think I know these facts, you don't get disease unless you are bitten by a flying fox. However, it is undoubted, and many of the people in St Matthew's had a good meeting with me about this, which is the South Creek had an infestation. And because they are an endangered species, I say woe betide the council if two or three of those decide to come at some time and nest in the mall. This can I shall give you to
Is that a good enough answer? And they attract rats and pigeons and possums. Perhaps not the best thing as you approach the food service areas. So you should
If they stop now, answering shortly, then this is the logical thing. But keeping in mind two thirds in South Windsor, and there's 125 to 109 trees, I'd like to think people follow these stats, I do. That leaves there should be 60 or 70 or 80, which would give us the only flowering crepe myrtle boulevard in the country, in a historic area. Do you think
Do I have someone wishing to move that way, please? Thank you, Councillor Conolly. Oh, sorry. I thought I saw you touch your light. Sorry. Councillor Sheather?
It states the Council: one, downscale Stage 2, being the mall to a paving-only precinct project; two, not proceed with Stage 1A, being Thompson Square; and three, remove and replace the appropriate trees in the mall. The trees that propose hazards in the way of tripping or maintenance of the paved area. Or bring a report back to the next meeting of Council covering: A, the cost of the works above; B, a total costing of the Windsor project being from the railway station to the end of the mall — that's the far end I'm talking about; C, that a monthly report on the project and the plan; and D, that the proposed project above be planned to finish no later than the 30th of June 2025. Yeah
Thanks, Madam Mayor. In reading the report, it's disappointing, but the project's been going on for a long time, and so it's not surprising. Option one is to go ahead with the project as been proposed to date, which is a bit of a problem because there's issues even within that that we spoke of the other night informally and within the business paper that would still cause frustrations , excuse me . And on top of that, it's unlikely we'd finish by that date. And on top of that, there's an assumption that we would have to take other works from capital works programs to finish funding it.
I can't support that. We've got a job to keep up with our capital works program now to take it out and move onto a project that we've been working on for many years and that we've got into a situation where it's run over budget. I'm not prepared to cut back on other projects. So that's a problem. And option three is not to do anything. To stop the project, and that certainly doesn't sit well either. Two is proposed to do the paving only and go on with stage 1A, which is Thompson Square. Thompson Square, there's not a lot to be done there, and with what is proposed, or has been proposed in the past, I think we should be working into a works program into the future to do that. The community expect the mall to be done and done well, and in the main, the paving's been the problem through all the discussion of everything.
And over the last three or four years, the paving's got to the stage where parts of it that was a problem is a lot of it now is a problem, and it's a liability in the sense of tripping and the like. So to move forward with the repaving of the mall, and what I've put in there about remove and replace with appropriate trees in the mall, the trees that pose a hazard in the way of tripping and maintenance for the paved area. I've written that on the basis that maybe not all trees have to be removed, but the ones that are going to be a problem with any works done up there into the future to get back to what we've got today with tripping and even the drainage problems that create, the trees that create the problem.
We've got water puddles up in there, and there is appropriate drainage, but the trees have created a lift in the pavers that's causing water delay in there. And not only that, the main trees that are the problem are the plane trees. As beautiful as they are, I don't think anybody wants to see them go, but it's not the practical place for them. Apart from the— What's on the ground with the tripping and paving lifting, the pollen that comes off them when they drop their seeds is creating a problem not only for the shopkeepers, from the people who frequent the mall. So there's an issue with them. Some of the other trees, you know, as I said, might be able to be left there. And in relation to the furniture and the rotunda, and even the water wheel, there's works to do on that and, you know, they don't have to be all done at once.
And I think in the scheme of things that if some of those projects are taken on at different times, it will help to enhance the atmosphere of the mall, as those things are enhanced, so that when people come, they see regular changes to beautify that part of town. So, Madam Mayor, I would ask the councillors' support. We need to move forward on this. I know that Thompson Square is an issue; it's the lead into town. But again, we might be able to do something just within our maintenance program to clean that up if it needs it. I don't know that we've fallen out of a tree that it's a problem. So at this stage, to move on with the project, I'd ask councillors' support of the proposal that's before them now.
Thank you. Now, I'm— Questioning my grip on reality a little bit, I would have sworn that the original proposal was to focus on the paving in the mall, and then we came here on one of the many times it was changed and had a huge push from business owners in Windsor and some councillors not to pave the mall because it wasn't an issue and there wasn't a liability. There's hardly any trip hazards and it was fine. And now we're getting to a point where each time we've changed this, we've come up and said, look, we're going to end up losing this, you're going to end up stuffing this whole project up. We're now at a point where the department's actually told us, they've told us point blank, you've only got to 30 June 25, which is quite reasonable for a project that was due in April 2022.
And we think we should go and get another report and change the whole thing again, wait for a council election, brief the new council, see what they think, we're going to get a new scope, we're going to go out to tender, and we're going to do that work in the six months to 30 June 2025. That's insane. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but that is just nuts. You cannot possibly be thinking of changing this again. We have changed it every single time we thought about it. The worst part of that motion, I think, is the suggestion that it should be reported to Council monthly, because it'll be changed every single month. You'll never get anything done. Every time we've considered it, we've then changed the scope again.
We've got to just do it. It's literally now a few months away. It's 30 June 2025. You cannot go and re-scope it, come back to Council with a new plan on doing different things, and expect that it's going to be done by 30 June 2025. We've said it over and over again, but we actually just have to do it. So I put the recommendation in the business paper, I think is the way to go.
That's not correct, Councillor. To fund. Point three says note that if Council officers determine there is insufficient project funding, so that is note that if, that's identified in the future, then that would be asked of the Council.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm seconding Councillor Conolly's amendment because, like him, I just thought to suggest an option to only do the paving is mind-blowingly perplexing. The original opposition to this whole thing was the paving. The reason we've had delays for years was about the paving. And I mean, and then we've got an option to just do the paving. I mean, it really is insanity. I just really find it mind-blowing that we've wasted all those years, that everything costs so much more now, and now you want to do the paving. I think this came about in 2018 when the livability projects were funded by the Federal, State and local governments across Western Sydney to support local character, wellbeing and belonging in communities.
The objective was to enhance the livability of public spaces, and the resolution from this Council was to spend the money across the three town centres, Richmond, Windsor and South Windsor, to increase the accessibility and comfort of those who want to spend time enjoying our public spaces. We have already seen the advantages of the work done in the other town centres in terms of the overall appeal of cleanliness and provision of spaces which will be cooling on hot days, especially once the trees grow bigger. So the project for Windsor Town Centre was to make it more accessible through repaving the footpaths and the mall, making it more comfortable through increased shade and upgraded furniture, making it clean, inviting and showcasing the beautiful heritage buildings that line George Street.
We also envisaged a space where we could have performances, concerts, etcetera to be enjoyed, and to use that as an economic driver. Unfortunately, there was a lot of scaremongering and detraction from the core objectives of this project. And as noted in this report, the gas lamp project is outside this scope, so that wasn't even part of it. But the water wheel and the gas lamps were never going to be removed, and details of the specifics about this project were going to be discussed as the project unfolded. There was a strong commitment to ensuring the heritage values and aesthetics of the area were respected and valued. After all, the Council, which resolved to undertake this project, had eight councillors who were strongly committed to fighting for the retention of heritage, particularly the integrity of Thompson Square.
And now we just want to leave Thompson Square just as it is and not do anything to it when it's the gateway to the third oldest European settlement in Australia. I find that insulting to the previous Council, and it's insulting to the core objective of this project across outer Western Sydney. What we've seen is a series of resolutions in this Council which have undermined the original commitment to deliver a project with the objectives. And look where we've ended up. It's a debacle. The reuse of the pavers was not suitable, but we were told over and over with resolutions, et cetera, that we could reuse the pavers, we could pull a few out here, we could put them there, and hardly a surprise to anyone, but who's seen them all, that that wasn't a suitable path to go down.
This project was going to be a valuable starting point for lifting the overall appeal of the area and laying a foundation from which to work on, a foundation showcasing the depth and breadth of heritage within our area, and also to make it more liveable. I was in the mall yesterday at 1.30 p.m. There was not another soul in one section of the mall. I took a video. There was nobody there. That's at lunchtime. It was dirty. It was unappealing, and it was very sad. And it's a sad indictment on this council, not on the council staff that have worked for this, but a sad indictment on this council to have not moved forward with that project when we had the opportunity, but to have had delay after delay after delay.
And we know what delays bring. Delays bring a heftier cost. It means we get less value for our money in those years where we've waited and we've paid or not paid. We want this colour. We want that. We've seen the deterioration of the planter boxes up there. They're rotting. They're falling apart. We just should have done it before. And to sit here and have someone suggest that we're just going to do the very thing we wanted to do in the first place, plus a bit more, is, I find, extremely insulting. I am supporting to proceed with the recommendation in the business paper. We can't go on blaming COVID, natural disasters and extreme weather for delays of this project. It was purely political decisions, and it was based around, you know, people grandstanding about wanting to make everybody think this was going to be a bigger and better project.
This project has started before my time, but everybody knows that, you know, I'm a practical person. And anything to do with small business, I'm 100% in there. Now, the reason that we are, all Councillors here, suggested that, you know, we should put some kind of a halt or wait or whatever it is, I agree on that too as well. However, this project has been going for so many years, and so many small businesses have gone out of business in that area. And people coming to Hawkesbury, they are not coming to shop Coles or Woolworths. There are so many of them, thousands of them. They are coming in here because of the heritage. They are coming for the gas lamps, and they are coming for the Thompson Square.
So since this Council wasted 40 million dollars on one matter and borrowed 32 and a half million for some other reasons, I suggest, and be practical to save small business people, we should borrow maybe a little bit more money, and I'm all for it, and then we should complete this project for once and all instead of, you know, pushing more small business people going out of the way and going out of bankrupt. Thank you.
Sorry, through you, Madam Mayor. So with regard to the Windsor project, I don't have the figures for the total project at the moment with me. I can look those up. But for the actual current project, there would be 5.2 million remaining for Stage 1A and Stage 2, and we would be getting a QS once we do full detailed designs, if that was the way Council progressed, to get final costings for that report.
My second question would be, I suppose people listening in could be disappointed on several fronts. One is that we don't get the scope of works that were originally promised. The second is that we just don't have enough time to spend enough of those remaining funds. Is it your belief that prior to the deadline of July next year, is that we can spend the remaining funds that are available from the government?
Sorry, through you, Madam Mayor. If you look with regard to the business paper, there's an element of risk with regard to stage two as the preferred option in the business paper, and that's around the fact that it hasn't gone to detailed design. Stage 1A is 90% complete on detailed design because, as I believe, before my tenure at Council, that was part of one, so that's quite developed already. So going to 1A and having that completed before June is a definite. The risk is around stage two, and with regard to that, we're already trying to seek alternate funding sources as well.
Okay. My third and final question would be, considering that this program was first mooted in 2018 and that it was announced in the state budget of June 2019, which was five years ago, what are the circumstances that have us reading a business paper that says that, well, we'll do the detailed design work? I mean, I think there'd be an expectation among most listening that that detailed design work had been completed years ago and that would be further along by now. Could you just help us understand the chronology there?
Through you, Madam Mayor, Councillors, I think we would certainly have liked to have been, but the several iterations and amendments and changes to scope on this project has meant that we have not and would not ever commit to detailed design until such time as Council had endorsed the final concept plan.
All right then. So I feel like I'm in a difficult situation here. I'm warmly disposed to the efforts of the Wisner Experience Group, and I'd like to recognise the hard work that Councillor Sheather and Councillor Djuric have done over many years to faithfully represent that in the chamber here. And as much as I would like to give them what they want, I was flummoxed. I was set back by the motion that Councillor Sheather put forth, because my view coming into this chamber is, well, look, I'm prepared to support the thing that has the maximal amount of work to be done. And I'm perfectly happy, as a person who's sat in this chamber for eight years, to then take on the difficult decision that we might face were we to be approaching that deadline and then facing the need to either cut it short or to put our hands in our own pockets.
Generally, I think that people expect us to get this project done with the broadest scope that was originally planned, which includes Thompson Square, which includes substantial works in the mall. And
I'm afraid the motion that Councillor Sheather has put forward stops well short of that. And I think, for those listening in and in the gallery, I think you're very entitled to be very disappointed with the way in which, literally six years after this project was mooted and five years on from the funding being made available, we can now, just now, be at the point where we could be contemplating detailed design work and then facing a hard deadline where the funds will evaporate. I think people are entitled to be disappointed. I would deny that the kind of constructive discourse that we've engaged in. Over several years, are about grace notes to this project. I don't think that the things that the expert group suggested have put a spanner in the works, or are the chief reason why, you know, things have reached the pass that they have.
We were talking about preserving the gas lamps. We were talking about preserving the rotunda. We had a reasonable discussion about the preservation of trees or not. I think that's precisely the kind of dialogue that the public expected us to have, and then council staff do their best to implement that. But I am disappointed that we could be in a position where we get underway with works and then hit a hard deadline and realise that the clock's been run out. That's bitterly disappointing. So I think I'm inclined at this point, and I'll be listening carefully to the remaining debate, to support Councillor Connolly's amendment, but I'll continue to listen.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. I speak against the amendment. Now, I just read something in the business papers. It said it's identified there is insufficient funding remaining in the liveability project for sufficient time to complete stage two Windsor Mall within the timeframe allowed within the funding deed. A report will be provided back to council to seek council resolution as to whether to proceed with stage two of the mall, noting the identified funding and/or timeframe risk, or to not proceed with stage two of the mall of the project. In relation to time, what I'm proposing is that next month there's a decision come back to get it done. I'd love to support the amendment. We're running out of time and money, and if we keep going, it's going to cost the community a lot more.
What I'm proposing, it comes back, and the reason, and Councillor Conolly said right in relation to it comes back and there's issues. The intent of being reported to Council was that we can keep on top of issues that may arise to keep the process going, because if it gets held up, nothing's going to get done.
So supporting the amendment tonight means there'll be a further report coming back to the next Council on whether you want to proceed with the additional funding, where that's going to come from, how it's going to happen, or whether we drop it, drop Stage 2, and that's what's been spoke about in that, and that's the option and the documentation in relation to the option. What I'm suggesting, that when it comes back to Council next time, there is, and I've got there that if,
Even if things aren't finished, let us report it back to Council anyway so that we know what track it's on and what's got to be done, because the amendment indicates when it comes back to Council there's going to be another decision made whether we proceed with Stage 2 or the mall or whether we run out of the money, which we're going to do , and there's no planning done prior to the next meeting. I mean, and nor should there be, as been indicated by the staff, because Council has made a decision on exactly where we're going. I'm suggesting we set a clear pathway so we can move on with it. As much as I'd prefer to support the amendment, and if it was 12 months ago, I certainly would. But if we put it off, we're We're not going to get it done.
And to come back to the future council and indicate that we're going to take that to capital works or anything else like that is, you know, we're in a situation that we need to make a decision and get on with it. The motion that I've put forward at least puts us a month ahead of what's proposed in the amendment.
I think maybe it's getting lost in translation. I just want to check, from the point of view of the general manager, what action staff would take if the amendment was passed as the motion, as the resolution, and what action the staff would take if the motion was the resolution over the next month.
Madam Mayor, I'd probably speak to the funding body first, if that's okay. So in the body of the report, you'll note that any changes to the scope, we would have to actually go back and talk to the funding body. The original advice, and we have actually clarified, the funding body is not supportive of changes to the scope, and that's mainly because of the fact there has been previous historical scope changes which have led to time frame issues. They have suggested that that doesn't stop us actually putting in a scope change request, but there's no guarantee that that scope change will be approved. That's in general terms. With regard to that option with regard to paving, we'd have to look at it from the perspective of what level of design.
So if we were coming back to Council, then I'd expect that Council would want a detailed design of some description. If we downscope the project for repaving to be more maintenance-based, there is a specific clause in the deed that maintenance work is not covered by the deed. So there's very specific outcomes and deliverables with regard to deliverability, which Councillor Lyons-Buckett spoke to some of those original things that were in the funding deed. So there's very set deliverables. So if we were going to come back to Council, we'd probably have to look at it more from a broader perspective. So it would include, Councillors will remember, and it's in the body of the report, we spoke about the fact that in some of the areas in the mall, it's quite impervious to penetration, so that means it's got an unsuitable substrate.
So we would actually have to look at the substrate. We're also adjoining a lot of heritage buildings, so we've had previous advice from our Heritage Committee and various heritage people about what sort of interface we have to have. So if we then looked at a detailed design for paving, including the substrate, I wouldn't expect we could get back to, I think, late October, early November meeting, we suspected, to get that ratified. You would then be looking, we'd have to then prepare tender documentation, which is six weeks, and I wouldn't expect we could get a tender out before Christmas. So I think that'd actually be a further delay if we come back with another scope variation and a detailed design.
Just sorry to clarify, I appreciate that. Just, yeah, to clarify a point there, so if the original motion, as proposed by Councillor Sheather, becomes the resolution, the staff would then proceed to put in a scope change request to the funding
Thank you. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks, Madam Mayor. I didn't expect to find myself in furious agreement with Councillor Conolly on the last meeting of the term, but here we are.
Frankly, I am gobsmacked by this. This has become an embarrassment. As the person who led this project in the previous term of Council, I can't believe that we have got to this point in Windsor Mall. We should be finished. The mall should look terrific. It should be safe. It should be pleasant to walk through. It should be walkable, for a start. Currently it's not. There should be trees lining from Thompson Square down to the station. People should have a clear view from the top of the hill to the station as a sightline and as a desire line to lead them to businesses beyond Thompson Square. That was the original scope of this project. That was the plan. There's bugger all of that plan left.
And that's the fault of us in this chamber. This has been the most appalling lack of leadership. Thompson Square is an eyesore. It's dirty, it's dangerous, and half the businesses there have closed. One area is known as the ashtray. It's so revolting. People are supposed to eat there. I'm not sure how much more abuse we expect Australia's oldest public square to put up with. This project has gone on for five years because this council just couldn't make up its mind.
I can't believe it's taken this long to determine that the pavers aren't up to scratch. There's also, I can't find which heritage values we've gone with. Are they the heritage values in the borough charter, or ones based purely on aesthetics? How on earth are we at a point ten months out from a hard completion of the funding agreement that we still have no costings and timeframes for two of three stages? Clearly because the staff can't trust us to hold to the decisions that we've made. And so we're blowing more than five million dollars. There is so much misinformation. It's a lie that the gas lamps were going to be removed. It's a lie that the water wheel was going to be removed.
This is really poor governance and decision making, and it's rooted in populism and a lack of courage. Instead of blaming the staff, councillors need to take responsibility for what we have done in this term to muck up this project. In 2018, we asked people what they valued. They said clean and safe spaces, heritage, and the natural environment. And we failed to deliver this for Windsor. This is now a clear financial and reputational risk to council. And therefore to our ratepayers. We are making a mockery of a project that was supposed to deliver increased walkability and activation and is instead being throttled by a lack of understanding of heritage conservation, town centre reactivation and good governance.
At the very least, we can give our staff the security of telling them to get on with the job. Council won't meet again until October. The re-election results aren't due to be called until the 29th of September. So by the time we have a council meeting, it will be well into October. If we don't give the staff the green light and vow not to fiddle with this anymore, those of us hoping to be returned, we are writing off the only $5 million that we are going to find for Windsor in the next decade. That's the choice. It's pretty clear.
Through you, Madam Mayor, just a couple of questions if I could please. If staff wouldn't mind reiterating again, please, how long does it take to do a detailed design?
With regard to Stage 1A, I'm advised it's about 90% complete. So I'm told the detailed design will be finished in two weeks' time, which would then lead us to do preparation of tender documentation and any other approval we need in parallel to that. With regard to the mall, I haven't had a confirmed timeframe. Obviously, I was awaiting direction from Council tonight, but the assumption is it would take up to six weeks maximum for the detailed design, because the mall hasn't been commenced as far as detailed design.
With the resolution in April of 2023 to our recent draft plan coming to the Chamber, I was wondering what was the process over those 14 months to get to the draft plan.
Well, I can only talk to the past seven months, Councillors, as you'd be aware. So obviously at that time when I came on board from December, there's been a process where I think I'd been two weeks in, we had conversations with Heritage Committee at the time with regard to we were out for tender for Stage 1. With regard to the substrate, and then we made amendments with regard to, through the tender clarification process for that to occur, which extended the commencement date for Stage 1. With regard to 1A and 2I, I can only talk to the concept designs which I inherited, and then obviously the conversations I've had from there. The only other thing I can speak to is through quantity surveyors that we've actually engaged through—I'm now working with the project team.
The estimation is that our building costs have gone up 30% since 2022, and there's an anticipated potential increase of up to 30% over the next 18 months to two years. So just sort of making Councillors aware of that. But prior to, I'm not sure if there's further advice with regard to how we got to that stage.
Yeah, I think so. Thank you. I just want to clarify, can that we received an email after the business paper came out stating that the gas lamps will be restored as per earlier resolution. Is that the case?
Planning. Yeah, thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor. That is correct. The resolution to restore the gas lamps actually required those works to be undertaken in full when stage two, being Windsor Mall Works for Livability Project, were completed.
No? Then I'll put the amendment. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Those against? Councillor Sheather. I declare the amendment carried. The amendment becomes the motion. Is there anyone else who hasn't spoken who would wish to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Sheather?
Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. Madam Mayor, as I've indicated, you, I find it extremely frustrating that I've got the right of reply on a motion that's been lost. I really can't fathom how anyone would put that in how meetings are conducted. But I'm not prepared to cop the motions that were put up, especially by myself, about to preserve the lighting, held the job up, nor about— The furniture and the like.
There was an issue with the paving that I had there because the intent was to have an alleyway up the middle. That was the proposal that was before Council, and if you look in our documents over the page, it's exactly what's being proposed now . The meandering aspect that I'd put up was to keep them all pretty well as it is. But what was put to the public was not as Council resolution, which irritates me no end. In relation to the furniture, we've had discussions. This went on public exhibition a month and a half ago, this detail before us now. It was at the library, it was on our website and all the rest of it, and there was comments made. And if you look over a couple of pages, there's three or four pages of comments of the public. It's still got the same furniture in it. Why wouldn't one argue about furniture? It's a stick-in thing.
It's not a big deal if we're going to present this to the public, to tell them what we're going to do. Now, if someone reads this document, I'd suggest they're looking at a highway up the middle of the mall, and the furniture is modern furniture. Now, right from when I got on Council,
My view was that any enhancement we do in the mall was to support the character of exactly what it is. And contrary to Councillor Wheeler's comments, when I first looked at it, the furniture, what was happening, the type of paving that was done there—well, it wasn't the brick paving that's there; it was big tiles. And there was objection to it. Now, I said that as a councillor, and it didn't take long before there was a response from the community that what I was on about was pretty well on track with what they expected. So I'm not prepared to say that those motions of the likes held the job up. What I'd like to know is that why we haven't progressed in particular aspects, that where we're going with this.
The pavers were always, to a large degree, going to be removed and replaced and the likes. It's not hard to test underneath them to see whether we've got a concrete or what we've got to do. The information about going up against heritage buildings and the like, we got that information. We know exactly how many buildings, if we inspect it, how many's got to be done and the like. And so the resolution, irrespective of whatever it was, if we're going to get ahead with the project, there's certain aspects of it that could be done. We're smart enough to buy the trees in advance and do it. But we've procrastinated over this project for a long while. And even with what's proposed now, and in speaking with the frustration that I have, I don't have a problem with the resolution that's before us.
What I do have a problem with, though, is it says, or not to proceed with stage two of the mall project, as I read out of Mindae. So it's going to come back to council, and if the expense blows out, and my guess it is and will, whether the council pulls back on it and we're stuck again. I don't have a problem in Council supporting it. The reason I put this forward tonight is that I was hoping that we just get on with it, not lose $5 million, and that we could principally address the other matters, stages, the furniture and the stuff as I recommended. So, Madam Mayor, even though that I didn't support the amendment, it's now the motion. I will support it and do all that I can to make sure that that happens on time and as close to budget as we get it.
And even though the fact that I want to report back to Council on a quarterly basis, I will be asking the general manager in her briefing every week that she gives us to make sure that we're up to speed, that's if I'm elected, that we're up to speed in relation to if there's hold-ups on this project.
Thanks, Councillor. All those in favour of the motion, 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, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Sheather, seconded by Councillor Zamprogno.
That Council:
1. Endorse Option 1 within this report, being -
Endorse concept designs for Stage 1A (Thompson Square) and Stage 2 (Windsor Mall) to enable the preparation of detailed design, Quantity Survey, application for appropriate approvals and tender preparation to progress.
2. Note that delivery of Stage 2 will be subject to the cost estimates provided through a Quantity Survey and considered against the funding commitments required to complete Stage 1A.
3. Note that if Council Officers determine if there is insufficient Project funding remaining to complete Stage 2 (Windsor Mall), or insufficient time remaining to complete Stage 2 works by June 2025, that a further report will be provided to Council seeking Council resolution to either:
- a) Not proceed to construction of Stage 2 (Windsor Mall), or;
- b) To fund the shortfall of Stage 2 Project costs through a Quarterly Budget Review.
CS - Proposed Sale 295 Sackville Road, Wilberforce
Sarah McMahon
The next item subject to public address is item 10.4.2, proposed sale 295 Sackville Road, Wilberforce, and the first registered speaker— Oh sorry, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, you have a declaration
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll declare a pecuniary interest in item number 10.4.2. The nature of the interest is that my husband is the owner of an adjacent property in the industrial estate, being 12 T-Tree Place, Wilberforce.
New and returning riding members, with generational members returning with their children and grandchildren. Our club is run by volunteers, mums, dads, nans and pops, and is self-funded for all equipment, ground maintenance, arenas and fencing, the majority of which has been achieved through fundraising over many years and entrusted to the committee for the continued enjoyment of the current and future members of the club. Pony Club is the grassroots organisation for all equestrian sport, and our club is much loved and valued within the local equestrian community. Pony Club is not only about riding and horsemanship, but kids also learn to take responsibility for and care for the welfare of their horses.
They learn how to make new friendships. They learn about sportsmanship. They learn about resilience, as horses don't always perform the way we'd like them to. Our riders in the red and blue colours of the club have a long history in the area. Our hope is to continue this for future generations. We are neither for nor against the proposed sale, but rather seek assistance from Council in helping us navigate the process. We accept the offer of the renewed lease for three years and look forward to further conversations regarding how that lease will be managed once the sale is achieved. We also ask for a commitment from Council to assist us in locating new grounds prior to the expiration of the three-year lease and subsequent relocation of our club, which we view as inevitable.
We simply ask Hawkesbury City Council to help our club continue to achieve the vision of Pony Club, that a life with horses starts here.
Thank you. Thank you very much. I'll just see, are you happy to take questions? Sure, sure. And I'll just remind councillors, if you do have any questions, there is a confidential attachment to this item, so please be aware of that. Any questions? No. Thank you very much for your contribution. Thank you. Okay, councillors, as you will note, and as I just stated, there is a confidential part to this. I'm cautious about the discussion that we may have. We'll go into those confidential parts, so I would... Suggest if there's anyone willing to move into confidential. Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Kotlash. All those in favour of moving into confidential, please raise your hand. Those in favour are— Councillors, we're doing a vote.
Are you in favour or not of moving into confidential? Thank you. Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather . Yes. Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, I declare that carried. Oh, sorry, those against? Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillors Improgno. I declare that carried. We'll now move into confidential. I'm sorry, everybody, you will need to vacate the chamber while we discuss the confidential nature of the item.
I don't think you can come back in yet, Councillor. Oh, sorry, yes, sorry. We're just going to read the outcome. Sorry, yes. Before we do, Councillor Dogramaci declared an interest in confidential that he will need to read onto the microphone for the recording and for the public, please.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. In regard to item 10.4.2 regarding the proposed sale of 295 Sackville Road, Wilberforce, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Veigel, that one, Council sell the property known as 295 Sackville Road, Wilberforce, lot 252 in DP 1004592, to Hypro Investments Pty Limited, ATF Hypro Investment Trust, for the sum of $5,976, 100 plus GST if applicable on the following terms: A, the current tenant of part of the property, Woodlands Park Pony Club, are to retain occupation of their leased area for three years. This will require a new lease to be entered into prior to settlement for minimal rent in accordance with Council's Property Management Policy.
B, a settlement period of 42 days. C. 10% deposit payable on exchange. D. Registration of a proposed easement for access to enable Council to access its land at 10A and 12A Teatree Place, Wilberforce. The easement would have an approximate area of 50 square metres. E. Any other conditions considered necessary by Council's solicitors. 2. Council be given authority for any documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. 3. Council's General Manager be granted delegated authority to execute any documentation in association with this matter which do not require the seal of Council. 4. Details of the resolution be conveyed to the prospective purchaser of the property and tenant of parts of the property with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of the resolution until such time as an appropriate documentation to put such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties.
5. The net proceeds of the sale be allocated to the following: A. Purchase and associated costs of 6 McKinnons Road, Wilberforce, being the site of the emergency services precinct, and B. The balance be allocated to the land acquisition and capital contingency reserve.
For the motion were Councillors Conolly, Calvert, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, McMahon and Sheather . Against the motion were Councillors Djuric, Wheeler and Zamprogno. Absent from the vote was Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Dogramaci. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
NM1 - Section 7.12 Levy Relief for Dwellings Lost Through Catastrophic Loss
Sarah McMahon
The next item subject to public address is item 12.1.1, Notice of Motion 1, Section 7.12 Levy Relief for Dwellings Lost through Catastrophic Loss, and the registered public speaker is Robert Reece.
Ladies and gentlemen, Councillors, my name is Robert Reece, and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to voice my opinion in favour of the amendments to Council's 7.12 fees. I'm here tonight to support the notice of motion that Councillor Nathan has put forward. This motion allows for those individuals that are facing trying times with the devastation of their homes due to flood, fire, or natural disaster to be spared the financial burden of additional fees. I believe these events should not be profited by Council in the form of Section 7.12 fees, as there will be no additional demands on Council's infrastructure. If the existing building that was lost was a Council-approved building, whether it was a three, four, or five-bedroom home, the rebuilding of an existing home should not incur 7.12 fees and should not be classed as a vacant site because of an uncontrollable event or an act of God.
In my personal experience, the town planners dealing with these events find themselves between a rock and a hard place when it comes to being able to waive these fees. As there is no clause or box to tick that allows the fees to be waived. In short, I'm in favour of the items and the wording Councillor Nathan has put forward, and I think you as a council should adopt this, as I believe it would mean very little to council's bottom line in lost revenue and in the world to the residents, ratepayers of our Hawkesbury community that have had the misfortune of such an ordeal. Thank you in advance if you vote to adopt this notice of motion, and thank you for your time.
Thank you. So I'll speak to this briefly. It turns out that the timing here is very serendipitous, because I was not aware, when I was approached by residents and then drafted this notice of motion, that tonight we were already looking at exhibiting publicly a new 7.12 contribution plan. So this dovetails very nicely. As Mr. Rees said, this is supposed to be a compassionate gesture for the small number of people who suffer a catastrophic loss of their dwelling. Now, there is some precedent for this. After the Gospers Mountain fire, we did pass a motion that granted a similar type of relief for the victims of that fire. All I am proposing to do here is to formalise this concession in a more permanent way for anybody who suffers the complete loss of their dwelling through some kind of disaster, such as a fire or a flood.
I am assured by Council staff that this would not have a very significant impact on Council's finances because there aren't many people that fall into this category. And as Mr Rees said, the unfairness comes from the fact that 712 fees are predicated on the need, the reasonable need, to provide infrastructure to a community when the population goes up. You build a new house on a vacant block, people move into the area and the 712 fees are there to provide kerb and guttering and lighting and sewerage and local amenities and the share of funding that goes towards parks and pools and libraries and so forth. But in the case of a homeowner that's maybe lived in the area for years and who loses their house and simply wants to rebuild, this does not represent an increase in population.
So they shouldn't have to pay the 1% levy. So it's 1% $200,000 and up. So if you've got a $400,000 bill, that's a $4,000 impost that's put on top of you by Council in the hardest time of your life, and I don't think that that's fair. Equally , what was pointed out to me was the anomalous situation of a landowner being placed at some disadvantage because the DA that they lodge for the rebuild is deemed to be a construction on vacant land. What a terrible thing. What a twisted bureaucratic thing to do to a person who's simply trying to rebuild their home, clearly because they feel that the community that they live in is of such value to them as that they're not going to pull stumps and go and find some kind of a sea change, they want to continue to live on their block in their community, and good on them.
I think it's a small gesture, it's a compassionate gesture that we could make, and if this notice of motion is successful, all it simply does is apply the appropriate change to the policy that we were about to exhibit tonight anyway. I commend it to you.
Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I'm happy to support Councillor Sanfranio's notice of motion. It is a reasonably logical thing. Of course, previously, when councillors had the powers to determine DAs in this chamber, we did on occasion, we had the capacity to look individually to different DAs, and on occasion when that had occurred, we did in fact waive that contribution. But as we don't have those powers any longer, we can't do that. I think it's a logical exemption to include in that contributions plan, and hopefully nobody will have to access it. That would be our ultimate outcome. I just did have a couple of questions, though, around similar things. There's no definition of catastrophic loss, and I just don't know whether we should actually sort of put something around that, what that actually means, and whether that would include, you know, anything, you know, any problematic sort of potential areas around that.
The other thing was that the optional clause of the standard instrument that specifies that a DA for rebuilding dwellings lost through natural disasters, it doesn't include commercial structures, only dwellings. So do we need to specify in that sort of thing that it's only dwellings, not any other structures? And I think that would be good. But we haven't adopted that optional clause in our LEP anyway. So I just wanted to ask staff, is it in our yet to be returned, hopefully to be seen at some point, LEP, clause 5.9? Manager
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Thank you, Madam Mayor. So Council had previously considered that specific standard instrument clause and had resolved not to include that in the LEP. So it will not be in the— Oh, it won't be in our new LEP either? Okay Because there was a specific resolution from Council not to.
Okay. All right. Thank you for that. No, well, I'm happy to support the inclusion of this exemption in the contribution plan, but I would ask that perhaps we put a little bit more definition around both catastrophic loss and the fact that it applies only to dwellings.
Thanks, Madam Mayor. The very thing that Councillor Brogden is talking about, I'm aware of a situation of one of our residents now where a tree fell on their house. They asked for permission to remove it, couldn't. During a storm, it fell on
House, damaged the house. Consequently, weather after that pretty well destroyed the rest of the house. He decided to go for a rebuild and been hit with costs along the lines of exactly what we're talking about. The house was pretty well— well, he needed to demolish the house. The damage was great. When it first come to me, and it was about fees and charges and stuff, and I thought, well, that can't be right. But it is right. Council makes policies from time to time, and from time to time they're tested, and I think this is a pretty good test. People who live in structures that are damaged by no fault of their own. And through circumstances where , in some case, that might be insurance held up or process or whatever, where they can't do anything to advance what they want to do, and perhaps there's further damage or the like, still no fault of theirs, gets to a situation where they are in dire straits.
And this particular chap I'm talking about has, and lived in other premises for three years because— Anyway, it's a situation that should never arise. Instead of, you know, when there's fires and floods, we go out of our way along with the government. Not only do we help them, in some cases supply funding and the like. And the issues that we have, you know, every council has from time to time. A few months ago, there's a big storm went through Glossodia. There's damage and that done up there. And we opened the tips so people could get rid of the rubbish and stuff around it. We certainly do things, and the council's fairly progressive in that area. In this area, where there's the costs and that, the policy we have and the opportunities for council to help those fail.
And I think that if there's a possibility, and I don't think it needs to be catastrophic loss. I don't know what the category is, but do we call a tree falling on a house catastrophic? It's no fault of theirs. And whatever truck runs off the road and knocks a house down, is that catastrophic? I can tell you for the people living in it, it is. Again, through no fault of theirs, and I understand there's insurance and the likes, but all that aside, most people have got insurance and the like, and they set their life around their responsibilities in relation to the fees they've got to pay for the commitments they make. When something happens outside of that, there's stresses put on people that sometimes we can afford, and I'm sure the community would support such support to those people.
We're not talking about a thousand homes a day or a year. Well, probably you'd be lucky to get one in our community once a year. It's not a big deal, but it'd be a big deal to those people who would be after that support. So, Mayor, I support the motion, and I would ask staff, with the comments that I've made in relation to a tree falling on a house, would that be classified within this as a catastrophic event, or how might it be addressed?
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, if this particular notice of motion is passed by Council, yeah, from an officer's perspective, we think, you know, obviously the definition of catastrophic loss needs to be consistent with other legislation, planning-related acts and regulation, and it does need to be prescriptive with very clear parameters and to what extent that damage is, including in that definition. So, obviously, coordination of the fact that there's another report on business papers tonight, so in terms of the 7.12 plan, so if that is passed then, and this one is passed as well, we would amend that document to provide a clear definition of what catastrophic loss is.
Yeah, is it going to be provided to us to indicate whether a tree falls on a house, well, whether it's a storm or just a break in the tree, doesn't matter, it still fell on the house. Is that
Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I was actually wondering about that too. So the issue here is that if a house is uninhabitable and has to be rebuilt, so it has to be ,
You know, it's like a new structure will have to go up. So it's not actually about what causes the damage, it's the actual damage. So if a tree falls on your house and it renders it so that nothing structural can be saved, it has to be rebuilt, then that's the definition. So I think we're labouring on the catastrophic loss and not on what the consequences of that action is. So, I mean, I think we can probably work that out. And does that would apply to other buildings, even though they're buildings that aren't inhabitable, that are attached to a home?
The instance that I thought of here is those buildings that are considered to be an imburance of heritage structures, where you can't get a DA to demolish and it accidentally catches fire in the night. And so not only do you get to get rid of your heritage item, but you don't have to pay a DA to council either. I mean, what a winning combo that will be. Can we, is there some wording that can be included to, I don't have an objection to this when it's a genuine disaster that has befallen someone's home. What I want to do is make sure that it has sufficient safeguards to ensure that it isn't misused and this doesn't become the icing on the cake to an act of, of frankly vandalism. So, or arson.
So can we get some better wording, I guess, around point three where it says, sorry, point five where it says due to a fire, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster. I mean, are we after accidental? How do you determine what's accidental? What's accidental? Does council determine it? Does the insurance assessor determine it? This is, there are, I think, potential consequences from this that. We're not seeing, and I don't want the perfect to get in the way of the good. But I guess this will come back as part of the 7.12 contributions plan, because that's about to go out on exhibition. So I guess if that can be flagged for us to ensure that we're not leaving those definitions too loose, that would be really helpful.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Everybody knows me that I am direct and very straight. I still remember what Councillor Buckett told me three years ago about the rules and regulations. It's not a private business, all these bits and pieces. I mean, someone's house is burnt down, and we are discussing in here whether that person is eligible, you know, for this and that or whatever. Next we'll be talking about what type of a tree that fell on that house, whether there was a possum on that tree or not. Why don't we just move while this person, he or she might be still suffering, you know, going through heartaches , loss of family members, the cats and dogs or whatever. Why can't we just assist these people, you know, while they are going through, you know, hard times ?
We are adding this, what is catastrophic. I mean, if we have an accident, if you see someone hurt in a car, are we going to ask that person whether he or she has an insurance or whatever? We'll try to get that person out. I know we cannot do anything. It's rules, regulations and laws or whatever it is. Is there any way that, you know, we could make something, you know, to assist these people, to give them a hand instead of waiting for this? Of the rules, regulations, applications, what is it? I mean, is there something that we could do to assist these people instead of, you know, waiting? And now we are going to talk about different things, different subject, everyone is going to say something about it.
Whether, like I said, whether that house was 10 years old, 20 or 30 years old, while these people are still suffering, staying with their families and hotels and motels and costing them money, I don't know. But in general, I'm supporting Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you. That
Last sentence was all that was needed, Councillor. Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to speak on the motion? Right of reply, Councillor Zamprogno.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm heartened that there's support for this in the room. It's a good common sense, compassionate gesture that we can make. It might actually convince people that Council is able to function and deliver good policy from time to time. If I could provide some reassurance to people who are anxious about this, point five that does seek to define catastrophic loss is the definition that was given to me by staff, in the sense that my first draft of this had a layman's definition of what catastrophic loss was, and Mr. Carnes and the other staff helpfully came back with the form of words that's now point five in this motion, precisely so that it would accord with the legislative definition of catastrophic loss. So it is now consonant with that other definition. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigar, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. Would you like to raise your own hand? Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Zamprogno, seconded by Councillor Veigel.
That:
1. Council's policy be that Section 7.12 fees are generally not charged for applicants seeking to rebuild homes or structures following catastrophic loss (being so long as the new structures do not exceed 110% of the floor area of the lost Structures).
2. If a replacement structure exceeds 110% of the floor area of the original structure, that 7.12 fees are only charged on the difference in replacement cost between a replacement structure of the same floor area and the proposed new structures.
3. Council's policy be that after a catastrophic loss, that the assessment not define the new DA as occurring on 'vacant land' so long as the gap between loss and application for rebuild does not exceed five years.
4. The date of a 'Loss' shall be defined as the date that the property was damaged by a flood, fire or storm event.
5. 'Catastrophic Loss' shall be defined as the substantial destruction of a dwelling or structure that renders it uninhabitable due to a fire, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster. A dwelling or structure must be deemed inhabitable, either by damage impact assessment (as undertaken by an emergency response agency) or by an insurer's assessment.
6. Council's Draft Contributions Plan be amended prior to being placed on public exhibition to reflect this policy.
The next item is subject to public address is item 12.1.3, Notice of Motion 3, Women's Cottage extension. Councillor Conolly, you've got a declaration?
Yes, a pecuniary interest in this item. The firm completing the planning work for the proposed extension is the sublessor of a building used by my business, so I'll leave the room.
Thank you, Councillor. I'll be declaring a significant non-pecuniary due to private circumstances I will not participate in this debate. Deputy Mayor, can you please take the chair? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you to everyone. Thank you to everyone who's here to listen tonight and to the councillors. I'm here to speak in support of Councillor Danielle Wheeler's motion that Council accept responsibility for the extension of Council building at 22 Bosworth Road in Richmond. The building is currently occupied under a 30-year lease by the Women's Cottage for the delivery of crisis and domestic violence services to the Hawkesbury area.
We currently provide support to around 1,500 women a year. There's about 1,300 families for those women. There's up to 5,000 actual occasions of service for the community, and about 45% and about 1,000 occasions of service are directly related to supporting women who are experiencing domestic violence or the impacts of domestic violence.
The reason that we find ourselves in this position is due to a lot of circumstances, not singularly because of the length of time that our DA application to Council has taken to get to DA stage. It's been over three years. And then
Issues with builders going out of business, issues with monies being stolen, issues with insurance policies being denied. What we're asking of Council is not about supporting the Women's Cottage specifically. It's about investing in the future of support services for women and children escaping domestic violence in the Hawkesbury. What we're asking is that Council Put the money into extending its own building to ensure the growth and thriving of the capacity of our local community to support women who've experienced domestic violence. Now you might say, Well , why doesn't— why should the council support the women's cottage and not other services? And to that I would say again, we're not asking you to specifically support the women's cottage.
We're asking you to support the infrastructure that's going to allow the flourishing and growth of services around domestic violence for the Hawkesbury. I'd also say that the women's cottage currently provides over 500 instances a year where other services and other workers ring us up to ask for assistance and help. What should they do with a particular client who's experiencing violence? Can we support them through mentoring to assist their own clients? So the women's cottage is a conduit for all of the services in the area, as well as all women and children who are experiencing domestic violence.
You might also say, Well, shouldn't some other government department fund this? And again, I would say, based on council's own domestic violence social plan, this council has a pre-existing commitment to the safety of women and children. And in the scheme of things, we're not talking five million dollars around a whole precinct update. In the scheme of things, it's a small amount of money to secure the ongoing capacity of , in this instance, the women's cottage to provide growth to meet demand. And demand has been expanding since the bushfires. So you've got a community who've been through the bushfires, who've been through seven floods, who've been through two years of COVID, and now cost of living, mortgage stress, rent stress, lack of rental.
All of these things create a maelstrom of situations where women and children end up being in domestic violence that they weren't experiencing before, or where the severity of that violence is increasing. So again, in these last few seconds, I'm imploring you as councillors to invest in your community for the safety of women and children.
Thanks, Deputy Mayor. In relation to the premises use, does Council do all the maintenance that's required on the building? You do it, or you pay a lease or a rent, or what?
The current arrangement is it's a 30-year lease. We're about five years in. There are different aspects of the upkeep that fit into the lease, which we would pay for, and there are different aspects that Council would pay for. At this point in time, it's a peppercorn rent, so we don't actually pay rent. So that's Council's commitment as is, that there should be a community building that's supporting domestic violence.
I guess there's a few reasons for that. One is that we've physically been on that site for 40 years, so there is a knownness, and the women's cottage is kind of owned by the community in its current entity in that site. There are no funds to relocate. There are no funds to pay rent, and there are no places to relocate to.
And particularly, one of those is a standalone project that pays about $15,000 a year in rent. The other is group work, and I guess I'd just like to say for group work particularly, the extension of the building would allow us to bring groups back in to the women's cottage. And group programs are a really effective soft entry point for women who aren't yet ready to say, I'm in trouble, but if they come for meditation or they come for craft or they come for some other reason, they're physically in the space, they develop some safety in the space, they develop some relationships with workers. That's when they're going to put their hand up and say, I need help. And that doesn't happen as effectively if the group is outsourced to a different area.
We'd have room to run groups. We'd have an office that would fit three to four additional workers, and we would have two counselling interview spaces, which would mean that we could provide more counselling and support sessions ourselves. But it could also, it also means we could get, like, private psychologists or victim services counsellors or others to come in and be there on different days, one day a week, so that women—it could be a little bit more of a one-stop shop for women.
Maria Santa we have in here. You said that you didn't ask Council, like , you know, some kind of financial help, direct financial help. I think you should, just like I said, and as everybody knows that whatever I say, it comes out of here, filtered through my brain. I think, you know, you should ask for money. Like I said, we lost 40 million dollars, borrowed 32 and a half million dollars to balance the books. You should ask for more money. We should borrow more money and we should support you all the way. Whatever you want, we should support you. And I support Councillor Wheeler.
Councillor Dogramaci, this is supposed to be questions, not speeches, okay? Any more questions? When we get to debate this issue, you can give any speech you want, okay?
Thank you. Councillors, staff and members of the gallery, thank you for allowing me to speak tonight. Maria came to our office only a little while ago now, and when we listened to what she had to say, it was something that we couldn't turn away from, and we thought that we need to give them as much help as we can. So what we've been doing is providing our planning advice and our certification advice to try and get them where they need to go. So what we've been doing is reviewing all the consents, engaging with all the consultants, and we've managed to get it to a point now where if we had to, or were ready to lodge a CC, just got to decide when, that we were aware of all the costs. So to prepare and lodge a construction certificate for the DA that's been issued, it's going to be in the order of about $65,000 with all the consultants' fees, certify fees, all those sorts of things.
What we've also been working on in the meantime as a temporary fix is that there's an existing approval for a temporary building that was given some time ago. We've been talking to some local portable building manufacturers that we do work for, which we're yet to have meetings with, but we've basically outlined that we just need a building in the interim to be able to... For the services to be conducted on that site, as Marie just spoke about, and we believe it can be done under the existing approval with some minor modifications at minimal cost. Yeah, so basically that's what I'm here for tonight. If you've got any questions about DA conditions or about the lodgement of the CC, we're here to answer those and support the process as much as we can on the way through.
No, we wouldn't. We're not involved in the construction side. We'd probably, the approvals management side, where we get it to the point where they have the documentation. See, at the moment they haven't really got the documentation to a level that we can get 100% accurate building cost. Yeah. So by getting the CC-level documentation, we'll be able to get a better, more accurate building cost and a better time frame. And then once that happens, the CC is issued, then the builder's appointed, then the project manager for the build would then step in. Step in. Yeah, thank you. Yep.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Thanks, Troy. You're welcome. In that 65,000 to lodge the— Construction certificate. Are all those requirements for the CC specific to that particular building or to that location, or are there some more universal studies that could perhaps be utilised in another area for another community building, say, for example, or are they really site specific?
They're really site specific, so the conditions deal with that particular development only. Having said that, a lot of the conditions that we see in there we have seen in other developments of that type. Yeah, so I mean, in terms of car parking, what we see there in terms of the design, it's not too unusual for what we normally see. It is quite expensive. It's a major cost, the car parking requirement. But it is a commercial building, so there's often a little bit more cost involved with that as well. But the conditions that we've seen aren't that different. I mean, the only thing that I did see that was unusual here, there was an easement over a sewer main, which is quite uncommon. We don't usually see that, but I believe that has now been extinguished from recollection
Thank you. I was just thinking if there was perhaps some opportunity that we could somehow develop a suite of studies that might cover various community buildings into the future.
Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Troy. I was interested. You said in your address that a temporary building could be put on the site at minimal cost. Do you know what—
The minimal cost would be is we're trying to get the— The manufacturers to supply the building in kind, just to help out, and then at the end of it they would take it back.
So, but there was previously a portable building there, but in the midst of all this, and the anticipation of building the extension, I believe it was taken away.
But there was an approval some time ago for a temporary building, and that approval, because it's been secured, it's still there, so you can still use that approval. So once an approval's been, a DA's been issued and the construction certificate's been issued and they start works, then the approval's been secured. Right. So therefore, even if the building's gone, the approval's still there. It stays with the land.
No. No, so the cost for the temporary building, I don't, we haven't envisaged any at this stage. It's only a temporary fix, and it was to provide a temporary building just to get them out of trouble in the meantime while all this was happening. I think that if we were to get all these documents, the documents are going to probably take about, from the time we decide and engage the consultants, probably going to be six weeks, all going well, and then you've got to lodge them with the certifier. So, which won't be us, it'll be another independent certifier, and I would, you know, have to guess it's probably going to take them a couple of weeks to go through everything and get this back. There's a little bit of back and forth. So, you know, probably two months, three months, and then it'll be issued, I would think. Yeah, but the temporary building's a separate thing altogether.
Thank you. My name is Rhiannon, and I am a client of the Women's Cottage. I've lived in the Hawkesbury my whole life, and I've also attended the meditation that the Women's Cottage run. So, touching on my backstory, I entered into a relationship with an older man when I was 17 years old. I've studied for years, and I have postgraduate qualifications. As a result of that relationship, I have two young children. In spite of my education and emotional intelligence, I still found myself in domestic violence. I, after many years, I ended the relationship in May this year.
So, in attempt to pressure me into a custody arrangement I was not comfortable with, he left without two children, and I was denied access to my children for a total of seven weeks and six days before a recovery order was approved in court. The Women's Cottage were there for me every step of the way. Not only did they validate my experience of domestic violence, letting me truly recognise my trauma, they were open and they made me feel safe.
They assisted with multiple applications for counseling for myself and my children. They assisted with applications for financial assistance with victim services. Now, I thankfully feel much safer with security cameras and soon-to-be security doors, funded by victim services, which I can attribute the women's cottage for assisting with said application.
I've also had a very disappointing experience with Windsor Police and the Department of Community Justice regarding the safety of the children and myself.
Though I had collected and provided evidence of domestic violence to the police, an AVO was denied. This was due to shortcomings of the police. If it weren't for the women's cottage advocating on my behalf, I can confidently say that I would not have an AVO in place right now.
In spite of my evidence, resilience and intelligence, it's tiring being knocked back by the very force that's supposed to protect us. The women's cottage made sure they were accountable for their shortcomings, working to improve not just my life and not just the handling of my case, but cases to come. There were also safety concerns within the household the children were living,
Where DCJ, or Department of Community Justice, investigated. The women's cottage continued to advocate on my behalf after my concerns were not appropriately investigated and not taken seriously. They also represented me at safety action meetings with multiple department bodies to ensure the safety of my children and myself. In my darkest moments, the Women's Cottage was a guiding light, helping me reclaim strength and hope. Without the support of the Women's Cottage, I would be living in fear, and I may not even have my children back in my care. The Women's Cottage is an invaluable resource that I am forever grateful to, and I can support until the day I die, and I will do anything I can to advocate for them .
Thank you, Ms. Stark. Would you be happy to answer any questions? Yes, certainly. Are there any questions? No. Thank you very much. Thank you. The matter is open for debate. Councillor Wheeler, I assume you want to move this motion?
Yes, please. Do we have a seconder? We have a seconder, Councillor Lyons-Buckett seconding. Councillor Wheeler. Thank you. Look, I want to begin by thanking the speakers, especially Ms. Stark. It takes real courage to come in and tell your story. What it shows is that domestic violence can happen to anybody. It's not only does the Women's Cottage get women to safety, they then help them navigate a system that frequently fails or retraumatises the victims, and then they allow them to rebuild their lives with their children. And it doesn't matter how long that takes, the Women's Cottage stays there throughout that process. We have people in our community who have been making contact with the Women's Cottage for decades, and they may do it initially.
As a soft access point for something like meditation or singing or any activity that can be justified to the perpetrator to allow a woman to access a safe space. And then they may maintain, then they may disclose, they may enter services, and some of them continue to go to the women's cottage as their place of safety for years afterwards.
This notice of motion aims to do exactly what it says: to acknowledge extraordinary work in an extremely difficult and worsening space. I want to reiterate something that the manager of the women's cottage said tonight. This is about investing in the future of support services for women and children escaping violence. This organisation not only supports women, but it acts as an umbrella organisation to support other community services. It is, by its very nature, a community builder.
The other part of this notice of motion is to provide the support and security to get this project over the line. There's nothing about this motion that prevents community contributions or fundraising or donations of time, labour or material. And Urban City has already showed that this is possible, and I want to thank them for their work.
Council doesn't have to be the project manager, although it should be noted that this is a council asset. I'm not interested in apportioning blame or credit or any of that. I'm interested in an outcome for the women's cottage and the women and children that they support. And while it may well be the case that domestic violence is supposed to be a state responsibility, violence against women and children will only end if everyone takes responsibility, and that includes this council. We found four million dollars for an oval when the state government waived a pork barrel at us prior to the last election. We can find less than a quarter, surely, for this project. This is our building. These are our people. This is our community. We should do this not because we have to, but because it's the right thing to do. And I hope that you can support it. Councillor Veigel.
The speakers for coming in, and thank you for your backstory. No brainer to me on this motion, and I thank Councillor Wurlow for taking it up. I noticed with a number of the figures, if you base on where we think the project may end up, the money, it's around about 600,000. Less the 198K, we're after about 400,000. Small change for looking after the women and children of this community. Now, I don't want to bore you with my backstory, but we've all got one. But I can appreciate, if you haven't got a home to go to and it's violent, you shouldn't be there. When I grew up, none of these services were around, and a lot of women were in a situation, and my mother was one of them, dealing with an alcoholic father, okay, and I know the trauma and the anguish you go through, okay, firsthand. Wholeheartedly okay with this to get this up.
I don't know about the times, the timeline, okay? We've spoken about it; the amount of, if that's fit for purpose short term to get that resource in for you, we should pursue it. I don't really know whether that, if you can get it in kind, it'd be great, all right, but there are installation costs. You might have to look at with services and stuff like that, but that's another bridge to cross, and that's small change in comparison.
It will become an asset that'll be a cherished asset for the community. You're right. It is a state government responsibility, and dare I say, it's probably a federal government-funded responsibility. And more and more often they're pushing the cost of this back to people like us in the local community. If you had read the press just a few short months ago, there was a similar service in the eastern suburbs. We're bereft of funding right to the last moment. It was a merely $26,000 to keep that service going, and it went down the wire with no traction. And it was the community that came to the aid to that service, and they're still open, as far as I know now. But I don't know where it's going to tomorrow, but hopefully they're okay.
I don't want to add more than that, that I'll be supporting this anyway. I noticed it's in the operational plan for next year, great, but we need to probably get something started now. I don't know what that is, but I'll led by the council officers. If it is our asset, then dare I say, we need to put some type of management in there to look after that investment so it's used wisely, because every dollar counts, dare I say. Now, if I don't get elected to council, right, and I'm free of this, hypothetically, let's say, I'd be quite happy to give my project skills to you for nothing to make sure that that project is finished, dare I say, because there's a— There are other people in the community that will buy in.
Not only that, there are, I guess, sponsors who will buy into it as well, okay? So let's see if we can move that forward for you anyway. But we've got to get through the council election before that, to see where it stands. So, yeah, I'll be voting yes for the motion. Thank you.
Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Mr Deputy Mayor, and again, thank you to the speakers. I'm so very glad that Rhiannon was able to receive the support of the wonderful services of the Women's Cottage, and it just shows how much we need to prioritise the strengthening of our community in whichever way we can possibly do. I'd like to thank Councillor Wheeler for her advocacy and time in working for this solution on what is an incredibly important matter, and to thank the team at the Women's Cottage and Hannah DV for their work in assisting women in crisis and need. It's such an incredibly valuable service, and as Maria Lasardo said when she spoke, an investment in this facility is a prudent decision for us to make because it both enhances a council property, but more importantly, it secures the capacity for services to meet the growing demand in the DV sector, which sadly we know is ongoing and increasing.
I'd also like to reflect just for a moment and thank all the women who've contributed for the last 40 years, and for all those people, men and women, women mainly, and the men who support them, who march strongly each year to reclaim the night for women to feel safe on our streets and in our area, because every move we take to try and raise awareness and to make people accountable for these sort of actions is contributing to addressing the problem overall. And the tragedy of domestic violence weighs heavily on our society. And in an ideal world, we wouldn't be having these conversations, but sadly, we are. Services like this really need suitable operating spaces. There are various needs around access and privacy, which must be met.
And initially I thought that, you know, some ancillary services might be able to be located off-site, but the core functions of assisting women really need to be within the existing location. And I think that when Maria spoke tonight, her explanation around the value of the location being a central point really reaffirmed that it needs to be there. It's really important to have that single access to bring in the groups, and so that individuals and groups can both be accessing the various services in the one place. And particularly, as Rhiannon alluded to, in a place that makes women feel safe when they're really at their most vulnerable. I think that's incredibly important. I most definitely support this absolutely wholeheartedly, and I think over time within this chamber, I've seen councillors support many different causes and projects, some of them with very little value in terms of actually improving what our community needs.
And as Councillor Wheeler alluded to, for the West Invest, people were ready to put money in, you know, for just so that we could then access more funding. And I think that this is a much lesser amount, and to support a service helping our most vulnerable is an extremely prudent thing to do. We have a very generous society out there, and I think Councillor Veigal just alluded to this as well. I have no doubt that if we were to make some sort of public fundraising or some sort of public contribution around this sort of project, that we would see the absolute depths of generosity within this Hawkesbury community, where people would no doubt want to contribute. Either in a monetary sense or in assisting in whichever way they can, so that our community could take ownership of dealing with a situation which is extremely—we're extremely grateful for the people that work in it, but we know that they're working tirelessly and that they need any help we can give them in whichever way.
So the Hawkesbury is a very generous area, and I think that we should reach out at some point and ask for assistance from our community. As I said, I support this motion wholeheartedly and commit to further working towards any emerging community-led projects that might tie in with this or similar things. The reason I was asking Mr Myers around the costs with the construction certificate was I do understand how they all work and what studies are needed, but I was just hoping that one day we could sort of develop a suite of resources that perhaps could be applied to our various community facilities so that when people work in this space come to do building work or things like that, that we could assist by having some studies either partially prepared or we could have something that would assist them cut the costs because a lot of these ongoing overheads are what really makes their projects suffer.
And I really want to thank Mr Myers for engaging in this project and assisting in the way that his firm is doing. So thank you again to the wonderful women of the Women's Cottage and Hannah DV, to Rhiannon for sharing her story, and to Councillor Wheeler for being such a strong advocate in this space.
Thank you. I will be supporting this notice of motion. The Women's Cottage is a frontline service that helps people in direct need at this very important and at times life-saving resource. And since the Hawkesbury seems to be entering a cycle of ongoing natural disasters, which does contribute to domestic violence, I think this is a service that needs the full support of Council. Whilst the government is happy to give money to NGOs, only a portion of these funds make it to the frontline to actually help people in need. This is why I feel the Women's Cottage is a standout in this respect. For several years prior to being elected to Council, I did do some volunteer work for several groups that offered assistance to people affected by DV, and I came to understand that our government still doesn't offer assistance to all sectors of our community that are affected by domestic violence.
And until we are in a position to offer help to everyone caught up in this problem, I feel we are still a country that's not quite yet committed to truly stopping domestic violence. Despite the narrative around stopping domestic violence, there is a massive shortage of frontline services. So the matter before us is an important matter that I will be supporting wholeheartedly, and I thank Councillor Wheeler for bringing the matter to the Chamber, and I thank our speakers tonight. Thank you.
Councillor Dogramaci. Just very quickly, again, straight to the heart of the matter. Instead of waiting until next year, is it possible that, you know, our officers downstairs, wherever they might be, just put on overtime to get this thing moving quickly, overtime at night or extended hours or whatever, so these people, you know, don't have to wait until next year
And start serving people as soon as possible? And also, the other thing, so instead of just telling , you know, our experience or whatever it is, could we just pass the resolution what Councillor Wheeler put, so these people, you know, could go home, you know, to their places. Is it possible that you'd like those questions answered? Well, just move on instead of procrastinating, just expedite the business. Is that a question for the general
I have to say that my experience with knowing what the Women's Cottage do has just been a real eye-opener, and I really commend them for their work, and it's pretty obvious, we've seen that tonight. And the thing that I was worried about with this notice of motion, and I think Councillor Dogramaci just referred to it, is that it says that we're committing funds for the 2025-26 financial year, and it seems to me that that is a very long time away because once we get to that process,
And that's why I was asking Mr Myers about can we get something in the interim, and can Council support something like that, and that's what I was trying to get at. I don't, I mean, I'm not very comfortable with a sort of an open checkbook kind of practice either. I would like to have a figure that we're working with because with every dollar we spend, there's always something that we're not spending on, and I think we have to be mindful of that. But if it's in 2025-26, we can probably work towards that. I'm happy with that, but I'm just not happy with the fact that it's going to take that long.
Yeah, there is a question, sorry. General Manager. I'm having a bit of a rap, but there is a question. We presumably this is something that needs to happen quickly.
Thank you, through you, Mr Deputy Mayor. The status of the development as it currently stands, there is a consent for the development to progress. There currently isn't a construction certificate. So the project to proceed actually requires a new construction certificate application. So , I guess the process of the project really would be contingent upon the documentation and the application for a construction certificate being lodged by a new applicant and processed. So
Thank you. But my understanding was that Mr Myers said that the work that has to go around that construction certificate will take six weeks or so. Well then there's no money until the 25th of the next financial year. So do we all sit around and wait for the new budgeting, or can we have a report? And this is— I'll just raise this now. If Councillor Wheeler is happy, for us to get a report to the next Council, and I know we don't know who that's going to be, with some details around this commitment? Because 0.4 just doesn't— I'm not happy with 0.4 of this as it stands. So could we get possibly a report to the next Council? About how that funding might work with 2025-26
Through you, Deputy Mayor. Yes, I think the most appropriate time to do that, Council, would be at the September quarterly budget review process. What I would recommend at that point is we'll have at least a first quarter indication of the financial position of the Council. It'll allow our director infrastructure services to kind of pull together what the project management impost would be on that. These building projects will need to come with project management support. So funding is one thing, but our staff resourcing is another, given our fully committed program at this point. So what I would like to do is perhaps at that similar meeting to the September quarterly budget review, or in a quarterly capital projects report or something similar to that, bring back effectively what the project would look like from Council's end.
And then we could also have a look at what other partnerships has been a bit discussed tonight around other partners, entities, organisations who may wish to assist the cottage, and we could start to pull that together at that particular point in time, I think would be prudent.
Thank you. If I may, Mr Deputy Mayor, can I then ask Councillor Wheeler if she's happy to change point four to something to that effect, that we actually, I would rather make a decision on some specific funding that has been reviewed , costed, and, you know, I'm really uncomfortable with just doing a sort of a blank cheque approach. I'm not saying that we, you know, don't do it. I'm saying that we need to gather this around, and then that would, as the General Manager has said, give us time to have further discussions with, you know, Rotary or Lions or whoever else wants to be involved. I think that might expedite the solution to this
I'm happy to add 2.4 that Council receive a report on the, at the time of the quarterly budget review, regarding costings, potential funding sources and partnerships. But I'm not happy to remove that we commit to providing funding from the 25-26 budget. And I'm happy to expand on why, but I'm not happy to remove that from 0.4. Councillor
No, I'd just like to add that this Council has always supported the Women's Cottage, and you can see in the notes in this item that we continue to do so. And hopefully through this project, we'll continue our support even more. I thank Councillor Wheeler for her advocating for the Women's Cottage. She's been doing that for years, and it's a great cause. And as was pointed out here tonight, it's in growing need in this society, and that's very unfortunate. Do we have the new motion
Thanks, Mr Deputy Mayor. I'll just run over a couple of things that have been raised in the hope of clearing them up. The reason for needing funding support and the date for that funding support, and I know the figure is rubbery, we haven't got the full costings. We need the Women's Cottage, in order to proceed to the next steps, and there are two next steps, needs to know that this project is going to get off the ground. It's no point just putting it into another hiatus and it feeling like it's on the never-never. This is an organisation that helps women in crisis and is frequently at a crisis point itself for space and funding. They can't afford for us not to get behind this so that it can get over the line.
I'd love to have fully detailed costings. You know, Mr Myers and I and Maria discussed this in the last month. It's simply not possible, largely because of what's happened with the previous builder. So that's why this is as rubbery as it is. And normally I would balk at it. I get that councillors are struggling with having such an open-ended commitment. I wouldn't ask for any other cause but this.
So the funding security allows two things. It allows Urban City to get going on the construction certificate, because that's just the first bit . And then costings can be developed. They can't start tomorrow, even if we chucked a million dollars at them, they wouldn't be turning a sod. Next week. There's a whole lot of stuff that has to happen before they get to that point. What they need is the security to make that start, and we can provide that. The other thing that can happen with that security is that they can move, they can put up that modification and move a demountable building onto the site in a spot that isn't going to interfere with the extension. And they can function out of that demountable building for the couple of years that it will take to get this extension built, fit it out, and for them to move in.
They've got the money for fit-out. They've spoken to DCJ. It's possible that that money can be used towards putting a demountable in, and then some of that money be released once the demountable is off-site to do the fit-out of the building. So this is the start of a cascading series of things that will get the Women's Cottage functioning on that site in a proper capacity and saving 20 grand a month in lease fees, which I have to say are being paid to another council building. Let's be serious about where this money is going. It's not staying with us, but they're leasing a council building from another community organisation. So this is all enormously problematic. This is a cherished asset.
Councillor Veigel is right. And for people of our vintage who grew up in violent homes, a service like this would have changed my life, this service. It would have changed my mother's life.
And that's what it does for women. And that's what we can help them do with this money. I really want to acknowledge the work of Hannah DV and the Women's Cottage. It's an organisation that runs on strong feminist principles. It's strong women strengthening services for women. Because DV is not a women's problem. It's a societal problem. Women are left to pick up the pieces of this problem. If you haven't been to Reclaim the Night, I urge you to do so, particularly if you're a man. It sends a really strong signal to men and boys when men support domestic violence services that that behaviour is not okay. It's really important for men to come along and throw their weight behind these organisations as well.
One of the most moving things that happens at Reclaim the Night is that a candle is placed for every woman who has died due to violence in the home or from an intimate partner in the previous 12 months. Those numbers are not going down. They're going up. That's what the Women's Cottage is working against. It's that tide that we are swimming against. So for those of you who are going to support this, I thank you. The women of the Hawkesbury and their children will thank you into the future. Thanks.
Okay. That was right of reply. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour is Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor Calvert. Absent is Councillor Conolly, and the Mayor declare it carried. Thank you.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Wheeler, seconded by Councillor Lyons-Buckett.
That Council:
1. Acknowledges the outstanding work of the Women's Cottage and Hawkesbury Action Network Against Domestic Violence (HANADV) in providing support, advocacy, care and access to safety for women and children affected by domestic and family violence in the Hawkesbury Local Government Area (LGA).
2. Notes that the incidence of family and domestic violence has increased in the Hawkesbury LGA in the last five years following COVID, repeated natural disasters and increased financial pressures.
3. Notes that the Women's Cottage is unable to meet service needs in its current premises and requires additional funding for an extension to its Bosworth Street, Richmond site.
4. Commits to providing funding from the 2025/2026 Budget and additional project management support to enable the extension of the Women's Cottage to be completed and receives a report at the time of the September 2024 Quarterly Budget Review regarding project management resourcing and costings, the potential funding sources and partnerships.
I think we'll still proceed, Councillors. The next item on the agenda is another item subject to public address. That is item 12.1.4, Notice of Motion for Koala Plan of Management. The first registered speaker is Stephanie Carrick via Zoom. There's Stephanie. Yep, lovely. All right, over to you, Stephanie. Thank you. Can you hear me?
Stephanie Carrick(public speaker - Sydney Basin Koala Network)
Yes, we can. Yes, fantastic. Okay. Hi, I'm Stephanie Carrick. I am the manager of the Sydney Basin Koala Network, which is a project of Total Environment Centre and WIRES. I'm also personally connected to the Hawkesbury with my family living with the koalas in Kurrajong Heights. Through our regular community briefings in the Hawkesbury, we meet residents that are deeply passionate about protecting koalas. With momentum growing after the devastating loss of 79% of koala habitat after the Black Summer bushfires, it will take many years before these trees are suitable for koalas again. Before the fires, the Hawkesbury koala population was thought to be 2,000 koalas, and it is the most genetically diverse population in Australia.
The LGA is also a superhighway for koalas in the Sydney Basin, with community sightings around Kurrajong, Wilberforce, St Albans, Blaxlands Ridge, Glossodia, and only yesterday one sighted in Bowen Mountain. These sightings have been steadily increasing as koalas move to the peri-urban edge to find suitable feed trees. The positive news of increased koala sightings is foreshadowed by a lack of protection on private land, with continued indiscriminate clearing and fragmentation of migratory corridors. Committing to fund koala habitat mapping in a comprehensive koala plan of management is the single greatest thing this council can do to ensure the longevity of Hawkesbury's very important koala population.
Comprehensive plans of management are important as they create a conservation plan at the landscape scale. This is crucial for koalas as it protects koala corridors, which they need to find new breeding partners and for their joeys to disperse and find their own territory once grown. If these corridors are fragmented, these koalas cannot thrive. A management plan also allows recognition of core koala habitat in other legal frameworks, such as the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, local environment plans, and development control plans. A management plan also allows for the planning of very practical steps for the community to look after their koalas, such as creating escape routes in backyards, adding ropes to pools so koalas don't drown, and having dogs on leashes in sensitive areas.
It also identifies hot spots for koalas on the roads to allow sensible plans to reduce roadkill. It is also worth noting that koalas are a powerful umbrella species due to the large diversity of trees they use and also their preference to move along rivers and creeks. Threatened species in the Hawkesbury, such as gang-gang cockatoos and quolls, and even platypuses, benefit from protecting koala habitat. A study by Ward in 2020 found protecting the habitat of umbrella species such as the koalas was the best economic approach to wildlife conservation. Through our advocacy at a state level, we know that the approval of the Koala SEPP guidelines are imminent. We are pushing the planning and environment ministers for councils like Hawkesbury on the 2021 Koala SEPP, which is the good SEPP, to be able to move forward with the next steps towards a full plan of management.
And I note that your council staff agree these issues should not thwart progress. Our ecologists, BioLink, have already analysed areas of koala generational persistence, areas of occupancy, and the extent of occurrence of koalas in the Hawkesbury, which is freely available to council. Science for Wildlife have also spent years ground-truthing koala habitat in the Hawkesbury. Through this work, the community has a growing awareness of where koalas are and the threats they face. There is so much existing knowledge that council can leverage. It would be a travesty if another year was wasted when so much habitat has already been lost. Our polling shows 91% of New South Wales residents support protecting a koala green belt around Sydney.
This issue transcends party politics. Councils who live with koalas have a responsibility to be their guardians. We urge the council to continue the momentum to protect this very important endangered population at their most vulnerable, when they seek food and shelter on private land. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak.
Are there any questions, councillors? Stephanie, we just have a question from Councillor Sheather, if you can hear us still. Yes. Yes, Councillor Sheather.
Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. In relation to the corridors you spoke around Sydney and the protection of those corridors, with your forward planning and the like. Do you try to minimise fingers off that into developed areas already, to minimise that impact that if they stray to already residential areas, you have the impact of cars or dogs, cats, whatever the case may be. So the protection why we need to look after the area of their habitats, we can actually be detrimental, I believe, in relation to that spurring off that allows them to come into an area which is probably nice, but it's dangerous for them. Do your planning look at those aspects of it?
Stephanie Carrick(public speaker - Sydney Basin Koala Network)
Yeah, I mean, look, I think one of the main issues, I mean, if you take southwest Sydney as the cautionary tale, where so much development has already happened and koalas get killed on the roads all the time. And what's so important there is the recognition of koala corridors. So understanding where koalas are moving, how they're moving, from what area to what area, and then you're able to identify what the threats are. That's exactly what a koala plan of management does, is you're able to understand, get a better understanding of koalas in your area, and then understand what are the key threats, and then work out how to mitigate them. So, you know, whether that might be like where, you know, I know there's an area on Old Bells Line Road that koalas are always crossing, you know, you would know to focus there on road mitigation, whatever that may be.
If there's an area where dogs are currently off leash and you understand that that's a corridor that koalas are going to use, then, you know, you can make that an on-leash area. I think it's really important that the community get guidance from council too, what to do if there is a koala in your backyard. And, you know, that is an escape route out of the fence, so that's ensuring that you've got something that they can climb back over and out and away from the threats of the backyard. It's putting ropes in pools. There's so many things that a koala plan of management does. And, yeah, I think you've got to, if you want to protect koalas, you have to understand where they are and then take the steps that you need to to protect them.
Sarah Thompson(public speaker - Vet from Mountain Lagoon)
Hello, and thank you to Madam Mayor, Councillors and members of the Hawkesbury community. My name is Sarah Thompson. I'm a resident of Mount Lagoon. I'm a retired veterinarian with a professional experience of 25 years, and tonight representing Mountains for Wildlife. And what I'd like to do in particular is to bring your attention to community expectations of how we collectively manage the crisis that koalas are currently facing, both from a council perspective, but also from the perspective of the environment community. For those of you not familiar with Mountains for Wildlife, we are a community-led non-profit organisation operating in the Hawkesbury, and we support local landowners to improve wildlife diversity, abundance and resilience in response to the black summer fires and increasing threats to wildlife.
Sister groups are also operating in the McDonald Valley and Colo areas. And we don't operate as an island. Mountains for Wildlife works in partnership with the Hawkesbury Nepean Landcare Network, Hawkesbury River County Council, WIRES and Greater Eastern Ranges, to name a few. So, with our activities, we have been involved in running events that engage the community, educate the community and hands-on activities with bush regeneration and monitoring of wildlife in the area. We also collaborate with the Hawkesbury Environment Network, Sydney Basin Koala Network, Land for Wildlife and Valley for Wildlife. The 2023 Hawkesbury Council ratepayer survey clearly showed that protecting bushland, open space and natural habitats rates as very important with local residents in the Hawkesbury area, and that is why we all choose to live in this area and why so many of us volunteer our time to protect our precious assets here.
Now, in terms of community expectations on what we are doing in relation to the koala crisis and their precipitous population decline, I bring you the example of Port Macquarie Koala Hospital, who, in the aftermath of the 2019 fires, put out a very modest request of only $25,000 to set up some watering stations in burnt areas of koala habitat. Within a week, they had received over $6 million from local and international donors. The collective sense of trauma and helplessness in the face of such an unprecedented disaster catalysed this incredible response. And this allowed the koala hospital to pivot to a much more ambitious scale and, in the subsequent years, have set up a world-class research centre and koala breeding facility, and are actively rewilding koalas in their area.
So it's been a very positive thing. The key message from this, though, is there is a global expectation that everything that can be done should be done to protect koalas. They are a much-loved and iconic species, and they are facing incredible threats. And the good news is that housing development can coexist with protected koala habitat. So, as Steph mentioned, that by identifying the established koala corridors and being proactive about managing those areas, people and koalas can coexist. I bring you the example of Koala Beach in the Tweed Heads Shire, which is an internationally recognised blueprint on how to manage this successfully. Now, 30 years down the track, this estate is home to a stable population of koalas and other endangered wildlife.
They, of course, have a koala plan of management in place, as well as other specific bylaws to manage that koala population. And just referencing your question about how to manage the, you know, the impacts of koalas in the environment, last year variable message signage boards were set up on Bells Line of Road in two locations, and in response to that, there were no roadkill incidents from koalas for the period that those signs were up. So you can be quite strategic and do it at certain times of the year when they're more likely to be moving, and that really enhances driver awareness. So we really need Hawkesbury Council to step up and take the lead to protect our koalas. The environment community is very concerned that all the good work that we are doing on the ground can so easily be undermined by a development process that does not consider the full impacts on koalas and our quintessential natural heritage.
Hawkesbury Council is the only peri-urban council in New South Wales that does not have a koala management plan. Incredibly, our local koalas have hung on despite drought, bushfires, floods, urban development, corridor fragmentation, dog attacks, car strikes and chlamydia. That's quite a burden. They are genetically... Okay,
Sarah Thompson(public speaker - Vet from Mountain Lagoon)
Yep. Current population studies predict koalas to be extinct in the wild by 2050, and this would be a hideous legacy to lose koalas forever on our watch. Their demise is not inevitable. Hawkesbury Council has a responsibility to become a hero for nature. Together we can turn this around. We implore you to fund the koala management plan. Thank you.
Eric Finlay(public speaker - Hawkesbury Environment Network (HEN))
So I'd just like to introduce myself and my connection with koalas and the Hawkesbury. I am here representing the Hawkesbury Environment Network, which I'm a member of, but I'm also here in a personal capacity as someone who's witnessing the situation that is occurring with koalas in our area and in our community. My family's lived in Kurrajong Hills for the last 25 years or so, and particularly over the last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to personally observe what is happening with koalas in the area. Kurrajong Hills is of particular importance for the Hawkesbury and our unique koala population. Morgan Philpott, our local WIRES koala carer, and really a person with many years' experience in working with and helping koalas in our area, has described Kurrajong Hills as the epicentre of the Hawkesbury koala population.
And over the period of time that I've been observing koalas in Kurrajong Hills, including on our property, I've had over, or nearly 150 records in the last 10 years, both visual records and records of calls that I've kept over that period of time. And yet the Hawkesbury to date is not really known as a koala centre around Sydney. This is changing. This is changing. Attention will start to focus on the Hawkesbury. Southwest Sydney has garnered a lot of the attention in media. It's got a higher profile for its koalas, but community focus is shifting, and media profile starting to shift to the Hawkesbury as well. So I think there's a number of reasons why we really need to council's help to assist in getting the koala plan of management off the ground.
Issue sort of really came home to me with a zombie development that's occurring at the moment on a neighbouring property at 150 Hermitage Road, that the approvals around that development were granted back in 2010, including a development application with an environmental assessment that found no evidence of koalas and no suitable koala habitat. But that particular property is about 30 metres from my house, where I have 150 records in the last 10 years. So obviously , rules and regulations were different at that time, but it highlights one problem that exists. But with a few very simple changes to the way that the development is occurring, it could have been a development that was friendly both to the community, to the developers, and to koalas.
It's not about stopping development, it's about making sure that we do things in the right way, and that's what a koala plan of management can bring to this situation, and that's why we really need one in the Hawkesbury. Sarah just spoke about the levels of community support and engagement with koalas, interest in koalas. We're really starting to see that in the Hawkesbury as well. We had a screening of the koalas, the documentary, last Saturday, with about 70 or 80 people in attendance, and since that screening, the petition that I think we're presenting tonight to Council had about 200 signatures on Saturday just before the screening. I think it's now upwards of 900 signatures on that petition, and we've seen a really huge growth in support, momentum within the community for support for our koalas.
Hence Hawkesbury Environment Network is involved in a range of community activities supporting the community with environmental education, interests and activities, and we're really seeing an increase in the topic of koalas, the sorts of inquiries we're getting, the interest we're getting in the community. I really think that there's a great opportunity for us here. We know that many people live in our beautiful area because of the environment that we live in. Part of that is the wildlife that we live with. But also, a lot of people within the community are involved in agricultural and ecotourism, tourism industry, which themselves can benefit from the fact that we have koalas here. And I think as our population grows, and particularly as focus on visitation and tourism to the Hawkesbury grows, we really have an opportunity here.
There's an opportunity for the community to benefit on a whole range of topics in relation to adopting the koala plan of management. And I think that we really need to view this from a whole range of angles, really ask for council support in getting the koala plan of management funded and in action. Thank you.
So firstly, I would like to present the petition from the Hawkesbury Environment Network calling on council to fund a koala plan of management. When I printed it out this afternoon, just before I left home, it was around 802, I think it was 802 signatures. It's now, when I last checked, it was up to 882 signatures. So I don't know where I'm supposed to put that, but there it is. It's now not complete. There's another 80-odd signatures to be added to it. Clearly, this has been running for a couple of weeks with people just simply sharing on social media. This shows, I think, the level of support that the community has for this iconic species in our environment. And as you've heard, this is an umbrella species and the most cost-effective means of protecting the biodiversity habitat for all other species.
You've also heard that Hawkesbury is the only peri-urban council without a koala plan of management. What is deeply distressing is that we are also the only peri-urban council who chose to opt into the rural boundary clearing code. That means that land that is not correctly mapped as koala habitat, it remains vulnerable to land clearing, largely for development in this LGA.
When this term of council rescinded a previous motion and brought in, despite opposition, despite opposition from environment groups and the Rural Fire Service, to the introduction of the rural boundary clearing code, this council said that it would fund a koala plan of management. It has not. This is the unfinished business of this council that I bring to you tonight in our last meeting. I've tried a number of times to get to this point. This is where we are now.
There is clear potential for the Hawkesbury to become known as a place that preserves its habitat, that preserves biodiversity, and that particularly preserves iconic and now endangered species like the koala. We saw the impact of the bushfires on habitat. It will take decades for that habitat to recover, which means that the habitat that we have left is incredibly important. The reason that we've got koalas being hit on the roads is because they're out moving around, trying to find a place to live and something to eat.
We can prevent further attacks on their habitat by putting these documents in place. They're not a big ask. They're something that we're supposed to have, just as a matter of— just as a part of our responsibility as the custodians of the environment and this space. We can find money for all sorts of stuff. The money that we put up in smoke in the space of 15 minutes on Australia Day would fund the next phase of this koala management plan. Just think about that: 15 minutes of noise, light and smoke, or habitat protection for an iconic endangered species that, without that sort of engagement, will be extinct—not might be, will be extinct—by 2050. The choice is yours.
Would you like to speak on that? I think it's not very long now until we have the next Council, and we are moving along with this. We now have the petition, so I think time is of the essence here.
Thank you, Councillor. Councillor, Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Madam Mayor. What an entirely predictable but very disappointing response. This council has failed to lead in this area, and I want to reflect on the fact that I increasingly find myself in furious agreement with a person who's at the opposite end of the political spectrum to me, because Councillor Wheeler represents common sense and decency. And the leadership that this chamber— You're welcome to. And the leadership that this council has laboured under for 17 out of the last 20 years has left us with the Rural Boundary Clearing Code, has left us as the only peri-urban council without a koala plan of management in the premier area in the peri-urban sphere, where koalas are trying to survive under the most incredibly difficult circumstances, where developers are encroaching on their habitat.
I'm very proud to support this, but I lament the fact that it takes this kind of action and advocacy from the community to get my colleagues in the chamber to see sense. I'll leave it at that.
Thank you. I think there's a couple of misleading things that have been said in here. I think what needs to be clarified is that we actually had this discussion a month and a half ago at our June meeting, and the staff advised that we're already on the way to this and that additional funding would do nothing right now to make it go any faster because we've engaged our consultants to do the mapping that we're doing at the moment. After that, we need to wait for the department to tell us what that koala plan of management process looks like and that providing more money right now would make absolutely no difference. And after a long discussion, Council resolved that we should wait until the September quarterly budget review and compare priorities to see what needs our community had at that time that were most urgent and which need we could allocate funding to that would make the most difference at the time.
And whenever you consider these matters in isolation, of course they seem very important because they're all very important, but it's just not that easy. There has to be hard choices. If we go and fund this, there are other things in that quarterly budget review that we've already taken money
Can the gallery please be quiet? That's against the code. Then you'll have to leave the meeting, please. That's against the code of meeting practice, because you're breaking the rules of this chamber. Thank you very much. Now, the councillor has the right to be heard in silence. Please continue, councillor.
Think what's failing to get through, and I think there's a— I might try again because I don't think it was understood. We could allocate funding to this right now. We could cut our fireworks by 15 minutes and we would not get anywhere any faster because of where we're up to in the process. As we discussed at length in June, and have been advised in the note by management, there are hard choices to be made. And we agreed that the September quarterly review, when we knew where we were and we could go back to the roads budget that we took money from to make the budget balanced, we would assess whether what was more important at that time and what would have the most immediate impact if we spent that money on.
This, I understand the desire to try and get all this out in the last meeting of council, but you cannot— we cannot commit a future council to funding something in a future budget in the last meeting of this council. It's silly.
I'm prohibited from telling you whether I think that's a good idea on a previous item because I wasn't here, but I would say that is silly and irresponsible and obviously can be undone by the next council anyway. So you might as well just do it in the next council once you know what that council wants to do, rather than try and do it now and then wait and see if it gets undone in a month or two. There is nobody— I'm surprised you only got 800 signatures. I don't know anybody who, when asked, Would you like to save koalas? says no. There's very few people who are going to say that. Obviously, we would like to all save koalas and we would like to do what we can. And I would actually argue there's very few people in the Hawkesbury that would have a solid understanding of where Hawkesbury City Council is up to in this process, and understanding what funding would make a difference to what if it was allocated at the moment.
This is, it's all public. It's nothing secret. It's all public. I'm just saying that there's very few people that would have been following this closely enough to... Struggling with the constant interjection.
Yeah, look, I am going to put a warning to everyone in this gallery. Under the code of meeting practice, the councillors have the right to be heard in silence, and you need to be respectful of their right to actually participate in this debate without being interrupted. If there is continuous discontent from the gallery, then I will call a recess and we'll ask people to leave the meeting.
I get the frustration sometimes that people would like different decisions to be made, but this only gets better if we all listen to each other, not if we try and speak over the top of each other and refuse to consider alternative points of view, as is being displayed sometimes at the moment. I get the tensions are high. There's an election coming. We all want to score all the points we can. But the reality is that we've already discussed this two months ago. We should not be committing a future council to something in a future budget. We should follow the process we've already laid down, which is that when this comes up in the September quarterly budget review, we can review our position, get advice from staff again as to whether making any immediate funding would make any difference to the process, and then make an informed decision, not a decision that's going to help us at the election.
Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to support the amendment because I was of the same understanding that what we were doing was a commitment to the vegetation mapping that will get us to a place where, when the state government gives us the guidelines about how we produce the koala code, the koala plan of management, we will be ready to go then. So what Councillor Conolly has just said is exactly right. Everybody seems to be thinking that we're dragging the chain somehow, and historically, I guess we have. But at the moment, we're not. We're all committed to getting this over the line. And when I hear people saying, you know, describing the situation, we all know that we have a valuable koala population, and we all want to do as much as we can.
I think we're missing the point that the vegetation work, the mapping work that we're doing, is usable now. So it says in, on page 226 of the business paper, that whilst we're waiting for guidelines on the koala plans of management that need to be certified, this is from the state government, it says, however, the information obtained through the fine scale vegetation mapping and further work is usable regardless of whether or not certification of the koala plan of management is able to occur. So what that says to me, and I'll actually ask this as a question to management if I can, can that mapping be used to assist people that want to use the rural boundary clearing code? Which, by the way, I'll say on the public record that my Labor colleague Barry Calvert and I did not vote for
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Thank you, Madam Mayor. So in terms of the usability of the fine scale mapping, obviously, it's part of the process in terms of developing a koala plan of management, but it's also usable in terms of informing development assessment processes, in terms of assessing applications and so forth there. The rural boundary clearing code, as I understand, obviously has a number of provisions that need to be abided by property owners, a number of which are vegetation communities and so forth, so. My understanding is that mapping would have to be legislated in some form to impact on the Rural Boundary Clearing Code provisions here.
Thank you for that. I think that, look, I think that we have to wait for the state government to assist us with the funding for this. It's all very well to say, you know, everything has to happen now, and that's why I think in the September quarterly review we can then have that discussion. And I thought we had discussed this in the last meeting and came to that conclusion that nothing is going to happen if we pass this notice of motion. I think this notice of motion is just a stunt. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mayor, and I think that's quite insulting to call it a stunt. I don't think it's that. You can see the people who've come here tonight who are committed to working in this field, and to insult them like that by saying they've pulled a stunt. It was HEN that put out the petition, and Councillor Wheeler has brought that petition to this chamber. And I don't like sitting here and hearing insulting comments being made to our community. One of the reasons
That Councillor Kotlash is referring to around the September 2024 quarterly budget review is because at that time that was inserted to sort of fob off Councillor Wheeler's attempt at the time to actually get some money put in then from some excess money that was in the budget that she was asking her colleagues to support in allocating at that particular point of time, which was before our budget was passed. So really that was moving it down the track. And I think that what we've got a situation of here is we've got some validation from the community that they want that commitment to be made. Now, I think Councillor Reardon bringing this amendment, I'm not sure if she's setting a precedent, but I think we've got another item on here.
If it's too close to the end of term to be making decisions, we should perhaps leave everything. But as you see, we haven't left everything. We'll be looking at the River County Council. That probably, I'm sure you're going to support leaving that till the following council because that would be the same situation. Waiting for the state government all the time. I've sat in here for over 12 years, and I've been waiting for the state government to assist us in this area. In 2014, we had a commitment to do a koala plan of management. I don't know where these things go. They vaporise off into thin air, and they never end up being done because, as Councillor Conolly says, you wait till the next council come in and they bring motions and they unravel things that are done.
Just like this council came in and they overturned the LEP going to the state government, which we still haven't got that back. They overturned the rural boundary clearing code, which is a major contributor to the demise of our koala population that we see here now. So I'm not happy with that. I'm speaking against deferring this situation. What having a commitment from our council for our next budget shows the community that we're serious about this. It's another situation that is so, so overdue. We know we had the losses, massive losses in the fires, massive losses from land clearing, from the rural boundary clearing code. We've had many, many losses and fragmentation of our habitat. And like Eric, I live in an area as well where I see the koalas and I see the demise of what is happening, and it's really quite heartbreaking.
And I think that in response to the community coming to us and wanting us to commit to having a plan of management, something that other councils all already have. It's not like it's some amazingly novel idea to have one that we should be committing to it. I think, too, we've got to start to really look at the economic drivers behind this koala population and the fact that we go out marketing ourselves as a place to come, and you see the people coming here on the weekend for accessing what we have here to offer. And the estimate from the Department of Environment is that the tourism around koalas— contributes $1.1 to $2.5 billion annually. So we have a responsibility to play our part in protecting that population, which we've heard is the most genetically diverse, and that's something that we should be proud of and we don't want to lose.
So if we're going to be serious about doing this, we have to sort of stay in line with what the state government are pushing as a koala strategy, which is, of course, to double the numbers by 2050. But what are we doing? We're thinking we'll go the other way and we'll just push it further down the track and not commit to doing it. The local government New South Wales submission around to the koala strategy identifies the losses of koala habitat specifically from the rural boundary clearing code. That's on page seven of its submission. It's identified the detriment that that is having, and we are the only council to opt into that, and we're seeing the results of that when we look around and see the losses of that habitat.
So I will not support amending it. I support Councillor Wheeler's original motion, and I'm very sad that it's not considered that there's such selectivity in this chamber about when something should be dealt with now and when something should be fobbed off down the track.
Councillor. Just reminding you, you talked about selectivity there at the end by saying you're insulted by Councillor Kotlash's word stunt, but you called another councillor's motion tonight insane. So I'm just letting you know that you've also insulted another councillor. So let's just all refrain from doing that, shall we? Councillor Sheather. Sorry,
As that's serious, I'm not offended by it at all. I get called worse than that. Madam Mayor, to the staff, when we were briefed on the fine scale vegetation management plan, and that was discussed in some length in relation to what we're talking about tonight, but we were advised by staff and consultants at the time that the process to go down for the best outcome was to go down the fine scale vegetation mapping and then continue on to the koala habitat from that. Am I mistaken, or is that advice that was given to us by those people at the time?
Andrew Kearnes(staff - Manager, Strategic Planning)
Thank you, Madam Mayor. So the fine scale vegetation mapping is, I guess, a requisite part of the whole process. It's combined with the koala food tree assessment to basically give you your, which essentially establishes the extent of the suitable koala habitat. So it's a core component of the process, and that's added to additional parts of work to form the overall plan of management.
It's been chucked around tonight fairly often about the boundary clearing . Have we got any evidence where council's been approached, or we've had to approach property owners in relation to that boundary clearing? That's contributed to the conversation tonight that it's been a major problem. I know that in other places it's been documented in some cases, but is it the case here?
Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, there would certainly be instances where our compliance team have investigated reports of clearing, and those residents have purported to be undertaking clearing in accordance with the Rural Boundary Clearing Code.
Okay, thanks. Madam Mayor, I support the motion. When we spoke about this at length, and the councillors that have brought it to our attention tonight, we all know how passionate they are about it, and good on them for the work they do. But it was told to us then that to run both of them at the same time would not be fruitful, and the best outcome would be to get the fine-scale vegetation and move on from that. The information from the staff is that that's underway and it's happening, and that we should be mindful that there is a resolution for the Koala Plan of Management to happen. And if it's been stifled, that we need to make sure that it keeps moving. To jump in, and when the staff's working on the whole structure of what that resolution was at the time, I don't think is right.
I understand the frustration and the community angst to move this on, but there is a process. And again, if we're using funds for that purpose, and it frustrates me a little bit when we talk about cut and funding back to new items like Australia Day and the likes, that doesn't sit comfortably with me. All these things are important to different parts of our community, and we need to, as has been indicated by the speakers, that we get to know all the facts. And while some of them, and I'm as guilty as the next person about trying to sometimes encourage fellow councillors to move forward on something we seem to be dragging the chain with. But we're lucky enough, there's 12 of us sitting around here most of the time, the decision's made, that's right.
Thank you, Councillor. You just raised the issue there of the fireworks, which I know was discussed by the mover of the original motion. Can I please ask staff, I mean, the original mover of the motion said the cost of the fireworks is the same as the cost of a plan of management. I might have that wrong. What I'd like to find out, so that the facts are on the table from the staff, is how much would a koala plan of management cost, and how much did the fireworks cost on the Australia Day just gone? Just for clarification for those who are not wanting to be swayed by anything but facts.
Through you, Madam Mayor, our best estimates of the development of the koala plan of management following the completion of all of the vegetation mapping, guided by the experience of other councils, is in the order of $180,000 to $200,000, around that ballpark. The fireworks, I'm told, were in the vicinity of $11,000 to $12,000.
I understand that, but it prompted the question in my mind about seeing whether that was like for like, or we're talking very different values, which we clearly are. Deputy Mayor.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have issues with the way this has been brought to council. It's unfortunate it's been brought here in a confrontational manner, with members of the public coming here and shouting at us and telling us that we don't look after koalas, when actually we do. It's all here in this document that we do have a strategy for committing to the Koala Plan of Management, but it implies, the motion implies that we don't and that we're actually out there trying to not protect koalas, which is totally wrong. In fact, in the background information here, it actually mentions that we should, in the June 2024 meeting, we resolved that in the September 2024 quarterly budget review, we would consider a proposal to include the development of a Koala Plan of Management and Council's Urban Greening Strategy.
Now that's next month. That's not five years away. It's a couple of weeks away. So what we were planning to do was in September was to consider it. What I think the only issue there is that perhaps the mover of the motion would, instead of us saying consider it, would like to say adopt it, adopt a proposal to include a development. Making those kind of minor changes should be something that 12 councillors can do together in a collaborative manner. It shouldn't require petitions from the community. It shouldn't require people coming in here and yelling at us, and it shouldn't require councillors yelling at each other. I'm very disappointed at the way this has happened. It appears to me that the only thing that's being questioned here is the timing.
It's being implied or even stated by movers of the original motion that council staff are not following this through quickly enough and/or other councillors are deliberately delaying it. Neither of those things are happening. It's all explained on page 226 exactly what has happened and what is going to happen. And so to move this motion at this time, and I'm sure it's just a mere coincidence that it's a couple of weeks before an election, to move this motion at this time I think is most unfortunate. We should just leave it alone because we're working on it already, and in fact what we've already decided to do was look at it in September, a couple of weeks away. So this whole thing was totally unnecessary because it was happening anyway.
And I'm rather insulted by what some people have been saying and doing here tonight because this council is not against koalas. It's not against the koala plan of management. We have shown over and over again that we do care about koalas, and we will continue to do so. And to me this motion unfortunately brings a whole atmosphere of confrontation that is totally unnecessary.
Thank you. Thank you very much . Yet again, I'm disturbed about what's happening in here. Most importantly about this amendment. What are we going to achieve? It doesn't matter whether it's one week or two weeks. If we lose one koala during this period, what's going to happen? That's one koala we're trying to protect. Why are we taking this, you know, so long? Or in September then there will be an election. We don't know who is going to come in.
And there's some new councillors, you know, are they going to work out? And I don't know how long this matter has been going for, years and years. And some people behind me saying about, oh, Councillor Wheeler, 15 minutes of a smoke or whatever it is. Well, shall we bring it down to 10 minutes? Or shall we go and cancel the New Year celebration so, you know, we could get a couple of, well, 20, 30 millions of dollars, you know, to support, you know, such a project? Or shall we, how, I mean, how far can we extend this? We've contributed close to one billion, as a matter of fact, 889 million dollars to the war in Ukraine for people, you know, killing each other. So, shall we? So I don't know, what is it?
Can we not just decide in this room, putting personal feelings aside, and these people, you know, they want some kind of an answer . Everybody wants to go home. Let's finish this thing in here. Give them whatever we could afford to give them, so everybody will be happy. Please.
Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? No. I'll put the amendment then. All those in favour of the amendment, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno. The amendment is carried. The amendment becomes the motion. Is there anyone wishing to speak on the motion that hasn't spoken? No
I think we can speak. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Is that not the system, that we can speak on the motion once I haven't spoken on the motion, I've spoken on an amendment? Yeah. Oh, I thought you said if you haven't spoken already . I'd just like to say that, you know, it's very hard for the community to perceive that we care if we don't have this plan in place already. And we don't. And it's 2024, and we do not. So. I think we had lots of promises made when we first had issues where we were going to ask the minister, and people had spoken to the minister, and we were going to hear about, you know, all sorts of various things around koalas, and we simply haven't gone forward as much as we'd like.
Now, I'm not blaming staff. I know that we have committed to doing certain things, but that doesn't stop us committing to actually making sure that this koala plan of management is budgeted for next year. And if someone wants to come in and change that, then that is what they will do if it's that sort of council. I mean, given the people who don't want to support it now, maybe they'll all come back and they'll change it then, or maybe they won't come back. We don't know. I think just in response, Madam Mayor, to what you said about me saying something to Councillor Sheather, I was merely supporting Councillor Conolly in his, what he had raised about the motion about the livability, but I won't dwell on that.
I'd just like to thank again Hen for their ongoing advocacy in this area, and I'm sorry that it looks like this won't be a commitment that this council can give you. But I'm sure many of us here will commit to continuing to try and follow up and to deliver that plan of management into the future. So thank you for putting the petition out. Thank you for the education and awareness that you bring to the community. Thank you to Stephanie and the other groups who are doing such a wonderful job. I hope that the New South Wales Government's koala strategy of doubling the koala population by 2050 can be realised, but I'm not quite sure how much Hawkesbury is going to be contributing to that strategy, because we do have a lot of loss going through the rural boundary clearing code.
It's not always evident, but When you've got your ear to the ground and you live in certain places, that you hear what's happening, and you can hear the machines out there in the bush as well. It's evident that it's happening. So thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for bringing this motion forward. I hope that we do see a koala plan of management put into place one day in here. We're so lucky to have, as I think it was Stephanie that said, a superhighway of connectivity. Sadly, that's been fragmented, but to think that we have that existing in our local government area is really a great thing. And when you look at councils like MidCoast Council, how they go out of their way in protecting their koalas and making it a part of their community and ensuring they're doing everything they can do, I have to express I find it a little disappointing.
Just really briefly, because I think it's important that we don't just try and sow misinformation to cause division in the community when it doesn't need to happen. And Council is already committed to going down this path. Council is already doing this work. We've been informed by our staff that putting more money in this right now wouldn't change anything because we're at a particular stage in the process. So I would encourage free thinkers out there to think about why somebody might want you to believe that, and why it might be in somebody's interest to come here and tell you that Council doesn't care and Council isn't doing it, despite all the evidence to the contrary in the business papers and in our documents. And if you're a free thinker, you might come to an interesting conclusion about that person and why they're doing it.
Thanks, Madam Mayor. All the insults just continue, don't they? I'm really pleased that more than half of this chamber is happy to have a councillor say time is of the essence and then move to defer. Yes .
We have the most genetically diverse population of koalas in the country. They are currently experiencing a pincer movement against them: urban sprawl at one end and fires at the other. In 10 years, there will be no koalas left west of the Great Dividing Range. We are that edge.
What we do need to do is commit to funding to get on with our mapping. Consider is not commit. I'm not sure which dictionary you're reading, but last I looked, consider meant think about and maybe do something. It didn't mean commit. This notice of motion asks this council, who weakened the protections in the LEP, who brought in the rural boundary clearing code, to commit to protecting against some of that harm. Now, koala habitat, which you are asked to fund, koala habitat mapping, which you are asked to fund in this notice of motion, provides direct protection against clearing under the rural boundary clearing code. Mapped core koala habitat is a not allowable area . I'm glad you find the death of koalas funny, Councillor Conolly. I find it hilarious. That's why I'm here. Councillor Wheeler , I'll call you to
To call— A petition signed by 882 people imploring this council to fund the three stages of a koala plan of management, when we have only committed to one, to call that a stunt is just so—
Point. The comment made by another councillor was that the motion was a stunt, not that any petition or the community group's actions were a stunt. Thank you. And the councillor is saying it knows that full well.
Point one of the notice of motion states that council received the petition. I don't find the receipt of a petition signed by 882 people a stunt in any way. I don't find it an election stunt. I don't find it anything but a considered plea from Council's peak environmental organisation for council to do something to protect an iconic Australian species. Now, people have got upset about the prospect of maybe backing off a bit on the fireworks. What would we be celebrating on Australia Day if we've killed off all the Australian native species? What would be the point of going to Australia Day? We're just going to go on a few rides, eat some ordinary food, watch some fireworks, woohoo, we are Australian.
We clear habitat. Well done. Well done, people. Members of the public are telling you that we don't look after koalas because they are on the ground seeing that we do not. And in fact, you see around this room the people who are caring for koalas. They are picking up injured koalas. They are caring for them for months before they can be released. And now they are facing the devastation of seeing exactly those release sites destroyed by development. And by land clearing.
We committed, a couple of hours ago, to selling off a piece of public land with significant biodiversity on it, behind closed doors, without any sort of public process. But we can't commit to protecting Koala habitat. There was a room full of people on Saturday who are very well aware of what's going on here. They are not uneducated. They are not misinformed. What they want is for Council to act, to commit now to getting on with protecting Koala habitat as soon as possible. Time is indeed of the essence.
Don't vote for a deferral. Leave this motion live. Let's come back to it and let's fund it tonight. Let's commit to funding this now, because time is of the essence. We won't be meeting in September. We won't be meeting until October. Just keep dribbling it away, and then there'll be other things. There'll be road funding. The cost of a Koala Plan of Management will cover about usually less than a kilometre of road
Your time is expired. I'll just put a point of order there that you made a statement that Council can't commit, and I've got this written word for word, to protecting Koala habitat. My point of order that it shows in the business paper that's clearly not the case. I will put the motion. Those who will support the motion on the board, please raise your hand. In favour of the motion are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno. I declare the motion carried. We will next go on to the item.
We'll next go on to the items on block. The items on block are items 10.4.1, 11.1.5 and 11.1.6. Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Conolly, 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 Durick, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Amprogno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the items on block carried.
CP - Planning Proposal - LEP004/23 - 172 Commercial Road, Vineyard Amendment to Schedule 1 Additional Permitted Uses of Hawkesbury Local Environmental Plan 2012
Sarah McMahon
The next item on the agenda is item 10.1.1, planning proposal LEP 004/23, 172 Commercial Road Vineyard, amendment to Schedule 1, additional permitted uses of Hawkesbury Local Environment Plan 2012. Do I have someone willing to move that way? Councillor Conolly, seconded Councillor Reardon. Councillor Conolly.
No one else? Right of reply. Oh, Councillor Sheather? Councillor Lyons-Buckett has indicated that— No, she didn't have her microphone on. She's given up. That's not very enthusiastic. Anything else? Councillor Conolly,
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 Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Reardon.
That Council:
1. Notes the outcome of public agency consultation and public exhibition of Planning Proposal LEP004/23, 172 Commercial Road, Vineyard.
2. Supports the making of the proposed amendment to the Hawkesbury Local Environmental Plan 2012, which seeks to amend Schedule 1 - Additional Permitted Uses to permit (subject to consent) a depot, and warehouse or distribution centre.
3. Prepares and forwards the draft instruments associated with the Hawkesbury Local Environmental Plan 2012 amendment to the Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.
4. Upon receiving confirmation from the NSW Parliamentary Counsel Office that the Hawkesbury Local Environmental Plan 2012 amendment may be legally made, Council request notification of the Hawkesbury Local Environmental Plan 2012 amendment on the NSW Legislation website to give effect to the amendment.
In accordance with Section 375A of the Local Government Act 1993 a division is required to be called whenever a planning decision is put at a council or committee meeting. Accordingly, the Chairperson called for a division in respect of the motion, the results of which were as follows:
CP - Review of Hawkesbury Section 7.12 Contribution Plan
Sarah McMahon
The next item is item 10.1.2, Review of Hawkesbury Section 7.12 Contribution Plan. Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Conolly. Councillor Kotlash. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item?
No. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Duric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Dogramaci. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Kotlash, seconded by Councillor Conolly.
That:
1. The Draft Hawkesbury Section 7.12 Contribution Plan 2024, attached as Attachments 1 and 2 to this report, be placed on public exhibition.
2. The outcome of public exhibition of the Draft Hawkesbury Section 7.12 Contribution Plan 2024 be reported to Council prior to adoption.
In accordance with Section 375A of the Local Government Act 1993 a division is required to be called whenever a planning decision is put at a council or committee meeting. Accordingly, the Chairperson called for a division in respect of the motion, the results of which were as follows:
IS - Quarter 4 - 2023/2024 Capital Projects Report
Sarah McMahon
The next item is item 10.5.1, quarter four 2023 to 2024 capital projects report. I do let Councillors know there is a confidential item attached to this item. Councillor Wheeler, would you like to read out your declaration?
Thanks, Madam Mayor. I have a less than significant pecuniary interest in the quarter four capital projects report. I'm a member of the Communications Brigade of Hawkesbury Rural Fire Service and I volunteer in the Fire Control Centre. And my son is a member of the Wilberforce Brigade, New South Wales Rural Fire Service. The reason for no further action is that it does not meet the threshold for significance.
Thank you, Councillor. I'll also declare as less than significant non-pecuniary interest, as I too am a member of the Hawkesbury RFS Communications Brigade, and the fire centre is mentioned in this report, and also in terms of Turnbull Oval, my son currently plays for the Hawkesbury Hawks. Councillors, is there anyone who wishes to make remarks about any section of the confidential part? Otherwise I'll just move straight into confidential for this item. Well, first of all, I need a mover. Someone want to move that way? Councillor Reardon, seconded... Oh, sorry.
Recommendation. Councillor Reardon has. Yep And Councillor Kotlash has seconded. Councillor Reardon, did you wish to make any remarks? No. Councillor Conolly? No.
No, no, I was saying if there's anything you want to say that's part of the confidential attachment, I will need to move into confidential. Councillor Sheather?
I'll attempt to, Madam Mayor. I can't see what I'm asking is, but the projects that, and I'm mainly on about Tamplin Field and North Richmond, the latest drawings I've seen indicate that we've gone from a synthetic track to a grass track, and I'm not sure whether, again, the diagrams indicate that the grandstand's going to be over the building.
Right. So when we first spoke about the West Invest and that sort of stuff, one of the reasons it went to Tamplin Field, well, probably the only reason, was the synthetic athletic track, and North Richmond was because there'd been a grandstand in the wind for many, many years and we were waiting for opportunity. So we went for that. And it seems as though, through time and the like, that we're looking at advancing the project, but the funds might be not there to quantify the photographs we've put out, but it seems— And be correct if I'm wrong that one, we've lost the synthetic track, and two, that the building is not going to have a grandstand over it. Is that right or wrong?
Through you, Madam Mayor. In the case of Templin, through consultation with the sports council and the users down there, there has been a move back towards a turf track. A few reasons for that, one of which is budgetary pressures, both for the capital cost but also the ongoing maintenance cost. And that has been made in consultation with the stakeholders. The grandstand at Turnbull at North Richmond, I'd have to take that on notice in terms of the detail. We're not at the point of detailed design or indeed a finalised concept design on that. That's still underway, utilising the feedback from stakeholders.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. The reason I mention it, both the projects have been a long-term vision of the sports council and indeed a lot of the sporting community.
And there's lots of things that have happened on both grounds, and we haven't talked about it a lot. We get a bit of briefing, like we've got in the business paper this year, but we've got all over our city the photographs or the images of what we were going to build for our city, and we've fallen short. And we haven't taken the fencing down, we haven't taken the playing area down of that. We've reduced the very two things, and I take on board that we're not quite sure about the grandstand over the building, but— I'm fairly confident that this is a problem there too. So the very things that were a long-term vision of the sporting community, and certainly me, and the reason when it was discussed and we put all the stickers on the wall next door, that when the opportunity came up, those projects were first and foremost.
And now we're still doing the parameters of that, still spending literally millions of dollars, but not doing the very thing. And I understand about the discussion with the stakeholders of the Sports Council. I speak to both of them. But when you go to someone and say, We've got no money, we've got to cut back,
There's not a lot you can say or do about that. If you haven't got the money, you can't do it. But we put up drawings, and there's some downstairs as you walk in the door, of the glossy things that, I don't like to say we promised the community, but it's not far off it. And it really disappoints me that the last thing we should be looking at taking away is the reason we went there in the first place. It's like any organisation structure or anything, you've got to have some purpose for why you head that direction in the first place, whether it's an organisation, a club, building and the like. And from time to time, there'll be doors closing in your face, but you can't lose that passion to drive for the very purpose that you started in the first place.
And we seem to be the very two things that we've dropped off, both of them, the very reason that we started it. Now, I don't know how we overcome that.
To promote what we offered and to finish up, we've got professional people that tell us and the like about costing, and we know that's gone up and all the rest of it. But
Tell me one of the projects, just one of that stack of good photos and all the rest of it, that we're going to achieve what's on those photos. That's a bad impression of us. It's a bad direction, and it's really concerning. If we're going to do something and we offer a Taj Mahal, we build it. And so, Madam Mayor, it is really frustrating when we've talked about sitting around discussing things tonight and agreeing on things and sticking with them. And in the main we do. But we've got to a situation where we say, well, the money's not there.
Are there opportunities to look at those or further be reported exactly what the situation is? And I've read the reports that you and the Deputy Mayor go to. And the likes. None of it's encouraging , and it's concerning.
Thanks, Councillor. I would say while you're absolutely entitled to your opinion, I think the rising cost of delivering things is the problem. And I don't know if the Director or the GM wanted to elaborate on that as to why there's some challenges. You don't have to. I was just asking. But the ultimate aim is to still deliver these projects as best as we can while appreciating just those rising costs. And I know, I hear what you're saying, you know , but to me, as long as the groups that are using the facilities are happy with them, that community engagement and consultation is vital. And I guess, you know, we'll see the direction that takes in the new term of Council. Anyone else wishing to speak on the item? Councillor Lyons-Buckett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think what Councillor Sheather's just alluded to is actually sort of the flaws that we sort of have projected with these sort of projects from the beginning. I had a question about page 69. For page 69, in the North Richmond Community Precinct, could somebody explain what the final paragraph there that starts at critical project dependency, what that means and what the implication of that will be?
Certainly through you, Madam Mayor. So the initial concept that was produced for the North Richmond Community Centre as part of the Western Invest application was predicated on the plan as it is, as it was and as it— is being currently reviewed to relocate, and I always get these buildings confused, the childcare centre off its current location into a new building that was to be built closer to the Chas Perry Community Centre. So that North Richmond Community Centre, in its current form, is dependent on that building being essentially demolished and the childcare centre being moved into the new building, which is Council's adopted approach to that site, I think it was adopted in April 2022.
So that is the interdependency, is that one project is dependent on the other being successfully delivered. Now, with respect to the community centre and the Chas Perry, as has been the flavour of the night, there have been significant cost escalations since 2022 when Council resolved to deliver new buildings, and we don't think that it's feasible anymore to deliver those new buildings within the current budget of the 2.7 or so million dollars. So that's essentially what that paragraph is explaining, is that there is a dependency on the childcare and the OSHC being relocated on that site for the North Richmond Community Centre to proceed as it is currently displayed in those renderings.
Thank you for that. Initially, before we had the West Invest funding, there was going to be money spent there. That's RedBank money and also other money . I believe at that point there was going to be a new building built. So you're essentially— Saying that that's not feasible within the current budget, so that's not going to happen now.
No, so my team is still reviewing the options for the delivery of the outcome, which we're required to provide to the community using that funding from the development at Redbank plus, I think it was general funds contributions. So we're still essentially assessing what those options are to deliver on that outcome, and in due course, once we have crunched the numbers, we'll be bringing that back to Council for consideration.
Okay. Is there a timeline on this overall sort of project? Like, it's another thing that, and I understand the complexities of the whole project, the bigger part of the project, but there's a need—well, I haven't spoken to anyone about this; this is just coming from what I've heard around the place—that there's a need, you know, for some certainty around the childcare and the OSH. It's an ever-growing demand that exists there. So is there a timeline on when anything may start at the North Richmond Centre?
Through you, Madam Mayor, not commencement of works. We don't have a timeline yet. It's fair to say that we're still assessing what it is that we will be doing. We do have, if memory serves correct, a development consent for the proposal as it was. So if we can either identify additional funding or an alternative funding source, or indeed develop some way of moving forward that suits that consent, we're close to shovel ready. But it's really about assessing. What is quite a complex site, and what we've intended or what we've committed to deliver on that site, with a number of variables and a number of options, including some additional studies that we're undertaking around traffic management and so forth, to determine what is the best overall approach to deliver all of the commitments that we've made across that North Richmond site. Okay,
Thank you. And I'm just wondering at what point councillors and/or the community... Would be having input into what final decisions are being made about what is going into that precinct?
Yep. So if I split that into two parts, the stakeholder, so to deal with the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants program first, Council adopted in the last few months a stakeholder engagement plan for North Richmond Community Centre. Now within that contained a number of steps at which point we would bring matters back to Council. If memory serves correct, the first was the concept design, so about 100% concept design, we would bring that back to the Chamber for adoption. A second step was the detailed design, and then I think the third and final was on the construction tender, so the ultimate procurement decision. So there's three milestones that the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants component of that site would come back to Council, with respect to the community centre and the childcare centre.
As I mentioned, Council had resolved to adopt a particular course of action with respect to those two facilities in April 2022, so that is Council's adopted position. Once we have developed an alternate, or if we arrive at a situation which departs from that resolution by virtue of the funding constraints, then we would come back to Council at that time to present it to Council for adopting a new course of action.
Thank you . I'm just concerned when I'm hearing that so much is going ahead with designs. I know these designing phases can be quite expensive. I'm just concerned that without knowing exactly what is going to be the end product and what services will still exist, et cetera, there, just being mindful of a community sentiment about ensuring that the community centre retains a community centre at the heart of it. I'm just mindful of when—I don't think anyone wants to see a lot of money spent on concept or detailed designs and then that not really be what the objective in terms of the community, and particularly around the money that was given through developer contributions. Sorry. Yeah, I just, I'm just concerned it'll get too far down the track if it's not really what we were anticipating.
So I guess I'm just telling you that. I'm not asking you a question. I'm just saying that is my fear. So I'll just keep it as my fear, and maybe you'll keep it in mind. Thank you.
So we've got a range of internal working groups for a number of the Western Sydney Infrastructure Grants Program projects. The two most significant ones are, unsurprisingly, the North Richmond Community Centre and the Richmond Pool. Those working groups have a number of objectives. Some are to do with the technical operations of the buildings and the facilities and the requirements that need to be met in the technical aspects, and others are related to the function, the form, and how those buildings are going to be used. It's too early insofar as pinning down exactly what, or, pardon me, how large all those services that will be provided out of particularly the North Richmond Community Centre.
We really have to overcome this current challenge, which is the overall— Coordination of the site before we go down that path. So at the present time, it is still development of the needs which is being undertaken in... Sorry
I haven't been clear, I think, and I've sent you off on another tangent, and that is a concern of mine. Sorry, I'll rephrase. I'll be more specific. What are we doing to liaise with the staff who are currently running the facilities on these sites, particularly North Richmond Community Centre, to make sure that we get a product, an end product, that both fulfils the objectives of the West Invest project, but keeps those current valued services functioning both into the future and throughout the build phase?
Okay, so to make sure that I've understood correctly, when you say staff, we're talking about staff who are currently providing services out of North Richmond Community Centre. So we have a user group that we engage with for the community centre. I think we may also include the childcare centre in that group. I'd have to check that. And that has been set up to provide input into the design, but also to manage the continuity of those services during construction. Because, of course, when we build on that site, the existing community centre will have to be demolished first. So we've already commenced those discussions with the community centre around how we provide that continuity of service both during construction, but then also the services to be provided out of the new facility.
Thanks. I think we might need to revisit how that's going, because the feedback that I'm getting is that the staff are not feeling like they're being heard in that space. And look, at Hawkesbury Fest, there were some opportunities to chat with both the WestInvest team and the other infrastructure team. I have to tell you that the guy in the infrastructure tent didn't know what he was talking about. He told the manager of the North Richmond Community Centre, who was standing there with her North Richmond Community Centre T-shirt on, it was quite clear who she was, that the centre would be complete by the end of the year. Now, we're not even going to be at the end of the detailed design phase by the end of the year. So, and then the next person that she spoke to
Really didn't give her the impression that she had even received, let alone acted on, the manager of the facility's recommendations as to what that facility needs to provide into the future. Now, that's deeply concerning. There are real concerns from people who use that site for childcare
That their needs won't be met during some of these phases, and they rely on that so that they can park their kids somewhere while they go to work. So we really have to, I think we have to be really conscious that in our juggle for what is a huge volume of projects, we're making sure that the end users feel like they're, A, consulted and, B, supported through the changes that we're going through. Some rapid fire stuff on a few other things that are mentioned in the reports. The Wilberforce playground, could we get someone out to look at that? It's not secure and there's some ongoing vandalism to it. So it needs more than a bit of plastic. The kids in Wilberforce are both resilient and creative, and quite strong from the reports on social media, with the rocks that they were— boulders was one of the phrases.
I presume they've lifted bits of the… of the retaining wall that they're chucking around on the plastic. It probably won't cost as much to demolish because they're into it now. Do we have signage with commencement dates and potentially photos or something on high-profile works areas like Howell Park? If we do, I think we might get less questions on social media, although they're not going to be big enough for people to see as they drive past. I suspect they're not getting out of their cars. And are we not doing the landslip at Howell Park until 25/26? Is that correct that I've read in the— no, that's, sorry, that's what I read in the report.
Which I don't have open. Sorry, that's all right. If we could just get an updated commencement date, that would be helpful, I think. And look, this is something that the next council is going to have to grapple with, but we look like we've got lots of likely funding shortfalls. The faster we can come clean with the public about that, the better, I think. Thank you.
Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Councillor Dogramaci. Yeah, thank you. First of all, on the business paper, page 119, when I was told on several occasions that, you know, I don't read and know, I do read on that meeting. Both myself and Councillor Sheather, we got confused, as a matter of fact, night before then. I think, you know, we were told the meeting was going to be at 6 o'clock or something like that. Sorry, Councillor, you're referring to page 119. Is that what you said? Yes. We're not on that item, Councillor. We're on items — the item that starts, it's item 10.5.1, and it starts on page 69. I thought that that was finished. You should pay attention, Councillor. I am. It's getting really unacceptable that you don't read the business paper and you don't pay attention to what we're up to. I thought it was finished. When did we vote on it, Councillor?
We are on item 10.5.1. We have not moved from that item since I introduced it. Okay, I do apologise. Please pay attention. You are being paid by the ratepayers. I am. To pay attention and do your job. I am. Who else would like to speak?
No? Right of reply, Councillor Reardon. Right of reply? No, thank you very much. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Vargo, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Duric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillors Improgno, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to express appreciation to the staff for the amount of work that goes into this committee and the depth of information that is provided to enable the audit committee to examine what they do. And I really urge anyone who's on the next council to really delve into the sorts of things that occur. And there's actually on page 99 a list of what sort of audits will be carried out. In the last one, I did ask a couple of questions because I was hoping they'd be things that would be audited around the development application audit is going to be done in 2024-25, which will be good. And I did question whether it looked at just outcomes or systems and processes, and whether it would be addressing things around the New South Wales Planning Portal, which seems to be problematic for many people.
So the answer to that, it includes all the processes from the beginning to the end. And I think that because we hear a lot in here about people asking about the development application process, that it will be really good to see an outcome on that particular audit. And the other one that I was hoping to see there, because it also comes up, is one around compliance and regulatory services. But that seems to be broken into various parts of that particular department to be done. But the reading through the paperwork, or even, you know, reading the minutes and the actual audits that are done, really gives a good insight into the council operations and can really assist in the understanding of what exactly.
You know, all these various departments of what we're, well, what the council's responsible for, but for what we're responsible for, ideally. And sometimes I think if people don't really delve into it and understand, you might not really understand what you're making decisions around. So it's a really valuable tool in assisting with understanding how the council operates. And thank you particularly to the staff that manage that particular committee.
Thank you, Councillor. I note the time is almost 11 p.m. Can I have someone please move to continue? Councillor Connelly, Councillor Veigel, all those in favour? Yep, everybody. Thank you very much. We will continue past 11 p.m. Anyone else wishing to speak on that item? No, right of reply, Councillor Connelly? Not necessary. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Connelly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno, and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
ROC - Enhancing the Arts in the Hawkesbury Working Group - 16 July 2024
Sarah McMahon
The next item is 11.1.2, Enhancing the Arts in the Hawkesbury Working Group, 16th of July 2024. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, moving that way? Yes, please. Seconded, Councillor Conolly. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.
Just briefly, Madam Mayor, just again, being the end of this working group for now at least, just what is contained in here is the valuable feedback that summarised that we got from all the participants who came in and told us all about their various aspects within the arts and what we were working on around trying to find a performance group—performance space. We've got plenty of performance groups. I just wanted to urge that, given how valuable that is to know all of this, that I would hate to see it be lost, and I hope that it will be—some of it can make its way into the cultural plan, and other bits of it maybe into the social infrastructure strategy that we're developing. And I hope that there will be an opportunity into the future so that we can translate some of this feedback into tangible actions, because I've heard a lot of good feedback from people who participated just in how they really appreciated the opportunity to engage with Council and to have some participation in—not, it wasn't decision-making; it was merely a fact-gathering, information, a feedback-gathering information session.
And I'm hoping in the next Council there'll be much more of it, because it clearly gives us a really good indicator of how we can better use our facilities and how we can better assist the community in these things.
Just very, very briefly, I also want to say, probably similar to what Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, that I hope this information makes its way into a plan somewhere and isn't forgotten. Because in my 12 years on Council, I think this has come up two or three times where we've had a call from a councillor, We need a performance space, and we sort of delve into it and come up with the conclusion that we don't need a performance space; we need to make use of all the performance spaces we have because we have such different needs. And yet it inevitably comes up again. So I think now that we've gone through the process of collectively coming to that conclusion with our arts community, we need to remember that and look at what we can do to make better use of the facilities we have, rather than continuing to come back to this.
We need to invest in a particular performance space, which just won't suit the diversity of performers that we have here.
Thanks, Madam Mayor. This actually has been one of the highlights of this year's council work. There was some really fascinating insights, and it's proven to be a really collaborative space between the people who came in to talk to us, and so council's role as a facilitator in this space was quite evident. There was also a really nice synergy that developed with cultural services, and I think that's one of the things that has—cultural services often exist in a silo. It sits off in its own building, it does its own thing, and council gets really involved in planning and infrastructure and those sort of things. But cultural services we tend to just let run, and they're perfectly capable of running without our interference, but it's been incredibly useful and insightful to get their take on a number of these things.
It's well worth noting the recommendations that have come out of this working group. It's also worth noting the comments about our community spaces and facilities. There is a push for more and diverse venues rather than less. It's one of those things where instead of having one or two really big, expensive facilities, which has been the choice of a number of other councils, our population seems to feel that it's better served by a number of small, more diverse offerings spread across the LGA, and I think that's a really useful take-home for us as we move on to consider more of our community centre and facilities-based policies. One of the other things that came out very strongly was that often older facilities are better suited to some of these activities.
So our old halls with their timber floors, for example, are highly prized over concrete-floored facilities. The function centre, though, is clearly not meeting our needs, and I think we need to—that needs to be flagged. That's something that really should be noted and dealt with by the next council when it reviews our property strategy. There are key opportunities on that site. It's not doing what it needs to do anymore.
One of the questions, and this is mentioned in the recommendations, one of the questions that is useful to ask in all of these spaces is, who isn't here? And what came across strongly is that we don't have currently in these spaces, or enough spaces, for First Nations people, people with accessibility needs, and increasing accessibility needs as our population ages, and the increasing need of multicultural groups. And that's something that council will have to address in the future as well. Thanks.
Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Lyons-Buckett? Not necessary. 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, Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Lyons-Buckett seconded by Councillor Conolly.
That Council adopt the recommendations contained in the Minutes of the Enhancing the Arts in the Hawkesbury Working Group meeting held on 16 July 2024.
I think everything was probably said in the meeting, given we were all there, but I just wanted to apologise for leaving the meeting without quorum. I was not able to hear or not able to have any audio, and the visual was not very good either, so it didn't seem any point sticking around. But if someone had told me I was making up quorum, I probably would have. So apologies.
Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, that was the reason I called it up was because I didn't know if we had to do something because we hadn't had quorum. But I particularly wanted to draw attention to the two points raised in the general business section, which I hope will translate into, you know, the next council receiving the information on suicide and domestic violence as a result of natural disasters. I hope that's being captured, and that Councillor Kotlash had raised about the accidental councillor training. I think those sort of things. I just actually received something today. I think it was from one of the mental health providers , which was around free sessions for that mental health training, and that's for community members can do that.
I'll share that around. But they're really valuable courses. I've done them, and I think that for people who move around in the community, they're a really valuable tool to have up your sleeve for when you're dealing with people. So yes , and obviously I hope that that committee will grow in strength into the future because we're going to still be dealing with disasters, and we need to strengthen ourselves in how we're capturing that information and building into the future.
Yeah, Councillor Connolly's not quite right. We weren't all there. I had put the wrong time in the diary, and I spoke to Councillor Dogramaci the day before and indicated a wrong time. So I apologise for not being there.
Thanks, Madam Mayor. Sorry, I now have a mouthful of minty. It was bad planning. Just quickly, I think I also asked, and it may not have been captured in the minutes, that disaster management be part of council's induction, the new councillor's induction package. Do we need a change in the recommendations to
As long as it's captured, I'm happy. And just a side issue that Councillor Conolly raised, I think we might need to have a look at the IT options that we provide for people attending meetings remotely. It's very difficult to follow a meeting and participate in a meeting when you only have audio and that lovely screen up there. I mean, it's beautiful, but it doesn't help you participate. So if you're in for a five-hour council meeting like I was, looking at that and the occasional motion, and your own head, it's pretty grim. You know, it would have been better if I'd watched us on YouTube and just chimed in when I wanted to say something. So if we can provide a YouTube link for everybody else who's watching, surely we can beam some picture of the chamber to people.
Who are participating in the meeting, and that's the same for online speakers. And then if the microphones aren't working, you've got no hope of understanding what's going on. We'd kick to plug out was why we couldn't hear you. Thank you.
Some of the farmers were booked for having driven their tractors on the road. We've lost our superintendent; we've got a new one now, and if the staff have some discussion with that, it wasn't the local police that was there. They come in, and they were, what do they call them, the highway patrol
Two got booked, had a cost of $4,000, and at a time where all their vehicles are registered, and it's not registered, but they've got to get them off the floodplain. So the things that were registered and the like, and the bigger ones were probably left the last where they, what could be fit on trucks, are like they were moved out. And after discussion with one of the people that paid a fine, that police car that got stuck in the water a couple of floods back
Was driven past by that tractor driver because he had followed him onto a platform where he had the machine parked. On private property and was booked, and then drove out, drove the police car into floodplain and got stuck. And then when he was moving the tractor around to higher ground, he asked the very chappy booked two minutes before, could he tow him out? And the response he got was the car stayed there . I doubt very much whether our local police would support that. I would have thought they would have given an escort, if it was required, to get their equipment to higher ground. It's probably worth a discussion with the new superintendent that that's likely to be the norm, or whether or not there might be some discussion in that regard.
Thanks, Councillor. No one else wishing to speak. Right of reply, Councillor Conolly? Not necessary. 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 Zamprogno, Councillor McMahon. Absent from the room is Councillor Wheeler. I declare the item carried.
Item 11.1.4, Heritage Committee, 1 August 2024. Do I have someone wishing to move the recommendation? Councillor Kotlash, seconded Councillor Conolly. Councillor Kotlash. Not necessary. Anyone else wishing to speak? Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you,
Madam Mayor. I'm just finding it. Heritage. I know Councillor Wheeler wanted to raise something about 133. Oh, that far back. Okay. Thank you, Liz. Yes, the— Councillor Wheeler, I think, will speak to the Windsor Bridge Replacement Project Working Group update. And with councillors would be aware of the result in the Alambi Cottages— you're back— in the Alambi Cottages DA , which was, we're still waiting, I was going to ask, had there been— I'm assuming we'll hear— but had there been any update on the decision around that, the final decision from the minister?
Thanks, Madam Mayor. Just a couple of updates. Regarding the Windsor Bridge Artefacts Working Group, there's been some really useful work done around the itinerary and the— And cataloguing the stuff that we've now got, we need to come up with some next steps for storage and interpretation of those artefacts. We are waiting on the non-Aboriginal archaeology report, which we've been waiting for for five years now. It's apparently on the minister's desk and will be passed in due course. That was the latest bit of information we got. It's going to be a hell of a report if it's taken that long. The Aboriginal archaeology report and the maritime archaeology report have been in place for several years now, so this remains the outstanding piece of work.
It's really needed. It's vital so that council can work out how we conserve and interpret these artefacts. We do need better care and storage of them, but there's very limited funds, and we're really reluctant, I think, to spend those funds just rearranging and storing when it means that we don't have any money to do anything with them down the track. We do, however, need to do everything possible to avoid the breakup of the collection prior to an interpretation plan being developed. So the inventorying of the artefacts has shown that most of them are still together. The depot staff have been really helpful in that process, but some of them are deteriorating. There's metal pieces that are out in the weather.
Twenty-one pieces of sandstone seem to have disappeared, and that's of real concern. It's thought that they were probably used by landscape contractors down the bottom of the Thompson Square site, but we really need to make sure that none of the rest of this stuff drifts off until we've decided, until it's been determined what to actually do with it all. And that non-Aboriginal archaeology report is a really key piece. You'll also notice the comments about the heritage strategy and clear recommendations from the Heritage Advisory Committee that the senior heritage officer, who has been an excellent addition to council staff and who is run ragged with heritage requests, really does need some support.
The Heritage Committee, ever optimistic, would like another heritage advisor. Currently the heritage advisor only visits a couple of times a month, is always well booked. He's booked down to the minute because we just can't get enough of him. A heritage advisor and a heritage planner would really make the protection of heritage and the adaptive reuse of heritage buildings much easier. I want to thank the committee members and the members of the working group and the staff. A large volume of work has been completed by this committee in a really short period of time. There was a hiatus between meetings, and there really has been a push to get a lot of stuff done. This is a committee with really high levels of both expertise and passion for their subject matter.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. It's through you to Councillor Wheeler. In relation to the storage of these, would somewhere like the Pioneer Village be appropriate for a building, for a shed to be? And I've seen on the basis when I asked that question that it'd be good to have it in the museum, but probably not practical, where this is part of history and the like. And I guess if we're looking for covering and protection in the sense that people around there all the time with a passion to look after it, that the Pioneer might have been an option. Have they talked about that?
Through you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, we've certainly discussed it. The Pioneer Village is difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's flood affected, and secondly, it's got its own state heritage listing. So that means that anything that happens there has to go through that extenuated DA process for approval. What the working group was hopeful for originally was to build a shed at one of the depots that could then be used by Council down the track for a variety of purposes. Discussions with the Director of Infrastructure show that that's not likely at Willberforce. The land is far too valuable and too constrained to take the size shed that would be required, and the land at East Kurrajong is subject to licence conditions because of its result as a waste transfer station.
So no is the short answer, I think. There's also, while there's a real need to get a lot of these things undercover, there's also a reticence to spend all our money building that cover and moving stuff, you know, big heavy objects, and cumbersome things like, you know, pallets of bricks around, because that will suck up all the money that we've got $250,000. It doesn't go very far. So—
Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak? No. Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash not needed. All those in favour, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Sheather, Councillor Connelly, Councillor Kotlash , Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Zamprogno and Councillor McMahon. I declare the item carried.
NM2 - Efficient and Cost-Effective Weed Management
Sarah McMahon
The next item is item 12.1.2, Notice of Motion 2, efficient and cost-effective weed management. Councillor Kotlash, I'll see if there's a seconder for you. Do I need one? Councillor, Deputy Mayor, thank you, Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam
Mayor. I've brought this to the chamber because I was a bit concerned that there was a lot of misinformation floating around, and I just wanted the opportunity to put to my fellow councillors some of the, some data that showed that if we, in fact, did our own weed management, that the actual weed control part of that weed management, we would get, and instead of assessing this particular function or service by what it's worth in terms of per hectare, what I did is I did some analysis and I worked out what we get, how many hectares of weed control we get and how many hours that takes. And it's, I've compared what we get from HRCC per in terms of hours of weed management, and then I just compared that to if we employed one weed officer and they worked at 60 percent capacity.
I mean, this is a little rubbery, but I think it's better to do this sort of comparison. We could get— I guess almost three times or twice as much weed management from employing our own weed officer. It's a bit hard to assess the inspections officer because there's such a disparity between how many inspections three or two weed officers do. There seems to be quite a variation. But it seems to me that if we had one weed officer, we would be able to get all of the inspections that we are required to get if we employed just two people.
Now, I think that when we were talking about the value we get from HRCC, the figure of $471,000 was knocked around, and that was because that value that we were given was based on the cost of a hectare of weed control being $3,110. And that's why I've presented you with this information that's just about hours, so that we can get a proper way of assessing what we'd get if we did our own weed management.
There's really three main things. That's the first one, the better value for our ratepayers' money, because as the staff report in last month's business paper said, that we could employ two people for slightly more money than we give HRCC, but we'd also get $50,000 possibly from the state government that would subsidise that. So in essence, we could actually get a cheaper, we could get more weed management for the same price. And save about $12,000. But when it comes to our investment in HRCC, we've been investing in HRCC for a very long time, and in my opinion, HRCC has a lot of lazy assets. The depot, I really don't know what the market value of the depot is, but it would have to be three , three and a half million.
And that is a lot of money to have bound up without it actually working for the actual function of weed management. It's an organisation with only nine people. It has eight councillors that run it, three administrative roles, and six people to do the actual work. And I just think that there is a much, much better way of us getting this service. And I know people have said that, Oh, this is a surprise and, you know, we haven't consulted. When I was a delegate of the HRCC , on one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve— on twelve occasions, I tried to get the board of HRCC to improve it and to look at things and get information about having other options to get a better deal for our ratepayers.
Most of that, I didn't get any cooperation at all. So this is not a surprise that we've come to this. I would have liked to have done it in-house and explored other avenues to actually just review the situation and see how we could save money. And that was really— Not ever taken up. And so it's come to this. I think we have to make a decision to go our own way and really get much better value for our ratepayers. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Mayor. My view hasn't changed from a couple of weeks back. And when I got this information and went through it, and I spoke to the chairman of the county council, I think all of you should have got emails from him. He said he was sending it out. I believe he spoke to you, Madam Mayor.
It's a bit disappointing. The other councillors, the other councils involved, they weren't aware that we were of the view. And to write to the minister to try and dissolve or get rid of a council, if we went opted out, then it should be on that basis. But to dismiss a council is
And when we talk about assets, we'd be offended if someone come and spoke to us tonight and said, You've got lazy assets. We want to get rid of them. And the first thing is the council chambers. We'd probably feel a bit down about that.
So, Madam Mayor, I don't support this. In relation to, and I spoke about it at the last meeting as well, value for ratepayers' money. And I don't know how many years, probably 15 or so that I was on it, I chaired it for a couple of years, that the work that's done out there, we couldn't do it with a dozen people, and it would take a long time. And I just don't mean the work that's got to be done. The understanding, cooperation amongst the community is, they've got access to property. They never get denied property. If property's got a problem, they invite them to get projects and works done, and they work with them. There's a comment made in relation to the harvester. When I was chair, we had the problem with the water hyacinth in the river.
We were begging all over the country for a harvester, and it was lucky that we'd befriended Wyong, who could help us out. And there was over 50,000 tonnes of water hyacinth come out of the river, out of a harvester, and it was done by government departments. There was six, but the county council led it, and was supported both by the Premier and the Minister at the time. If that hadn't been pushed by the county council at that time. Going through a drought, we would have had blue-green algae in our river for years because the nutrient levels would have been so high when they killed the weed in the watercourse. We knew that to be the case , but scientists from around the world thought they knew better and thought they were going to deal with it in that regard.
We were supported at that time by the property owners that had issues and wanted dealt with straight away. And we had discussed all the implications of not doing it properly. And it was support of the other councils that's involved with the County Council that gave us that support,
For the want of a word, that those organisations, and indeed the minister and the premier, were and gave directives to work together to achieve those outcomes. I don't know of other groups that have done that, and if anyone's worked with government departments, you know how hard it is to get any of them to work together, to get five along with the County Council is pretty darn hard, let me tell you. So, Madam Mayor, I am not going to support this. I think that it's in error and embarrassing in the way that we've gone about it. The in-house stuff that was just spoke of by the mover, if it's something we need to do . Then the discussion needs to be right here, and some of those roundtable things that we didn't quite get to would have been a good place.
Thank you. I will support the motion for many of the same reasons, obviously, that we spoke about last time this came up. The only things I want to address: we received a letter from the chair of the HRCC advising that there'd been no consultation, and I'm sure that wasn't meant to be untruthful, but it was astounding to receive that letter. When I was the mayor, I addressed HRCC on this matter. When I was the mayor, I wrote to the other three mayors and asked them to meet with me, and not all of them would. I specifically wrote I had concerns with HRCC and I wanted to talk about it. The mayor of the Hills spoke to me. I had no response despite multiple follow-ups to the mayor of Penrith and the mayor of Blacktown.
That is how we have been treated for the years we've been trying to work through this. So to get to this point in the process and receive a letter from the chair of HRCC saying we haven't consulted with them, it's just ridiculous. And that's no slight on him. He probably just shouldn't say what. I feel like potentially no one's paying attention. And the whole thing is a bit astounding to me, this whole organisation. In the big scheme of things, it's probably not heaps of money in the scheme of our budget, but we've come across it. We've had pointed out to us how inefficient it is, how antiquated it is, that we would have to be paying $400,000 of admin costs for six people doing direct work, and yet there's this huge fight back to protect it from multiple places, and I just find it really strange.
It seems so obvious that this cannot be the most efficient way to do it. You've got, if someone rocks up here and said the council chambers is a lazy asset, we would be offended, but not if there was three people in it. Not if they rocked up to a big building and a massive block of land in South Windsor that had three people in it and they're not all full time, we wouldn't be offended then. We'd say, yeah, that's an obvious and fair point. We have not been treated as equal partners in this deal. We moved a motion—I remember, I can't remember what year it was now, and I'm sure it's all in Councillor Cotlash's notes—but we moved a motion of Hawkesbury City Council and were chastised by the board, who said, that's a motion we should consider .
And Councillor Kotlash then took it to the board. I spoke as the mayor in favour of that motion, and there was no discussion . I was stopped at five minutes. No questions, no discussion. The board voted it down. And that's a part of the organisation coming forward and saying, we've got serious concerns, we want the board to look at this, because the board was upset that Hawkesbury Council suggested it was going to look at it, and the board completely ignored us. They would not meet with us when we asked them to meet with us, and now we have a letter saying that you will not consult with us, and apparently it's embarrassing the way we've gone about it. I don't know what more we could have possibly done to bring to the attention of the other three councils, we are not happy with this arrangement.
We want to look into this arrangement. We've done everything we could. So to get a letter back saying we're not consulting and we need to take this one step at a time is just silly and stupid and ridiculous. The other point I wanted to make, because it was alluded to earlier, I'm not suggesting we write next year's budget. I'm suggesting that while we're still the council, we should make a decision on what's in front of us, which is a bit different to the motion before us a little while ago, which was to write next year's budget in advance.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I've just got a question first. It's regarding, in the background information, I'm just not sure on... For example, on page 216, that was just the example I had there. I'm not quite sure what Council means. It says things like, Council believes that the model, and Council believes this, and Council does this, but what is Council? I mean, is this a finding of our Council staff, or is this Councillor Kotlash's opinion? It's background information, and I couldn't find any resolutions or any information that said that Council had decided any of that.
The background information, I wrote it like that because I wanted to be included in the information that goes to the Minister, and I wanted us to have, well, assist the staff in what we considered to be the state of play. So when I say Council understands that it would be eligible to apply for the Department of Primary Industries annual weed action program funding, which is usually around $50,000 per council, and that we believe, as Council, that that would bring our annual costs down to $244,600 , so that is something that I have put forward as information that I
Want to be included in that letter to the Minister. It can be worded differently, but that is the case that we need to make. When, under the legislation, a council, we as a council, we can ask the minister, we can propose to the minister that we're not happy for these reasons. And I wanted to put it into some context because of my past job. I'll get you
Very short response. I mean, I do know what I'm talking about. My past job was working with all the other councils in Greater Sydney. There are a lot of things in here that can be verified. It might be my interpretation, but they can all be, everything I've written can be verified.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't find that a satisfactory way to do a notice of motion because the background's intent is that it's giving you the background to the information. Whereas this is actually making statements that we're not being asked to consider, as in the notice of motion for the resolution. We're just, it implies, and I'm not saying this was Councillor Kotlash's intent, but it actually implies that there is some basis for Council deciding this isn't the best model, where as a Council we never have done that. And yet the motion isn't asking us to do that. It's merely a section of background information. Council believes that the current Council model no longer fits the needs of modern weed management.
Well, there's nothing asking us to consider that. It's not in the motion. It's in the background information. So I don't think this is a proper format to present this. I don't know that we've ever gone over what the best, you know, I mean, I know it's Councillor Kotlash's opinion, obviously, what modern weed management should look like, but none of us have been given any information around that aside from a statement that's included in there. And I don't think it's correct. It's, you know, putting in things like if Council initially employed one authorised weed officer to develop its weed management plan, we're not even being asked, are we supporting one officer? It's not correct how it's formatted, and it is giving misinformation in the terms that it's making out that Council has decided all of this.
Background information is meant to support what you're asking in the notice of motion, not to give a whole opinion piece around what may or may not be. So I'm not happy to support it because I just don't think that's the correct way to do it. And there's a lot of figures and things here. I've had a look at— look at them, and they may or may not be factual. I don't know their source. There's not real sources identified. But the other thing is there's no inclusion of what this costs to administer in terms of having a supervisor of that role. Nothing about the recording or the reporting that is required under the legislation. Who does that? How does it feed in so that on a regional basis there's some sort of continuity and some sort of recognition of what's being done in one place, because we know that the river doesn't stop at the local government boundary.
So I'm just not happy. I'm certainly happy in the future to look at the model again if there's issues around it. I've always said that. But to make a decision here that we, as a council, support withdrawing from it based on this information is just not—I just don't think it cuts it for being factual enough in the sense that it's allowing us to really assess what the changes would be. I still maintain that I think the lack of consultation with three other councils when it's a statutory body is a problem. And I don't know, because we're never told who goes to a meeting or what happened around that. I have to see this, how it's presented, is not so much a factual report but an opinion of Councillor Kotlash.
And that's not to say that I don't think she knows about weeds. I know she does, but I would have to have a lot more information around the actual employing of people in those particular roles and what that would actually entail and what that would cost.
Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think we should clear up a couple of points. Councillor Conolly, you attended one meeting of HRCC in October of 2021, and notwithstanding what you said on that occasion, that does not constitute full and frank consultation with HRCC about our misgivings or intention to leave, because I was the chairman of the organisation at that time. So when they write to us now to say Councillor Kotlash is bringing a motion to have one of the member councils secede, dissolving an arrangement that has been in place for 76 years, and nobody told us, I think they're entitled to say that the lack of consultation was a concern, notwithstanding what you did in October of 2021. Secondly, to say that we're not happy with the way things are going is a misnomer.
The only person who has ever been unhappy with our arrangement with HRCC is Councillor Kotlash, the only person. And the evidence of that is that we are being asked to contemplate a motion to dissolve a successful arrangement that we've been a member of for 76 years, and none of the other councils and their general managers, who are well remunerated, and their legislative bodies, who are broadly representative of their communities, share this view. None of them appear to have twigged that this arrangement is so deleterious to a weed arrangement that might otherwise exist, as that they should pursue, investigate or dissolve this arrangement. The only person that's advocating for this— is Councillor Kotlash, because Councillor Kotlash knows best.
Councillor Kotlash has expertise that exceeds the wisdom of all of the other stakeholders in this arrangement. Point of order, Councillor
I'll retract those remarks, but my point is well made, I think. So I'm not going to be supporting this, for the reasons that I've been going on about for years. Not only our long tenure, but the fact that this organisation is headquartered in our organisation. The fact that this organisation receives the lion's share of work, effectively subsidised by bigger and richer councils, who, when I spoke to them to profess my kind of embarrassment that, you know, we were getting such a great deal out of this, I received every assurance. We love HRCC. They do good work. We are won over to the benefits of a shared service model. We enjoy economies of scale. We have a brain's trust. We have a regard within the community that has taken decades, generations to build up.
And it's not just the cost of having, you know, a property inspected and then breaking it down in terms of those clinical numbers. It's a case of the reputation, the esteem, the fact that the HRCC can go onto properties where if we asked to do that, we'd probably get short shrift, because they recognise that the HRCC's mandate is noble. It's environmental protection. There's no other agenda there. And they can liaise and build collaborations with not only those stakeholders in the community, but with other groups like Landcare groups and Bushcare groups. And this is something that we should be really, really proud of. Instead of wrecking it in the way that Councillor Kotlash has suggested. So no, we shouldn't vote for this.
Madam Mayor, do I need to ask the staff every time I come to a meeting whether or not they've read—they're the ones who did the report—the matter that Councillor Lyons-Buckett brought up about council would also like to adopt, and council would have more control, and the likes. The interpretation of reading of this is that council staff did it.
My understanding in any notice of motion is it is the work of the mover of the motion, except if it says note by management that if there's no note by management, then this is not staff. This is the mover of the motion.
Then can I ask why the staff might not have noted, as they do with other matters, about whether staff's involved in it or not? In reading this, I felt that there was portions of this certainly that was done by a staff.
Really quickly address that as a co-author of the motion. It's not meant to mislead anybody. It's meant to be that we can pick this up and forward it on. And I totally take Councillor Lyons-Buckett's point that that's not how they're always written, so that's probably not correct. But I guess that was the intention, was that you'd be able to pick up the motion in the background and stick a letter on top and say this is what Council resolved. So we're looking for Council to endorse this, rather than suggesting Council already has.
Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, it became clear to me on the second reading that the background was intended to be a letter that goes to the Minister. It really would have benefited from an opening line that said, This is the letter that I think should go to the Minister, rather than presenting a notice of motion, a background, which is now on the public record, that makes statements about Council's beliefs that are not, in fact, Council's beliefs. So that's a misrepresentation of Council's position until Council has given you that position. So I think, tip for young players, A , that's led to significant confusion, and B, is actually a falsehood promulgated in Council's business paper, which are a public document.
I'm speaking against the motion. We have been presented with a series of what Councillor Kotlash admits are rubbery figures. These are rubbery figures and personal opinions not referenced or reviewed by anyone. Weed control is based on numerous factors, and I don't pretend to be an expert. But from what I've worked out after two and a half years on HRCC, it includes things like access, the type of weed, the method of removal, the type and extent of infestation. Whether we look at those on an hourly basis or we look at them on a hectare basis, they're still affected by all of those things. So it's extraordinarily difficult to make a comparison. The other issue with many of these figures is that they come from years either during or post-flood, where weed management has been really severely affected by either access or impact.
And that's not just something that's happened to HRCC. That was clear in discussions with other weed management authorities, including a number of councils at the most recent regional meeting that I attended.
Some, there are ways that we can affect the weed management that HRCC does within the Hawkesbury. A significant amount of weed control is performed on a request basis. We have the lowest request rate. We could change that really easily. There are numerous assertions made in the background here, many of them with significant bias, using words like lavish and lazy. That is not scientific language. That is biased language that does not belong in a report that purports to be of this calibre. It says repeatedly, Council believes. No, we don't. Councillor Kotlash believes. Let this council determine what we believe. Can I just—
In order to get over the loss of HRCC, there's a proposal for contract removal. We have no idea what that costs. We don't have this system up and running. There will be a lag period. Some of the people that are being nominated to do some of this work are volunteers, including the staff, including the people in the community nursery and the bush care and land care volunteers. The
HRCC, the constituent councils, through the Chair, have objected to the sale of assets without consultation with other councils, because they're shared assets. Of course they've objected. One possible way forward with this is a demerger through the Minister. Now, the Minister has made it very clear that all demerger requests have to have a positive business case, and those demergers must be fully funded by the requesting council. Do we want to sign ourselves up for that? That won't be cheap. It'll blow the $11,000 out of the water, I suspect. The other thing that hasn't been considered here is the Landcare coordinator, who's currently housed at HRCC within the LGA, 0.4 FTE funded by Hawkesbury River County Council and 0.6 funded by Greater Sydney Landcare.
What will happen to our access to all of these volunteers that Councillor Kotlash proposes do weed management, who are run through the Landcare coordinator? How will we do that? There is an ongoing cost to this, to this approach to the HRCC, particularly to staff morale and staff mental health, and to our now, our relationship with neighbouring councilors and councils. Is the HRCC perfect? No. Could it be improved? Yes. Do we need to destroy it? No. Is this the way forward? No.
Yes. Councillor Wheeler was saying that I was putting words into the mouth of Council. What I had said, and I'd said it in point three, is in the letter to the Minister the following information and reasons should be included in the following four sections. I thought that was really clear that I had put those forward, and I thought I made it clear that— All of this information, you know, that I've provided are reasons to have a look at what we're doing. All I'm hearing is that I'm trying to, I don't know, mislead people. I'm sorry, it's just not the case. That was never the intention.
Thank you. Thanks. Again, I will be very brief and direct to the point. When money comes into question, I'm all for it. I agree with Councillor Sheather when he said a few things about it with his experience. I also agree with Councillor Conolly. This thing has started long before my time. I was at the crossroad. I didn't know which way to go. Although I know how the machineries work, I have worked with ACT, with several councils supplying certain products, so I know how they work and how many people are involved. And I don't think that Councillor Kotlash has worked out these so-called rubbery figures or whatever. I don't think that she made these figures because she would know that if someone discovers that, you know, they are actually rubbery figures, it will come back and bite her.
And I don't think that, you know, she would enjoy that. So if we decide to get out of that business and sell the land, which what I think it will be about four million dollars. On top of, you know, what we have discussed about the previous matter, when we are going to bring another six million dollars, part of that money, you know, could go to the women's cottage. This is the way that I look at it, and I don't know how council or our finance department is going to work, but part of it would go to the Koala Habitat business and the other things, women's cottage, that sort of thing. So that's the way I look at it. Like I said, I was at the crossroad, but I came to a conclusion that I am going to support Councillor Kotlash.
And I'm not going to speak on it anymore. There's been enough said, but just with the comment that Councillor Dogramaci just made, we don't own the land, and the chance of getting anything from it is slim and the like. That's a nothing. But it's not our land, and there'd be a procrastinated time and effort to get anything out of that. Us opting out might be one thing. For other councils, they're quite happy with the process and the like. But as— Councillor Conolly and Kotlash indicated if the new council is of view to review the situation, I suggest that the new council do exactly that. I certainly don't have an issue with it, but there's obvious some councils that do, and it needs to be discussed.
And perhaps not sitting around a table like this, with shooting off at one another, but to sit down with the appropriate staff of both organisations and talk about it in the manner that we should be.
I mentioned last time that when I was mayor, the council decided to have a evaluation of the groups that we were involved in, groups like the Sports Council and Hawkesbury River County Council. The other groups all cooperated and gave us great information so we could work out whether we were getting value for money. Hawkesbury River County Council, on the other hand, basically shoved us out of the way and wouldn't provide us with information. They ended up getting an auditor to come in and audit the books to show that the accounting was done properly, which is not what we were after at all. And they knew that. What they did was dodge the question, and it just red lights went on for me. I'm thinking, what are they trying to hide? And ever since then, I've just been very suspicious of what goes on with the Hawkesbury River County Council. Point of order, Madam Mayor.
The Deputy Mayor is questioning the motives of Hawkesbury—well, he's imputing improper motives, I think, to the staff at Hawkesbury River County Council. Could you retract the word
What we wanted to do back then, and the General Manager was part of the arrangement , was to try and get HRCC to explain to us what value we get for money, because a number of people, including me, thought that the administration of the organisation was very top-heavy. I believe that the General Manager of the organisation receives a salary of around $200,000 a year for managing a staff of somewhere between six and nine people. And the councillors who go there—there's eight councillors—they all get paid a fee for going there. I don't know why they're getting paid a fee. So we are paying money to HRCC, and then HRCC are giving some of it back to our councillors. That always seemed to me to be improper , and I still think it is.
I mean, most of us here are on other organisations, and we go and we volunteer our time. We don't expect to be paid for it, and I don't—see, that just adds to my suspicions. But I just wanted to point out that this is not a new matter, and like Councillor Conolly, I also tried to get some answers back then, and the answers were not forthcoming. And what I'm hearing from some councillors here is basically a whole lot of nostalgia. You know, we used to clean the weeds up from the river with the machines and blah, blah, blah. Well, that's not what's at question here. The question is, do we get value for money? And I think Councillor Kotlash has put forward a very good argument to show that we don't, and that by doing it ourselves, we could save this council something like $20,000 a year at least.
And the assets that are there, they do belong to us. A quarter of them belong to us at least, and I wouldn't be suggesting that we give it away. But if we were to leave, or if it was to be dissolved, then I think we should get our share. What this is doing, in fact, is bringing the whole matter to the attention of the minister. That's what this motion is all about. And I hope the minister would then ask some more questions, and maybe he can get the answers as to whether we get value for money. According to the figures that Councillor Kotlash has given us here tonight, we don't. We could do it ourselves and get more value for money. So we may not leave HRCC, it may just be reformed by the minister, but nothing's going to happen if we just receive a note again.
If we want something to happen, if we want things to improve, we need to pass this motion and send it to the minister and get him to take some action.
Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the amendment. I'm happy that we take this information into the system so that it's there to be either, you know, validated, or as it is not sourced or reviewed in any way. It would need for us to look more carefully at it. Just with regard to what the Deputy Mayor just said, the third-party reviews that were held, they were not evaluations of value for money. Peppercorn wasn't evaluated for whether it gave us value for money, nor was the Sports Council. That was the governance of these organisations were what were reviewed. That's what the third-party review scope was, to look at the governance models. I'm not sure what happened with the ins and outs of why they wouldn't perhaps give information around that.
But we haven't done, and I would have loved evaluations of all our various things, including the River Country Council, including Wesrock, anything we put money in that have people, you know, a CEO running it and small staff. What value do we get? I'd love to be able to see that . And if it's only a saving of $20,000 a year, I'd be very interested in how much it costs in actually administering all the various other things that are added onto a salary when you actually employ somebody, particularly around supervision and reporting. I think that we shouldn't be making this decision now. We're presented with information that simply it just isn't acceptable that we would just accept an opinion and send that to a minister.
Apart from the fact that I don't think it's right that we would do that, there's nothing in this that actually states that that's what it is. There's nothing that says a former delegate of the Hawkesbury River County Council has concluded. In her opinion, that this is what the situation is. If it said that, that is different from presenting a set of facts and figures for which we cannot, regardless of what we may think of the intent and the qualifications of who's done it, we cannot accept that that is something we should be sending to a minister. I just don't think that that is— it's just not a proper way to be making a decision. I would prefer to just leave it. I certainly agree that these things all require reviews.
If there's a process that needs to change, it needs to be done in proper consultation, and probably in consultation with all the councillors in this council, not just the delegates. So we should all have been involved in this if that was what was going. It shouldn't come—we've got two people, we've got more people who've been on the River County Council, but we've got the most two recent appointments who were on there, and we've got two conflicting points of view. So, to me, that isn't something we should be basing a decision on. I'm not prepared to put my name to something when we haven't got everything before us that we need to make that decision properly.
Thanks. I just wanted to point out that this motion has come on the back of the staff report to the last meeting. So, for lots of reference to the fact we've got no information in front of us, Council resolved at the last meeting to receive and note that information, and this is the result of having received and noted, is that we're now putting this forward. So, I don't think it's true to say that the only thing we've got is the opinions of Councillor Kotlash, and I actually think it's quite disrespectful for a number of people to keep saying that when this motion has been moved by Councillor Kotlash, Calvin Conolly. Councillor Kotlash is clearly not the only person advocating for this, as you've just—in your own, sorry, in Councillor Zamprogno's own address, he suggested that he stated that I approached HRCC in 2021, and then went on to carry on about how Councillor Kotlash was the only person who has a problem with this and is the only person with a problem with this.
And a number of councillors have said that, and it is very disrespectful and dismissive. Councillor Kotlash, myself, other councillors here, we're all entitled to an opinion, and the suggestion clearly is that Councillor Kotlash is a troublemaker, and that's not fair based on what you've actually got in front of you. I agree with what Councillor [unclear] said. I wasn't suggesting that what we had done so far was proper consultation. What I was suggesting is that HRCC and its board have refused consultation. They have refused to talk to us about this. They have refused to consider the ten motions that Councillor [unclear] put to them. They have refused to consider it even after Hawkesbury City Council carried a motion suggesting that we look at it.
They've refused to consider it after I, as the mayor, off the back of that resolution, then tried to meet with all the mayors and was rejected. So this may not be the end of this process. I'm not going to sit here and pretend I think the minister tomorrow is going to get our letter and dissolve HRCC. What I do think will happen is that HRCC will be forced to talk to us once they realise that we're not going to just let it go and go away. They will have to give us all the information we're asking for. They will have to engage with us, and we will have to work out what the best way forward is. From what I've seen, that organisation has not been engaging with us in good faith. They do not want that.
And I think a key problem is that the board is conflicted. The board, we're sending delegates there to act in the interests of Hawkesbury City Council, and yet they're bound to act in the interests of HRCC when they get there, and that's an inherent conflict. And I think it's a problem with the structure. It's nobody's individual problem, but we've got people who are paid board members of HRCC and also paid councillors of Hawkesbury City Council, and then sitting in rooms of both organisations trying to do what's best for both when they've got an obligation to only consider the interests of each one. And it's an inherent conflict and it's a problem. And I think it's a key reason why this organisation has been able to exist in such an inefficient way for so long is because it's very hard to deal with that.
Councillor Kotlash. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm speaking against the motion, the amendment. Thank you. Sorry, getting late. To receive a note this work that I have done is really disappointing. I had to trawl through public documents that the HRCC had produced to get a spreadsheet of all of their data. It took me a long time, but I thought to myself, no, I really, it's my duty to figure out what is actually happening. And I have done that. I didn't call them rubbery in the fact that I don't think that they're particularly right. I think they're accurate because I based them on what's available in the public record. I don't expect you to take this, you know, I expect people to check it, and I will give anybody who is interested in coming to the same conclusion or a different one all of the data sets that I've got.
Those data sets I had to compile myself because the way HRCC reports to us is so inadequate to make any sort of decision about what they're doing. It was like, it's like smoke and mirrors. It just, I am shocked that you all think you could just receive a note this. I want you to look at this and try to understand that this organisation, we are not getting very good value out of this organisation. I've proved it. It's by saying a lazy asset, I thought that was actually a technical term for an asset that's not actually doing anything for what you want it to do. It's not working hard for us. It's a huge, expensive depot that three part-time employees knock around in and people come and go from.
I mean, that's just not, this is— I'm sorry. I'm really shocked that you're not taking this seriously. This is a serious problem. It has been a problem for
At what point were councillors not taking this seriously? Councillor Kotlash is imputing improper motives. We are indeed taking this seriously. We've debated it about six times. Thank you for making
Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'm pleased to have it confirmed by Councillor Kotlash that she indeed wrote this, because we seem to have been going back and forth on whether it was disrespectful to point out that Councillor Kotlash wrote this.
I think if Councillor Wheeler is confused about who's moved the motion and whose names on it, maybe that should be clarified because it's an important point of order. And if Councillor Wheeler can't follow it, she probably should understand before she votes.
Thank you, Councillor Conolly. The three names are printed there as the movers of the motion on page 213. Councillor Kotlash has introduced the motion and said it is her research. Let's move on.
I'm so pleased Councillor Connolly's been able to help me out with that. I was just feeling so foolish before. Such a nice bloke. Excellent. Love a bit of mansplaining.
I'm calling a point of order on that. I am serious. You have said all night when other councillors do it, that is inappropriate to be saying that against another councillor. Absolutely inappropriate, and you need to be called to account for it. Please move on and discuss the motion.
And so is being patronised by Councillor Conolly in the way he just did, Madam Mayor. Let's correct some of the misinformation that's going around. Councillors are paid a fee not because we're on a junket or we've got a vested interest or because we've put our hands up for it, as has been said in this chamber on this matter previously, but because the Local Government Act requires that we are. It's not an expectation. It's a piece of state government legislation. Would I do this without being paid? Yeah. The same as I do the Heritage Committee, the Enhancing the Arts Committee, and all the other stuff that I've done in this council. How dare you imply that the people who turn up there just do it for the money.
We are paid a fee because we have a governance responsibility that you have referred to as an unmanageable conflict. It's not an unmanageable conflict. It is a perfectly manageable conflict. You go in there knowing full well that you are responsible for both organisations at a time. If, as one of those delegates, I come to a different conclusion to Councillor Kotlash, that is not because I have been unable to manage my conflict. It is because, on the balance of the information provided to me and my consideration of it, I have come to a different conclusion. Just the same way lots of us come to different conclusions in this chamber without our interest or a vested interest being called into play.
For responsibilities under both the Local Government and the Biosecurity Act. No, he isn't going to do it for 50 grand a year. Why would he? These are not lazy assets. The depot doesn't just house three part-time employees. It houses a boat, three vehicles, a storage shed, the means of keeping a whole lot of toxic chemicals safe and controlled, equipment that's used in weed management, a weed harvester,
Yes, it probably got the land for a song back then, but it's not our land. It's the Hawkesbury River County Council's land. So to be looking at it, as Councillor Dogramaci is, and thinking that it's some sort of money spinner is incorrect. If he has taken the information that's in the report as meaning that, then that information has either been incorrect, or has been misleading, or has led him up the wrong path. This is not our money to be spending. This is an organisation that we will have to go through a potentially expensive process to extract ourselves from, while at the same time meeting our biosecurity responsibilities. We can't just cut and run.
Thank you, Councillor. Anyone else wishing to speak on the amendment? I'll put the amendment. Those in favour of the amendment as it is noted on the board, please raise your hand. Those in favour are Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler and Councillors Improgno. I declare the amendment lost. The motion is the notice of motion that was originally moved by Councillor Kotlash and seconded by Councillor Calvert. Is there anyone who has not spoken on the motion that wishes to speak? Right of reply, Councillor Kotlash. Thanks.
Thank you. I'll be very quick. I think if we send this to the minister, then the minister can figure out what's going on with HRCC, and I think it would be a good move. We're not, in my opinion, we're not getting value for money, and we owe it to our ratepayers to look at this. And unfortunately, we've had to do it this way. I'll just remind everybody that both the harvesters have been written off, so we don't need to house the harvesters. There's no capacity for HRCC to do any harvesting in the river. Under the Biosecurity Act, there is a facility for councils just to make an agreement to work in a shared services model. We don't need a county council model to do that. Under the legislation, there is provision for that.
So, you know, we can—look , I'm going to stop it there because this is, as Councillor Calvert said, this has gone on too long. We must take action. We must get a better deal for our ratepayers. Thank you.
Thank you. Those in favour of the motion, please raise your hand. In favour are Councillor Reardon, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Conolly, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Calvert, Councillor Dogramaci and Councillor McMahon. Those against, please raise your hand. Against are Councillor Sheather, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler, and Councillors Improgno. I declare the item carried.
RESOLVED on the motion of Councillor Kotlash, seconded by Councillor Calvert.
That:
1. Council writes to the Minister for Local Government the Hon. Ron Hoenig MP proposing that:
- a) As a preference, the Minister dissolves the Hawkesbury River County Council (HRCC); or
- b) In the event the dissolution of the HRCC is not supported by the Minister, he instead amends the constitution of the HRCC to permit Hawkesbury City Council (HCC) to leave the Hawkesbury River County Council (HRCC) at the end of June 2025; and
- c) In the event that either of the above circumstances are supported by the Minister, Hawkesbury City Council receives an equitable share of the assets of the HRCC (estimated over $4 million) that HCC has been contributing to for many years. This would allow each constituent council to choose to do their own weed management or to form a new modern shared services model based on their needs and resources.
2. Council writes to the Chair of Hawkesbury River County Council (HRCC) to advise that Council no longer feels that the County Council model is delivering either the best value for money or community outcomes in fulfilling its responsibilities under the NSW Biosecurity Act 2015 and advising them of the above resolution.
3. In the letter to the Minister the following information and reasons should be included in the following 4 sections:
- a) Better value for rate payers' money
- b) Why the County Council model is no longer appropriate or efficient.
- c) Better strategic outcomes
- d) Hawkesbury Council's ability to maintain a regional focus
Thanks, Madam Mayor. Look, it's frankly inconceivable to me that the answers to these questions are not available, and that this information was not available at the time these decisions were made. It's really irresponsible decision making.
I don't understand how I can have a response at this point to a question about running costs and the relevant funding pool being investigated. Surely we know where we're paying our gas bill from. Do we not know where the money comes from to pay our bills? Why must that be investigated? This is — I'm incredulous that that is the response that I've received in the last meeting of this Council. Thank you.
And it's in relation to statements made by the council staffer tonight. On the 18th of April 2023, 18 months ago, Councillor Sheather put forward a notice of motion, which was accepted, and nothing's been done—well, no report was put forward in 14 months. The council staffer said tonight that it takes six weeks to do a detailed plan. The first seven months after the resolution, nothing was done, and it's a mystery why. In the last seven months, nothing was done due to the heritage committee heavily weighing in on substrate. And then the council staffer mentions we cited rampant inflation since 2022. So my question is, is it fair to surmise that there was no appetite to deliver the project due to rampant inflation? General Manager
In that regard, we'll be moving into confidential for the remaining two items. Can I have someone move that way, please? Councillor Reardon, seconded Councillor Lyons-Buckett. All those in favour, please raise your hand to move into confidential. Carried. Thank you. We'll now move into confidential.
Thank you everyone. The council meeting has now resumed after a confidential session. I will now hand over to the general manager to read the outcome of the items from that session. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
In regards to item 15.1.1, appointment of chairperson and independent members to the Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee, whilst in closed session the council resolved on the motion of Councillor Conolly, seconded by Councillor Sheather, that council appoint the following independent chairperson and two independent members to Council's Audit, Risk and Improvement Committee, as outlined below, subject to satisfactory probity checks: Michael Quirk, chairperson, with a term to expire on 30 September 2028; Rachel Harris, in the role as an independent member, with a position to expire on 31 December 2026; and Rhonda Wheatley, in the role as an independent member, with a position to expire on 31 December 2027.
For the motion were Councillor McMahon, Reardon, Vargel, Sheather, Conolly, Kotlash, Calvert, Dogramaci, Djuric, Lyons-Buckett, Wheeler and Zamprogno. The Mayor then declared an interest in item 15 .3.1, which I will allow her to read
For the record. Thank you, general manager. I declare a significant non-pecuniary interest as I am a subject matter in the item and I did not participate in the debate or the decision. Whilst
In closed, in regards to item 15.3.1. Regarding a code of conduct complaint and investigation, whilst in closed session, the council resolved on the motion of Councillor Connelly, seconded Councillor Kotlash, that in relation to the code of conduct complaint lodged on 11 September 2023 regarding the distribution of a media release of a Facebook post on 5 September 2023 by Councillor Nathan Zamprogno, council note that after an investigation an investigator found that, A, Councillor Zamprogno published a media release and made a Facebook post on 5 September 2023 titled Out of the Liberal Party about the mayoral election. The media release and Facebook post state: The mayor bullied him out of the Liberal Party based on statements he made in the chamber elsewhere about planning matters before council, where he should have enjoyed a free vote to judge matters on their merits without threat of punishment.
Next point: There was a cosy deal between political parties to secure the mayoralty in 2023. The mayor lacked integrity and used improper influence to bring the complaint against him and preemptively assassinate a rival. Next point: He was unable to walk past the standard of conduct by some in the Liberal Party. Next point: The mayor had a conflict of interest in matters brought by her developer partner, Mr Bennett, and his family, in relation to which she had already declared a significant pecuniary interest. Next bullet point: A lack of leadership has created a toxic tone in our chamber. And last bullet point, the mayor is, quote, the worst bully of all. B . Councillor Zamprogno did not make a code of conduct complaint about Councillor McMahon in accordance with the procedures prior to publishing the post and media release.
C. Councillor Zamprogno has been subject to eight prior code of conduct complaints. One was declined. Four complaints were resolved by way of alternative strategies, including the general manager holding informal conversations with Councillor Zamprogno and seeking undertaking not to repeat the behaviour. The conduct reviewer discussing with Councillor Zamprogno his obligations to consider the reputation of Council, adhere to his responsibilities under the code, and to exercise care when communicating with others in his capacity as councillor. The conduct reviewer wrote to Councillor Zamprogno to urge him to, quote, exercise a higher level of care , objectivity, accuracy, restraint and courtesy when making public comment about matters before Council and /or in relation to fellow councillors.
Next point. Three complaints proceeded to investigation, but prior to the finalisation of the investigation report were discontinued and resolved by alternate means. In these cases, the conduct reviewers wrote to Councillor Zamprogno counselling him regarding demonstrating greater consideration and respect towards fellow councillors, making inappropriate comments on Councillor McMahon's conflict of interest. D. Prior to the investigation, there had been no finding or determination that Councillor Zamprogno had breached the code. E. Councillor Zamprogno has received training on his obligations and responsibilities as a councillor and the requirements of the code in respect to his conduct and behaviour.
Two. There is insufficient evidence that, on balance, the distribution of a media release and Facebook post on 5 September 2023 by Councillor Nathan Zamprogno constituted conduct in breach of clauses 3.1A, B, E and G of Council's Code of Conduct. 3. In accordance with clause 7.5.8C of the Procedures for the Administration of the Code of Conduct, Council A, formally censure Councillor Nathan Zamprogno under section 440G of the Local Government Act 1993 for breaching clauses 3.1A, B, E and G of Hawkesbury City Council's Code of Conduct; and B, refer the matter to the Office of Local Government for further action under the Misconduct Provisions of the Local Government Act 1993.
For the motion were Councillors Calvert , Conolly, Dogramaci, Kotlash and Reardon , Sheather, Baigel. Against the motion were Councillors Djuric, Lyons-Buckett and Wheeler. Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thank you, General Manager. That brings this meeting to a close and also the entire term of council in terms of our council meetings to a close. I'm actually laughing because I put a post on Facebook this morning guessing that the time would be 1 a.m. and it's literally 12:59. So thank you, councillors, for your contribution to the Hawkesbury community. I declare this meeting closed tonight at—I'm trying to get to 1 a.m. just so I— and it's my birthday. So there you go. The meeting is closed at 1 a.m. Next time I'll buy a lottery ticket. All right. Thank you, everybody, and good luck in the coming weeks. Thank you. Good night.
