4 November 2025 - Ordinary

Thank you, councillors. Can I start the meeting by saying that Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Dharug and Daungwurrung people as the traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples as First Peoples of the country. Sorry. Yes, General Manager.

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'd like to advise that in accordance with clause 5.33 of the Code of Meeting Practice, meetings of the Council are recorded. In the terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the recording of personal information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting 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 and if you do not wish to be recorded in the live stream, please move into the foyer and we will turn on the foyer speakers for you. The recordings may be made available to other such persons where that access is in accordance with the relevant regulations, and 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 that you will refrain from making any insult, allegation or personal reflection against any person present or not at this meeting.

This request relates to both your address to Council and any answers given in response to questions from councillors. Finally, it is also requested that if you are participating in or attending the meeting this evening and you have your mobile phone with you, can you please either turn it off or switch it to silent. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Thanks, General Manager.

I just read a condolence, councillors. Kevin Camery was a councillor at Penrith, and I'd like to acknowledge the passing of Kevin, former councillor, Mayor of Penrith Council. Kevin passed away on the 25th of October, 25, after a three years battle with cancer. Kevin was first elected to Penrith Council in 1974, serving one term before returning for three consecutive terms from 1987 to 1999. Kevin then returned to Penrith Council in 2004 for a further 20 years, being involved in local government for over 50 years. Kevin also served as Mayor during his time on Council from '96 to '97 and again from 2009 to 2011. Kevin had a great passion for the local area and will be greatly missed by his community.

I knew Kevin personally, and I think there's some councillors here that did as well. He was a people's councillor, very much, and he spent quite a bit of time in the Hawkesbury in different aspects, and quite often rang when there was issues that may have come before this Council. So on behalf of Council, I'd like to extend our condolences to Kevin's family and friends, as well as the staff and colleagues of Penrith Council.

Is there any councillors that wish to —

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I might just briefly add to your condolence motion. I knew Kevin probably for the last 13 years, and I think he was such an example of what a community-based independent councillor is. His contribution to the Penrith area was quite phenomenal, that length of service and the amount of knowledge that he had. And as you said, not just of Penrith area, but he had a lot of knowledge about our river system here. He had a lot of knowledge about our issues here, and we often didn't see eye to eye, but he was always up for a chat, I could say, often a long one. And it was always good to catch up with him at conferences and to hear. He really had the best interests of the people he served at heart, and that was a really good thing to see for, you know, decades and decades.

So I join in your condolences to his family and to the people of Penrith, who he was very much revered by. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Like you and Councillor Lyons-Buckett, I'd known Kevin since I was probably about, I think, 12 years old. So, you know, now I'm 40, trying not to age myself too much there. He was someone that I genuinely respected with his community work as a councillor and then even just outside of council, he was still involved in his community. His ward, which is the north ward in Penrith Council, actually backs onto our boundary, so Londonderry and all those sorts of areas. He was a very good councillor. He was a great mayor of Penrith, and I think we have lost a good friend from Penrith Council. I know his running mate at the last election, Councillor Glenn Gardner, was elected with Kevin on his number two because Kevin had decided to step down due to health issues.

And I know that Glenn is, Councillor Gardner is taking on Kevin's role as a community advocate over there. And I think the good thing with him being independent, he could work with all sides of politics, and that's something that I do try to do here as well. So he will be missed, and he was just an all-round good bloke. He was very ochre Aussie, and, you know, not everything you would agree with, but the knowledge that he had over decades of service to Penrith and the surrounding areas, I just, yeah, condolences to his family. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks

Mr Mayor. As the outgoing chair of the Hawkesbury River County Council, I want to acknowledge Kevin's contribution to that organisation as well. He was a big supporter and worked very hard on that organisation to get a fair deal for Penrith out of that arrangement. And he's been ably replaced by Councillor Gardner, who has now taken up the role as Deputy Chair. Kevin and I didn't see eye to eye on very many things apart from the need to stop development on the floodplain, and he was a really good source of knowledge, particularly when I was a very new councillor at the Floodplain Risk Management Conference, where his understanding of the Hawkesbury-Nepean system was always evident, and he was always very happy to speak up at those conferences and talk about the challenges of the Hawkesbury-Nepean, but also the risks and the threats to the people who live here.

Thank you, Councillor. His funeral is tomorrow, Councillors. I will be attending.

Thanks very much for those words.

We have no apologies. Declarations of interest, Councillors. Councillor Buck.

Thank you

Mr Mayor. I have a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 15.1.1.

Councillor Wheeler. I have

A pecuniary interest in 11.1.1.

Councillor Ryan. A significant non-pecuniary interest in 15.1.1.

Thank you, Councillors.

Confirmation of the minutes of

The meeting of the 14th of October.

Yes, on the...

Councillor Reardon, Councillor Creed. Those in favour?

Against, carried. Do you need the names read out for the... Agenda.

Agenda items subject to public address. We've got two items tonight, the first one being 10.4.1, outdoor dining permit at Simon's Cafe. Mr. Harry Singh, if you could address the matter.

There's five minutes with a gong at four minutes.

Good evening, Mayor Les Sheather, General Manager, Councillors and the members of the public. My name is Harinder Singh. I'm the owner of Simon's Cafe. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I'm here to discuss the outdoor dining permit area for Simon's Cafe and to highlight several mistakes and issues in the recent report. I will read my points from paper to ensure clarity. When I purchased the cafe on 28 October 2024, Simon's Cafe already had a permit for 28 square metres of outdoor dining space inside the mall. Under the interim permit, the space was reduced around the newly built garden beds, leaving us with only about 23 square metres. The Council currently extended our interim permit for the two months construction period.

However, due to oversized garden beds, we were never able to fully utilise the space. I raised concerns from the start as construction workers began digging the garden beds. I had multiple conversations with Council representatives regarding their removal, as they had been removed in front of the cafe next door. Mayor Les Sheather consistently assured me that garden beds would be reviewed after the trial period if the new arrangements did not work. The report states that Simon's Cafe extended its seating area during Windsor Light Up. However, after viewing Attachment 4, the aerial photographs, the date were before I purchased the cafe and do not correspond with the festival dates. The current setup has created several problems.

The uneven surface around the garden beds has caused customers to fall, and many patrons struggle to move safely through the area. Those with prams, wheelchairs, and mobility scooters find it particularly very difficult to navigate the outdoor space. Because of the reduced seating, Simon's Cafe have lost nearly 30% of its weekly income directly affecting my family, as this is our only livelihood. This situation also affects nearby businesses, as we all rely on each other for traffic. Many of our customers rely on mobility aids, and young parents with prams who enjoy seating outside. Unfortunately, the oversized garden beds make access nearly impossible. We are also experiencing a serious pigeon issue, with birds attacking customers' food both inside and outside, and I have received multiple complaints, particularly from patrons using mobility scooters.

Additionally, the drain outside the left side of Simon's Cafe needs to be covered with mesh, as too many cockroaches come out of it regularly.

I would like to acknowledge that the council has done a beautiful job renovating them all, and I genuinely appreciate the effort. Simon's Cafe is committed to supporting Windsor and surrounding businesses. Unfortunately, the current outdoor seating arrangement negatively impacts a long-standing... A local business like Simon's Cafe, which has been a part of community for over 25 years, and our loyal customers. Simon's Cafe has always cooperated with the council, follows instructions, and paid permit fees on time. While we understand that under the new layout, we cannot extend seating as far as into the mall, I respectfully request that council remove the left side garden bed completely and secure the right garden bed to the minimum size needed to restore our outdoor space.

I would like to thank Councillor Shane Djuric for supporting a fair and reasonable outcome. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak and for taking the time to listen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Singh. You said in your address to us that the change in the square metreage of what was the size of your outdoor permit, which was 28 square metres before we did the livability project, your current, the interim one, is nearly 24, and the proposed one with these flower beds is 24. How does that represent 30% less dining space? How do you, is it the configuration? I don't quite understand that

Okay. The thing is, like, we have less seating. We have 18 seats less at the table at the front right now, 18 less chairs. The arrangement we had before was a big square at the front. Now we have a bit of pieces, left-hand side a little bit of space, right side a little bit of space, the other side is a little bit on the other side. So this is why we can't even arrange the tables right, in a right way. Before we had it like a big square at the front, and we arranged the tables very nicely. And then I lost 18 seats at the front. And then when we get busy on Sundays, everybody comes at the same time, and then we have nowhere to accommodate the people. And this is how we lost the income, especially on Saturday and Sundays. Weekdays is alright, but the problem is only Saturday and Sundays.

So my understanding of that is that it's not the square meterage, it's the actual layout that is your problem. The

Square meterage has gone down as well, because that's why the outdoor seating is less.

Right, but it's mostly because it's not a big square anymore.

Yep, it's just like, the garden beds on the left and right, right in front of the cafe. First of all, it shouldn't be in front of the cafe, because we are having a big trouble with this.

Thank you

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Singh. When you say you've got less space outside, is it generally the case that when you're looking for more seating outside, your inside is filled up? Yes, yes. Okay, so on the weekends. On

The weekends, yes. On Sundays, like especially for the breakfast time, like we have a big rush coming around 8:30, and that's the time we are full inside. Before we used to have another 18 chairs at the front, and now we can't accommodate the people anymore. So we just... Losing the money around that time. But would

It be fair to say that often it's the outdoor dining that's a preference, though, and that sometimes there's still space inside? I mean, that's how it's been when I've been there. There's spaces inside, but people do love to sit outside. Oh, yes, yes. Would that be fair to say? Yeah. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr Singh. With the reduction of 30%, have you had to reduce your staff?

Yes, I have reduced the hours of the staff. Yes, I had to do it. Like, even during the construction, we gone down dramatically, and then, like, that time I was using only two staffs in the kitchen and the two at the front, which was like... But even right now I'm using less staff because I have to reduce the hours for them.

So roughly how many staff would you say you've lost overall

In the weekend, around two to three, because it's all casual staff. Like, so I'm putting myself as well as a staff there now at the weekends, so to fill up the gaps and stuff.

And do you believe by reinstating the number of seats that you had previous, would that bring back the staff numbers to what it was originally? Yep, it will. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Mr Mayor, I'd like to move something different to the recommendation in the business paper, if I could please. I've sent it through to staff to put up on the screen.

And that is that Council: one, adopt option two with the addition of removing the southern garden and to fit a fine mesh grate over the drainage support seating; and two.. . Retain a 2.4 square metre section along the north side of the north garden, giving a total outdoor dining permit of 35 square metres.

I'll second it, Mr Mayor.

I'll speak on the matter if I could. When Mr Sing bought Simon's Cafe in October of 2024, the purchase contract contained a lease, including an outdoor dining agreement with Council, with a diagram showing an allocated space of seven metres by four metres outside of, and not including, the walkway. Mr Sing bought the business off this information, and it's vital to the survival of Simon's Cafe that Mr Sing at least retain that amount of space outside of the walkway area. Mr Sing has respectfully dealt with Council and tried to work with Council through the construction of the mall, and as I understand it, Mr Sing has always been one of the business owners that has paid for his dining space since he moved into the store.

The previous owners, as shown in the illustrations within the business paper, have used whatever area of the mall that they saw fit, and at times encroached onto some 64 square metres of the mall. I want to make it clear that none of these previous years highlighted in the business paper of non-compliant use has anything to do with Mr Sing, and subsequently, it's a very reasonable request by Mr Sing in seeking about half of the space that the previous owners were poaching from Council, and is only 2.6 square metres bigger than Option 4 in the business paper, yet doesn't block the walkway, doesn't impede disabled access, and is far more respectful to the movements of more patrons than most of the market stall placements in the Sunday markets.

I think it's unacceptable to say that the reduction in traders due to the previous owners' non-compliant use of the spot, when the fact is that we stuck two gardens right in the middle of Simon's seating area. Right through the process, we assured shop owners that we will be working with key stakeholders through the construction to make sure we were, or that they were considered with the way they did business in the mall. I recall such a time on or around the 27th of February because I was present when staff said to a shop owner to send through his concerns of the planned garden in front of his business because we were, quote, working with key stakeholders. Not only was that shop owner disregarded during construction, so was Mr. Singh.

On an email dated 30th of 5th 2025, staff wrote to Mr. Singh stating that, and I quote, You have permission for 29 square metres, and after construction you will have 29 square metres. The fact remains there will be no change, and designs are on the basis of the area you have. There is no evidence of a mistake of the setting out of the construction, end quote. So right through the process, I mean it appears we told Mr. Singh that nothing changes for his business, yet here we have a recommendation of 24 square metres, which is nearly a 20% reduction. Surely we are being facetious at the expense of Mr. Singh's ability to continue to feed his family. I don't remember a resolution of Council to deliver what we have in the mall.

I remember a resolution to do further detailed design to gauge remaining funds, and fully expected a presentation of a final detailed design for Council to adopt. This didn't happen, and this to me is a break from regular procedure, and not a matter for Mr. Singh. This is on us to rectify. And the fact that we're concerned about other changes in the mall being sought by other people may well stem from the fact that we broke from regular procedure, but that's just my opinion. But in this matter, we can rectify this problem, and I feel we should rectify this for the betterment of all mall users, and I hope we support it. Thank you.

Councillor.

Do we have a seconder? You did.

Councillor

Lyons-Buckett. Mr Mayor, I've just got a question, because this is an option I've not seen before. I'm just wondering what the costing is. Oh, is this—but isn't this a new option to be 35 square metres? I can't see anything for 35 square metres in there.

Councillor Djuric, could you like to clarify your motion, please?

Yep. The considerable change on all the other options is to fill in the southern garden, and whatever the cost is of a fine mesh grate to go over the top. We use a fine mesh grate on some of the other drains in the mall, so it's not unusual.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just a couple of questions. What would the additional cost of this be to Mr Singh, and is he agreeable, given that we're basically renting this space on a per square metre cost? And the other question I have is: is this additional 2.4 square metres referred to in point 2 the area that we can see in— sorry, I'll just— in the photo on page 48, the area that sits outside the entrance to Lachlan Court? And is there some access provision then into Lachlan Court? The picture that I can see, which is an older one, shows two cafes side by side outside the entrance of Lachlan Court. How do people get into Lachlan Court from the centre of the mall, if that's the case?

Councillor, do you like to clarify the length of the proposal?

Yes, Mr Mayor. At present, that area in front of Lachlan Court is listed, I believe, at 3.5 square metres, and there currently is double seating through there. I think Mr Singh can do a single seating arrangement, which is about half the current space. And I think it allows ample access into Lachlan Court, even for wheelchair access. Thank you.

It reduces the Lachlan Court area that's been used at the moment by half. Thank you. Councillor Worley.

That still doesn't answer my question. That relates to the depth of the seating, but it doesn't relate to the width of the seating that I can see. I'd need to be reassured by the staff that someone in a wheelchair, particularly in an electric wheelchair that is wider than the standard distance, can get into Lachlan Court itself.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Look, on the basis of the information that's presented, it's not possible to make that assessment. We'd need to see a sketch or have it mapped out or planned some way to determine whether it meets accessibility requirements.

Thank you.

I'll make a comment, Councillors. The proposal is put up by Councillor Djuric, I support. The area in Lachlan Court, and that's part of the reason that Councillor Djuric brought it back, because at the moment you can't walk through there, let alone get a wheelchair through. So it's blocked off for probably about 30 metres. There's no access from the mall directly into the shops. The— and from Simon's Cafe at the moment, because of the configuration, there's no walkway through there. What's being proposed by Councillor Djuric is to open up that space. It's not any walk-in area for patrons; it's serving the patrons that sit there. So that's why the councillors looked at the configuration of what's there.

So , and that's on page 52. It's predominantly with what's on the left to be filled with red, and that's the trap, the drain he's talking about, the dark spot, and a small area up to the right-hand end of where the bush, where the tree is.

In saying that, from when we started the mall, the provider, Harry's Cafe, has been right from the outset with the same view, attitude and persistence, and the information that was provided at the time is not what we supplied. And the configuration we've got there now really limits any opportunity. I mean, the square metres are there, but when you're trying to put round pegs in square holes, they don't work. And that's definitely the case at the moment, and it needs rectification. There is no one else in the mall that certainly approached me in relation to any changes or modifications where this provider has before we started the mall.

I'd just make a comment to the staff in relation to a question that was, or a comment that was made, and that's in relation to the pigeons. We hadn't spoke about it for some time. What action, if any, are we taking to have the pigeons minimised in the mall?

Excuse me, through you, Mr Mayor. In short, none at this particular point in time. Pigeon management is actually quite a complex matter, governed by all sorts of laws and the like. So it's something that I've been discussing with staff, but we certainly don't have any firm course of action at this point in time.

Can we pursue that, please?

By a resolution, Mr Mayor?

Yep.

Councillors

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I am really, really not happy with the way we're doing this decision-making. This is really, really unacceptable . I appreciate that Mr Singh needs to, you know, try and make the most out of the situation that he finds himself in. One point I will make is that you

Can't expect us to make a decision on uncosted

Really un- I mean, this is a new option. We have been talking about livability for so long. We had people design these really great plans that was about improving livability. We get to this stage where we have a really, it seems, a really good transformation, and now— We're saying, oh no, it's, you know, this person needs this amount of space

Because they thought they were buying something that was greater in square metreage than it actually is. That's really beyond Council's— that's beyond our scope to be able to cater for that. We are catering for the whole mall. We have had so many design changes that, because, you know, I don't think people quite understood the brief, which was livability and, you know, and making them more and more accessible for everybody. I understand that the businesses that run there have to make a profit and have to, you know, that's their business, so it's really important. But I am really not prepared to make a decision on this. And due respect to Councillor Durick, I don't know what the email said .

I don't know who sent the email saying that they would have 29 square metres. This is all just— I'm sorry, I just— this is dreadful decision making. I can't, I can't, you know, I can't hand on heart say that I know what's best or what's not. We don't know how much it costs. We don't know whether this is fair to the other people. I don't know what the neighbours think. I mean, this is just— I mean, we have to lift our game here.

This is really, we need to regroup on this one. I'm not prepared to make a decision. On this. Sorry.

Councillor Brogden.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. If I could offer a counterpoint to Councillor Cotlash's point of view, Councillor Kotlash may claim that this is all very new and very sudden, and that that gives her a reason not to make a decision on this. But Harry from Simon's has been entreating, pleading with as many councillors as who would listen for months and months and months. I am certainly well aware of this issue because I walk the mall, I meet with shop owners. He raised this with me at the point of construction and said, This is concerning me. I feel like our views haven't been taken into consideration. I believe that this is sufficiently costed. Unlike Councillor Kotlash, the business paper indicates that the cost, the primary cost, is the cost of the removal of the southern garden, and that that's about $5,000.

The only variation on top of that that I can identify in Councillor Djuric's motion is the provision of a finer mesh grille over that drain so that seating can be placed over the top of that, which is of a style that we use in other places and therefore is not outlandish or excessive. I think this chamber needs to kind of go back to the principle that we set when we embarked on the Livability Program. Not only did we want to improve and beautify and update the mall, but we recognised, even early, that alfresco dining is a very, very desirable public goal that improves livability, and that if we have alfresco dining establishments in the mall, we should do everything that we can. To make it a friendlier place for that purpose and for those operators.

Now, I'll frame what I'm about to say without recrimination. This was a complex and costly project, and in any complex project there are bound to be small mistakes. And I think in this case, Council made a mistake. It placed a garden of excessive size immediately outside the largest alfresco dining establishment in the mall. I think it's a mark of maturity that we can admit that we've made an error, that we can expend a reasonable amount of money in correcting that error, and we can apologise to the business owner in question. And that's why I'll be supporting Councillor Djuric's motion

Thank you, Councillor.

Do you have a question, Councillor?

A question, if I can.

You can.

This might be a curly question for staff, but I'd like to know, when we first started the liveability project

And we consulted with the business owners, was there any indication from Simon's Cafe about their outdoor space? What was the upshot of the consultation with the previous owner? Because I think that that's possibly where we've come unstuck, and I

Just think that that would be an interesting piece of information to understand where we've diverged.

Apologies, Councillors. Well, I wouldn't like to speculate on that without having the information available to me. I know that there was a great deal of engagement over quite a number of years, but I couldn't, without that information in front of me, give a concrete piece of advice about the engagement of the previous owners. So, yeah, I would have to take that one on notice, I'm afraid.

Councillor. Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I concur with Councillor Stonprogno, but I'm not going to repeat that because I'm not going to repeat it. It's just kind of a waste of Chamber's time. But I will say that looking at the footprint, bring a nice asymmetric footprint like that, it is very difficult to manage. To go to a more symmetrical one and pick up another 2.4 metres for the cafe, then so be it. So I'll be voting for the amendment. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor [unclear]

Bucket.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've got some real issues with this as well. I mean, we were given four options, and then we turn up here to vote, and we're given a fifth option that no one knows about. It's not— I have to agree with what Councillor [unclear] said—it's not a good way for making decisions because... There are unknowns, and part of those unknowns are about what sort of a precedent this may set. You say other people haven't spoken about it, but I've never been spoken to about this either, and I have had a lot of people approaching me about the accessibility issues around it, and none of this will improve that. I can't see where the 35 square metres comes from, because if it's an extra 2.4 to 27.5 and then an extra 3.5, that's 33 square metres.

And I think that I feel for Mr Singh if he inadvertently has purchased a cafe that he thought was going to have 35 square metres and it hasn't. I do feel happy for him that he's got people and an overspill of people on a Sunday for breakfast, because that's a great indicator of a good business. So many cafes where you go for breakfast on a Sunday morning, you line up sometimes for, you know, half an hour or an hour. That's a very busy time for cafes. I get that. I've just got issues around, I would have been happy with Option 2 as it was in the business paper. I was prepared to support that. We can't forget, you know, when we're talking about alfresco dining, we cannot ignore what's happened to Thompson Square.

Thompson Square, we've lost businesses. The shading isn't back, the seating isn't back, and much of that is in part because of the changes made to this original design, which took away from completing the project overall. And that is a basic fact, and it's a sad fact, and it's one that's coming back to bite us now. So in April of 2023, we had a resolution passed around keeping the existing pavers, we're going to fix the broken ones, we want to maintain a meandering attitude of the mall, etc., etc., which meant that the designs which opened up the mall to give more space were changed, and so therefore we had to move around, and the staff had to move around and do various changes to still fit in the livability aspect of the project, which was the primary objective of the project and what we had to spend the funding on.

So it's been unfortunate that the delays led to less of a good outcome for our fresco dining in Windsor overall. To see the loss of those businesses in Thompson Square is quite sad. I did have a question about when there'd be shade and seating back there. The other thing is there's something around the rotunda I've been asked to ask a question about, but maybe that'll come up in another section.

Regardless of what we have now, we've tried to come forward with a way to address Mr Singh's issue, and I think that possibly These options, you know, were all workable without introducing yet another option that is uncosted and that which we don't know if it's setting a precedent. I mean, we have people operating businesses all across the Hawkesbury. If every time someone thinks something could be enhanced to help their business, which of course we want to support, but we cannot be doing that at council's cost all the time. It's just not a feasible way to operate. We've got to bear in mind that we make decisions with everyone for the best interest of everyone. And I think at a time when we're saying we shouldn't be spending additional money on anything due to our financial constraints, when we have an option in here that is costed, ready to go forward, I think we should be going with one of those options.

I accept that it's not Mr Singh who's breached the permit in the past, but I do note that having walked through the mall quite often, you know, there are issues around accessibility. So I would have thought if we went with one of these options, we could have had a trial period if there was any real, I mean, we're given statistics, but with no disrespect, I mean, someone telling you their business is 30% down with no evidence is not something we can base decisions on. It's not the way that we are supposed to be approaching things. My main concern around the whole situation in this area with the outdoor dining is around the accessibility, and the staff have answered some questions about that previously.

We must remember that to have a permit for outdoor dining is a privilege, it's not a right. It's something that is issued by the discretionary body to give to people. If the mall wasn't there, that would be a road. So you can't be, we can't be thinking that just because there's a mall, there's some sort of right that you will have outdoor dining. That's totally discretionary. under the law. And I think that, I'm sorry I can't support it. Had I known what exactly it entailed, I may have had a better chance of doing it. Thank you.

Any further discussion? Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor

Councillor Willer asked this question a moment ago, but I'm not sure if it was answered or it was taken on notice about what that extra cost would be to Mr Singh if the space increased to 35 metres squared, because it's not just a cost to us, it's a cost to him as well. Is that possible to calculate?

Thanks, Mr Mayor. The cost for outdoor dining in the mall is at the moment at $123.10 per square metre. So for 35 square metres, it's about $4,300 a year would be the cost. So it's effectively $123.10 per square metre.

Thank you very much. And my understanding of the report is that the approval for the outdoor dining permit, the maximum that Simon's Cafe has had at any one time is 28 metres squared.

29 I believe, Councillor.

29?

Inclusive of an area that was not able to be used because it was the walkway.

Yeah. So 29 has been the maximum over time.

Minus the walkway.

Yeah. And here we are wanting to go to 35 without any prior consideration, understanding of the configuration. I mean, we can all work out what that's supposed to look like when you try and put it on the map in option two. My understanding is it just is, you would be extending the red part over the whole tree

To the left

So the tree stays? Yeah, and that goes.

Can I please just ask that part that Councillor Juric's motion goes to, in option two, it's covering the garden to the left. These were obviously strategically placed during the design and construction of the mall, taking into consideration the square metreage that Simon's Cafe already had. Is that correct? So this is going to essentially give them more than they were ever entitled to before. Well, not entitled, that's the wrong word. I think Councillor Lyons-Buckett touched on it the right way, privilege to have. There's no other outdoor dining area in the mall that has more than this space, is that correct? Any outdoor permits?

No, we don't believe so.

Yeah, okay. So this is asking us to go above and beyond essentially what we've ever done before. I do have an issue with the way we're doing this on the run in terms of not being across all of the detail. I'm concerned about the cost to council and I am concerned about the precedent that it sets for anyone else who has another outdoor dining permit to come and seek additional space. I'm concerned we don't have the costings of the business to be able to have concrete evidence to make a decision today. There's just too many fundamental unknowns in this one for me. Obviously I'm a huge champion of small business, there's no way that anyone could deny that with the shop small page, but I also have to weigh the cost to council on this one and the ratepayer as well, so I won't be supporting the motion. Thank you. Councillor.

Councillor Creed. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm a bit perplexed by councillors around this chamber that are saying, ‘Oh, it's all new. We haven't heard about it, or we don't know much about it, or anything.’ This has been going on for six months.

Point of order, Mr Mayor.

What's your point of order, Councillor?

I think Councillor Creed was saying that I said it was new. I didn't say it was new. I said the information that we'd heard from Councillor [unclear] was new, so a bit less of the— Thank you, Councillor. He

Wasn't referring to anyone, Councillor. His comments

Were

Valid.

Thank you.

Councillor. Now, a number of councillors had raised this when this first was raised during— before construction, during construction. We had responses from staff that, quite frankly, were telling us to just sit down and sit back in our box, that if we wanted to change anything, we'd have to change the whole design. And now we're saying that all of a sudden it's— this has come before a council meeting, which is ridiculous in my view anyway. It should not come before council. I've got issues with the— we're now saying about the cost, yet we're okay with putting out on public exhibition Turnbull Oval and spending $4 million, but we can't look at helping a small business out with removing a garden bed and putting a mesh grate to replace, you know, the one that they've got there now.

I just, I just sit here and I think the common sense in this place doesn't seem to be that common. And I'll support the motion because I just—I'm the only one around this chamber that's actually owned a cafe and has been stuffed around by council bureaucrats for over 12 months.

Point of order,

Mr Mayor. Sorry, that was—hang on, sorry. That wasn't about this council, and I apologise, and withdraw that. But— Can you repeat that please, Councillor? No, I've withdrawn it, Mr Mayor. I've apologised and withdrawn it. I said it wasn't about this council. I

Haven't said my point of order, if that's of any consequence.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you. My point of order was that Council agreed has made comments about staff. I mean, you know, throughout not just this time, putting us in our

Box—Councillor—bureaucracy— Councillor Kotlash. That was my

Point of order, and I think you've already addressed it. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor.

Continue, Councillor.

So we make decisions around this table that affect everybody's livelihoods. And to turn around and

Just some of the hypocrisy that I see around this chamber sometimes, I just—it does my head in. This is a small thing that we can do to help a small business that I think that we got wrong in the first place, and this is just rectifying that. So, and I'm sorry if Councillor Kotlash takes offence to anything I said, but this is just my view on the matter. Thank you, Councillor. Yeah,

Thank you through you, Mr. And it may go to some of the points being raised around the table. What I think is the new aspect here is the removal of the southern garden bed that hadn't been contemplated in any option and has not been costed. As far as I can tell, that is the point that's being made. What that leads to is because option two does in fact remove part of the northern garden bed, what's been proposed in the motion removes the entirety of the southern garden bed and there has been pointed out some obstructions in that. To Councillor Creed's point of why is it before council, we actually brought it to a councillor briefing session where you were all in attendance, and because of the very divided and sometimes strong views in that briefing session, that is why we have brought this to the council before you for a decision. Thank you.

Sorry, what the general manager is indicating, councillors, is the buck stops with us. And what the general manager said was just right. We did have a discussion about it. It was all over the place. Councillor Durex put a motion up that we're debating now, and so keep it simple.

Sorry can I just raise a point?

You can ask the question,

Councillor So through you to the general manager, was it not raised during emails to staff from councillors about the possibility during construction to remove the plans for the garden bed and to just pave that area so that it wouldn't have been an additional cost? Can you recall that?

It was always possible, Councillor, we just didn't do it.

It wasn't undertaken because council had endorsed—I had endorsed resolution of this chamber to deliver the master plan and the detailed plans that were delivered on site.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I did an inspection of this this morning, and I found that the northern garden bed was pretty well trodden through and had been used as a thoroughfare to get around the chairs and tables and chairs. And when I saw option two there, I thought, well, this is not going to be a garden bed for much longer, and perhaps that's a good way of doing it. I would really like to know what it would cost to do the other section, as I think we really need to address that northern end and perhaps give it to Mr Singh as lease it to him. But I really need to know more information about the bottom end, the northern correction, the southern end, before I would make a decision on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion?

Can I foreshadow a motion? Oh, I was

Going to move— You can. Okay .

Mr Mayor, I was going to move an amendment that we just adopt option two.

I'll second that. That's what I was going to— At least we have the detail.

A seconder was Councillor Kotlash.

Councillor Wheeler, you had your light on.

Oh, I was going to speak to the original motion, but I'll pivot and speak to the amendment, I suppose. Look, I was willing to support option one, which was the loss of the southern garden bed, and I do have concerns about the mesh grate. If it can let cockroaches out, I suspect that it's going to catch absolutely everything that falls on it and therefore isn't going to work as a drain for very long if there's a whole lot of fine particles that gather on it. Unfortunately, like pigeons, cockroaches are par for the course in food handling premises, and I'm not sure, while neither of them are desirable, I'm not sure exactly what we do about them. I'm happy to receive some advice on management options.

Councillor, just to clarify, the great the CNR is the much bigger grate than the one proposed within the motion. The one that's in the motion is not the one the cockroaches are coming out of. I

Understand that. I understand that they want to replace it. I'm not sure whether you can replace it with something that doesn't let cockroaches out, but allows it to continue to function as a drain.

I don't think we should be surprised at the fact that we are yet another impasse or yet another messy point in this project. This is what happens when you take a holistic design for a site and you fidget with it over and over and over to appease various agendas as the project has played out. Had we persisted with the project design that we had at the outset, without all the noise that happened in the background and without all the furfies about removing water wheels and getting rid of gas lamps, we might have got some sort of cohesive design plan that wouldn't have cost us a packet, that would have left some money to fix Thompson Square and give it the treatment that it deserves, and we might have four more businesses still operating up that end of the mall.

But we've got this. I agree that the garden beds are poorly designed. As someone who has worked as a gardener and a garden designer, they are doomed to failure unless they're replanted and potentially rebuilt with the edges raised. And plant out garden beds that are level with paving in order to deter people from walking on them, but they need to be planted differently to what we've got. The other option is that you raise the sides so that people don't feel that they can stick a chair in them or just wander through. Part of the reason why that northern garden bed has been trampled, and I too have walked up the mall quite recently, is because that area at the entrance to Lachlan Court is completely jammed with chairs and tables.

That cannot be allowed to continue. That is the access point to the businesses that quite legitimately pay rent to function and have their business inside Lachlan Court. Further, it's the access for people with prams, mobility aids, wheelchairs, etc., to get into those areas and those other businesses. And it's simply not reasonable to think that that can be turned into some sort of outdoor dining area. That isn't how outdoor dining is designed to work. I agree, and I have frequently pushed the idea that outdoor dining is highly desirable. It is. It increases street activity, it increases desirability of spaces and the perceived desirability of spaces, and it therefore has a really positive impact on activation.

But it cannot be seen or be allowed to block access. If someone had to be evacuated from one of those buildings on a stretcher during one of those periods when it's completely blocked by diners, that would be a disaster. I don't know how an ambulance would function, ambulance officers would function if they had to get in and out of there. I'm willing to support option two. I'm willing to support option two with the removal of the garden bed and a fancy new grate that stops cockroaches coming out. But the northern garden bed—sorry, the southern garden bed—I don't think is a reasonable expectation with that additional 2.4 square metres. It's disjointed and it blocks access. That area needs to remain open.

And look, we need to bite the bullet. We need to, I think, we need to go have a really solid look at these garden beds. If they're not working, we need to do something different because within six months this is going to look as daggy as it did before we started, and that's not the outcome that any of us want for Windsor.

Just to clarify the amendment to the staff. In relation to the grate, does that need to be part of the motion or can that be dealt with separately?

I'm happy to include it, Mr Mayor.

It can be dealt with.

It needs

To be part of the motion.

I'm happy to include the changing of the grate.

Would you like to think about the wording?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak to the amendment, and I hope—I do hear Councillor Wheeler about the grate. We don't want something that's going to generate another issue because it's not functioning as much as it should be, given, you know, the sort of the—what do you call it? It's not the topography, the surfacing of the mall, and, you know, the high areas of traffic and wind and the fact that we've got trees, et cetera, in there. Mr Mayor, I think this is a good compromise, really, because I think it's still allowing the business operator to have the outdoor dining. The businesses are, of course, all getting the benefit of the mall being fixed up, of having cooling aspects, having it look cleaner.

Thankfully, we did replace the paving, and it all, you know, is even and clean. So there's many benefits to what we've done. I think that doing this, it's 27.5 square metres of outdoor dining is quite a bit of space. That's a fair bit of room there. Combining that with significant indoor space makes a quite a large premises. So, you know, I just think we've just got to say to ourselves, what do we do when the next person comes and asks for alterations at ratepayer expense? There's people in Richmond have asked me things about the steps into their building or this or that. Where do we draw the line when we're in this financial position where we say, you know, we want a rate variation, but we just can't keep spending ratepayer money when we have systems in place that can address this?

And this report did address that in terms of how we might move forward. I don't have a lot more to say, or maybe I do.

Yeah, have we consulted the Heritage Committee about any of this? Like, I mean, I don't believe that we did, and I mean it's in proximity to one of our most iconic heritage buildings in the mall. I think the retention of the southern garden is good because it will give a distinction if there's other, you know, outdoor dining to come in that area. So, Mr Mayor, I think this is a way forward, and at least we have some idea of the cost around this, and that I would think, you know, if there were any real issues once this was operational, then it could perhaps be revisited once we should perhaps look overall in a year or so at how the entire mall is operating after these upgrades. So thank you, Mr Mayor.

Mr Mayor, just a question if I could. Can I get some clarifications on what exactly to remove the northern garden bed means, please?

A costing, did you say?

No, what? It just says to remove the northern garden bed. The northern garden bed is the one with the tree in it. I'm not sure exactly what the councillors mean.

Option two in the business case. The paragraph at the bottom of page 42, Councillor. The cost to remove the three square metres of garden bed shown is estimated to be $5,000 plus GST. So that is the section that's highlighted in

Red

Any other councillors?

Councillor Zamprogno.

Mr Mayor, I'm speaking against the amendment.

Councillor Wheeler referred to this, the plan of the design of the mall being a holistic plan. The Deputy Mayor referred to it as a strategic plan. I would say that it would be very generous to describe this plan as strategic or holistic in either sense. This was a mistake. Well, I mean, if you don't want to do something, you'll find a thousand different reasons why not to, and it must be very aggravating for Harry to see expressed in this chamber precisely the kind of nitpicking bureaucracy that's caused him so much aggravation

Mr Mayor, Councillor Zamprogno is imputing improper motive to other councillors. I have been involved with this project since 2018. I heartily resent the implication that I am nitpicking.

I withdraw and apologise, Mr Mayor.

It seems that we all tend to be nitpicking a little bit. Councillors, there's— Point of

Order, Mr Mayor.

Come on .

Point of order. I have been involved in this project since 2019. What's your point? I have seen it. You are imputing improper motives. You are insulting me by saying that I and other councillors are

Nitpicking. Your point's taken, Councillor, and I'll clarify what I said. I was talking about, I guess, a point of view that councillors were expressing around the room tonight about other councillors. It wasn't directed at anyone. It was an attitude that needs to stop. And I wasn't referring to any individual. I haven't done in the past, nor will I do in the future. And if you took it as a personal insult, I humbly apologise. That was not the intent. We're here discussing the matter. That's pretty important to a few people, and it's frustrating not only the people involved. We've got staff sitting up here that's listening to this, that's worked hard at it, and I know the implication and the attitude that's there. And so, councillors, just be mindful that people's view is somewhat sensitive sometimes, and choose your words carefully. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'll choose my words more carefully, Mr Mayor. Thank you Councillor. So will I. A mistake's been made. It isn't going to cost the earth to fix it. To say that this is new or that this is uncosted is not correct. This is something that's within our reach. To correct a particular problem to allow alfresco dining in a reasonable way in the chamber, I oppose the amendment and I support Councillor Juric's original wording. Thank you.

Councillor?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking in support of the

Amendment

This gets us to closely to the amount of space that is closest to what this particular business had always enjoyed, and I think that's a really important point to make at this time.

I think that extending the space under these circumstances would really set a dangerous precedent, and I agree with Councillor Lyons-Buckett, where do you stop? I mean, you know, we have to curtail this in some way, and I'm comfortable that I probably would have been more comfortable with option one, but option two is, I think, acceptable. It's acceptable because we know what we're looking at, and we don't know what we're looking at with the motion that was put forward originally . I think

We have to go back and think about the process that we went through with this project . Might be, in some aspects, flawed now. And that was because we missed, we missed with a design that we worked really hard on in the early stages because people, you know, just picked away at it till it was sort of the overall design, which some have described as strategic and some have called, I don't know what you called it, Councillor Will, holistic. But that's our job. We have to think about the design of these big projects in that overarching way. Once we get to down into the assessment of what's fair to each shop owner, or what each shop owner desires, and I absolutely agree we should consult with those shop owners and try to accommodate all of their ideas and their needs and wishes into that process.

But having gone through that process and now it seems we are going to set a precedence, if this option two doesn't get up, that we will start to, you know, take on particular shop owners' needs. When do we stop doing that? When does that become good planning? Never, I suspect. I think option two is really the only way forward, the only way forward really to keep some of the integrity of the original design intact.

I'll leave it at there. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor, I'm going to speak against the amendment.

Before the mall started, there was two businesses that approached me. One was rectified to their satisfaction. This was the other one. And for whatever reason, it never happened. And we've got the mall as it is, and it looks really good. But in this case, it doesn't fit for the purpose outside of a particular business. And that was made clear. There was representation made to me before the mall, like I said, but that was one of the businesses. And with the designs or whatever, it went ahead as it is today. When the mall was finished, there's five community groups that are up in Windsor, up the mall, and I got the chairpersons of those people together to cover some of the questions that was asked a while ago, where do we go from here?

And I asked them to give it a couple of months to see how the operations work with the businesses with what we've got, and that I wasn't prepared to listen to individual businesses with problems. They need to be part of those groups and submit a plan collectively and agreed to by those that if there was changes in the mall, it could go into a works program in the future. All those people, the chairpersons of those people agreed, and there's two organisations that have come back to me with how they would like to see the mall progressed. And there's nothing listed in those that is of any great significance, financial or otherwise. They're just things that they would like to achieve. So, in saying that, the one thing that has been persistent is the dining outside the cafe.

And I've attended regularly on Sundays to see how it operates, and there isn't room to move between tables and chairs because of the configuration. The two-seat is fine with what's operated, but the proprietor's been consistent in relation to what he's after. Now, the building next door that is the heritage building's got absolutely nothing in front of it. But I guarantee within two years it won't be like that.

Now, we can accommodate this. I don't know what the cost will be, but it's not great. But there were some that seen, and I was one of them, that it was going to be a problem down the track. The comments and reflections that Councillor Durek made in relation to documentation, I've seen the lot. And if he hasn't got it, I can certainly clarify that information, or it can be provided by the staff, whichever you like.

Yeah. Thank you, councillors. This has been on the table for a long while, and emails have gone out to all the councillors about it. So, Councillors, I can only say what my involvement is, and that it's been persistent and consistent in relation to what's been asked. And what I've asked of them is to sit back for a couple of months and see how it operates, and he's done exactly that. Now he's put a submission to Council to be addressed. Councillor Creed.

I'd like to put the motion, Mr Mayor. There's a

There's a motion.

The motion be put. Those in favour?

The motion is lost, Councillor.

Any other speakers?

Mr Mayor, I've got a question. It's a question for you, Mr Mayor, if you would allow that. I'm sorry, I just want to clarify something you just said.

Yeah.

Did you say that you told business owners they have to be a member of one of the groups to approach you to speak about something? I thought I just heard you say that.

No, I've asked

That you wouldn't speak to individual businesses; they had to be a member of a group. I'm just clarifying that on the public record, if you don't mind. If

You interpret it that way, Councillor, it's an error, and I would not dismiss talking to anybody about anything. I might offer a direction that might be prudent. I would not not offer—

I must have misheard that. I did have another question, Mr Mayor. I also wanted to ask you that, given the other motion is an increase of an additional six square metres that was never granted before, do you or do you not consider that a precedent of increasing an advantage to someone without going through the ordinary channels we would go through?

I can't argue with that, Councillor.

Thank you for making my point. Can I ask

A question, Mr. Mayor?

Yes, Councillor.

Following on from Councillor Lyons-Buckett's question,

What do we know about what the neighbouring properties think about us extending this particular privilege of however many metres this is?

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you through you, Mr. Mayor. So, in respect of the motion we have before us on option two

Councillor— It's referring to the original motion.

The original motion. I just

Wanted to know if we don't seem to have any information about any consultation that has been done with neighbours, which I think is essential. Thank you.

I may pass that through to the Director of Corporate Services because I am aware of discussions that have been had with the new owners of Loader House in respect of a potential extension of the dining area in front of their building alignment, Mr. Mifsud.

Thanks, General Manager. Yes, there has been some discussions with the owners of Loader House. They are currently fitting out, I guess, the Loader House, and following the completion of that, they've indicated to us that they will be applying for outdoor dining permit in front of Loader House.

And I think on that basis, we're not willing to entertain a scenario that involved the extension of a neighbouring business's outdoor dining area onto their frontage, which is a principle that's outlined in the outdoor in the mall policy, that we don't extend outdoor dining over another business's frontage without their approval.

Can I ask a question? Aren't we doing that now?

I don't think the original motion does that, Councillor. Yeah, I think it's still within their building alignment. Yeah, I think it's still within their building alignment.

And if I can add to that too, we have gone back to the owners of Lotus House and asked them whether they were prepared to allow outdoor dining to extend in front of their building, and they indicated that they were not.

Councillor Wheeler, question?

Yes. Does that extend then to shifting outside the entrance to Lochland Court? That isn't actually outside the front of Simon's Cafe. It's the front of the entranceway to Lochland Court itself, which is an open space. And where does second bites dining permit then fit across that space as well? Yeah.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. As of today, Council has approved an outdoor dining area for Second Home, and that area is about 25.85 square metres. And my understanding is that the applicant has paid the fees for that today, which means it's now operable. And I'm just looking at a map here of it now, and it looks to me on the map that that is clear of the entrance to Lachlan Court.

Right, so it doesn't extend into that space .

I'd have to take that on notice, but based on the plan I have here, it looks like it is clear of that entranceway.

Councillor. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I thought it was my opportunity to ask a question. The walkways, I would suggest it'd have to be minimum one metre to 1.2 for egress, no matter what, wouldn't it? That'd be the interface to the glass, to the cafe, to the seating area and getting into Lachlan House. That's what the BCA says. That's what we need to regulate to. So I suspect we would be maintaining a minimum of one to 1.2. That's a question maybe somebody can answer that. Yeah, the footpath and access into Lachlan. Yep.

Broadly speaking, that's the thing that we would be looking at for the walkways running parallel to the building lines. I think for access, the cross access across the mall, we would be endeavouring for probably a greater figure than that if we could, I would say, yeah.

No other speakers. Councillor Zervic, right of reply.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I want to say that the measurements I put forward in front of Lachlan Court directly concerned width. The seating image on page 48, the seats face north to south. I propose a seating arrangement that faces east to west, so it does give a very singular table width. Direction there does open a whole lot more space, and if the other cafe is no longer in the doorway, I think that's a really big area into Lachlan Court.

Right across the process, the one consistent narrative was around alfresco dining, and I think it's appropriate to have appropriate alfresco dining. This is a greater benefit to all businesses in the mall, because people will go and have breakfast and they'll shop elsewhere. So it's a greater benefit. It's not just for one person. I don't think that the options I presented is an outrageous size, and we've got an option four here that's 32.4 square metres. The option I'm putting forward is barely larger than that. So we've got an option here, and I'm suggesting something that's minutely bigger than that. And the options that were presented in the business paper, I don't think fairly represent Mr Singh's pleas, and I don't think they fairly represent consulting the community as good as we can do.

And I think we're the ones spruiking our consultation ability, so I would like to see this go through. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. We've got an amendment before us. The amendment's on the screen.

Mr Mayor, could I just clarify something? Has something changed in here? Because we used to vote on an amendment before the right of reply, so that should anyone want to put forward another amendment, there would be an opportunity, which of course has just been taken away.

There hasn't been a change, Councillor, there's been a mistake. Thank you. Okay,

Thank you.

The amendment is on the screen before you. Those in favour of the amendment?

That's Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Cottlesh. Those against?

One, two, three, four. The motion's lost. Against the motion was Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Regan, Councillor Sheehan

The motion is—it's not on the screen. Can we get the motion on the screen?

Mistake or not, we've had a right of reply, Councillor. Those in favour of the motion?

That's Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Regan, Councillor Sheehan

Those against?

The motion's lost. Those against the motion was Councillor Daniel Wheeler, Councillor Lyons Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Cottlesh.

Sorry

The motion was carried. My apologies.

The next items is items of exception. Another speaker. Bad night, Councillors, bad night. The second speaker is Mr Bob Gibbon. It's in relation to 12.1.2, recreation of a rural residential strategy for rates.

Thank you, Mayor, General Manager, Councillors and members of the public who are here. I actually thought I was going to speak after Nathan introduced his motion, but I'm happy to go first. I'm speaking in favour of the motion. I am a resident of Oakville, and rural residential as a rating option is very important to us. We lost that back in 2017, and I understand the motion coming forward is only for a study, and it may or may not happen, but we hope that the study is successful and we do go down that path. What the study will do, and what the motion hopefully will do when it goes through, will address one of the final issues coming out of 2017. Back then there was a zoning change put through, rural residential went and we came onto residential.

We also moved to a 70-30. Land value services for the land rates. Our land values went through the roof because of all of the development in Box Hill, Vineyard, Pitt Town. Our land value is just ridiculous . We also had an SRV at the same time, and my rates went up 266% overnight. That was a big hit. And the 70-30 was addressed by the next council. It was brought back to 50-50, which is where we are today, and that's good. The only thing that is hurting us at the moment is the land valuations, because we're valued at residential, and our land's worth a lot of money. Trouble is, we don't see that because we don't want to, I personally don't want to move, but I pay a lot of money in rates. And if we start to look at Oakville , because there was—well , some people think people who live in Oakville are rich because the value of our land is high, but in reality, the weekly personal income, this is taken from the last census, the personal weekly income in Oakville is only $876.

You compare that to Wilberforce, it's $915. Bligh Park, it's $935. Kurrajong, $894, and Pitt Town, $1,014.

If we look at the rates that we pay in Oakville, it's $3,186. Wilberforce, $1,446. With a difference of $1,739. Bligh Park, they pay $1,300.33 against $3,186. Kurrajong, $1,647 against $3,186, and Pitt Town, $1,816.

Oakville Merialia comprise 4.6% of the properties in the Hawkesbury, and I know by bringing us back to a rural residential, it will lower our rates. It will increase the rates of other people within the Hawkesbury, but it will balance it out more evenly across all the properties, and that's what the government's trying to do when they realised, I'll call it a mistake, they took out the rural residential. So bringing it back, it will just make it more balanced, because the people in Oakville aren't rich. I was surprised by the actual weekly income, but I think it's because a lot of people are retired. I'm retired, I've been there 30 years, and a lot of the people I know are retired. So something needs to be done to make it much more livable, and reducing the rates is one of the key things that needs to happen, especially with another SRV on the horizon.

And if we do come back to a rural residential, we still don't want another SRV to go through because that will still have a major impact. But I'll support Nathan in this move. I'd also like to thank Debbie Samuels, who raised it on social media that the government had changed the legislation, and some people in here have picked up on that. So I think it's a good thing. And the support Nathan in his motion as it moves forward. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Councillor Buck.

Oh , Mr Gribben, are you taking questions?

Thank you, Bob. Can you just tell us which legislation the government's changed?

It's the reintroduction of the rule—

Yeah, I thought off my head. I'd have to send it to you on notice.

A legislative change, but anyway, I just had another question, or just really a clarification. Just, I'm sure you understand it, but maybe just if people were listening. It's not a zoning change; it's a rating categorisation.

Yes, yes.

So there's a big difference between what something's zoned for planning and what something's rated as. So just so nobody would be confused from what you said. And the same for land valuation; it's not valued something differently because it's rural residential.

No, I understand the land value

Will stay the same. No, it was just that that was what you said, and I thought I'd just clarify. Thank you.

Councillor [

Unclear].

Mr Gribben, thank you for coming and speaking. If I heard you correctly, you were saying that your rates are more than double than the rates in a comparable suburb. Yes

Well, it depends what you call a comparable suburb. I haven't done a survey of all the suburbs, but just the ones on my list.

Do you think that you see the same value out of your rating dollar as people in other suburbs? I get what'd be emptied. That's it.

You have some involvement with the Outfor Progress Association, so— I would suggest that you can lay some claim to being able to speak representatively for the community. Do you believe that if the rating burden becomes very much worse, that there are people who are making financial decisions to sell because they simply cannot afford to live on their land anymore?

That is what I am hearing, that people will be moving; they cannot afford it. If the SRV goes through, they're on the brink now, and that's life . Thank you, Mr. Griffin.

Another question. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Mr. Griffin. When you said you were, for example, compared you were paying a lot more than someone in Kurrajong, for example, were you comparing properties of the same land value in those two suburbs? Were you basing that on an average income statistic?

No, I was basing that on the average of all the land values in Kurrajong divided by the number of properties, and the same I have done for Oakville. Oakville, I've got an average of 3,186. My rates are over 4,000, and I think it is showing lower in Oakville because now we have all the smaller developments coming up through the vineyard thing.

So just to clarify, though, you're not suggesting that you pay more rates than somebody of an equivalent land value in any of those suburbs?

All I'm doing is working on—I know what I pay, which is over $4,000 today. I know the average is 3,186. The average across Kurrajong was 1,647. It's just the total.

Yes, but that is because of a variation in size and land value, obviously. But I think what you're—well, I live in Kurrajong and I know I don't pay $1,600, I can tell you. So what I'm saying is that if it's a comparable land value, it doesn't matter where it is, people pay the same rate.

Oh, absolutely, yeah. If the two properties are valued the same amount, you pay the same rates. Yeah, it doesn't distinguish. Yeah.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Zamprogno.

I'd like to move the notice of motion standing in my name and seek a seconder.

I'll second it. One of us.

Thank you. Having secured a seconder, I'll speak to my notice of motion. A final decision on the SRV is thankfully not before us this evening, but I think that it gives us a strategic opportunity to consider what I think we should see as a linked issue, and that is the issue of rating fairness. If the SRV is about the size of the pie, then rating fairness is about the various levers that we are able to pull to ensure that, to the greatest extent that we are able to, that those rates are levied in a way that is fairest. Notwithstanding Mr Gribben's remarks, this is not just about Oakville. Oakville is the poster child because it's where these distortions are most acute. But I am talking about rating fairness across the entire LGA.

In the background to my motion, and indeed as a refrain for each of the last nine years, I have quoted the 19th century economist Edwin Cannon in relation to the imposition of local taxation. He said, Every inhabitant of a district should be made to contribute according to his ability, and everyone who receives benefit from the local expenditure should be made to contribute in proportion to the benefit he receives. As you all know, the Office of Local Government reframed this principle in the Council Rating and Revenue Raising Manual, which is still an applicable document, as the requirement for us to be obliged to be mindful of both a ratepayer's access to services and their ability to pay when setting our rating policies.

I think that we need to confront the reality that our whole rate-setting machinery is broken. Something that is acknowledged in the manual, as it was in the IPART 2016 report into rating structures. Both documents acknowledge that land value is increasingly a poor approximation for both these metrics, and that this results in a loss of what is called horizontal equity. The purpose of this notice of motion is to give the council, and indeed the chamber, the opportunity to publicly demonstrate that it is going to examine, for the first time in nearly a decade, the mechanisms that we can use to promote horizontal equity. I call out the desirability of reintroducing a rural residential category as one way of improving equity, but you will notice that my motion in Part 2C gives staff the remit to look at any other strategies.

It does not escape my attention that Blacktown, for example, offers not only the standard pensioner discount to eligible ratepayers, but an additional $200 for those who, by and large, are in the greatest cost of living pinch. Campbelltown, Cumberland, Parramatta, Northern Beaches, Randwick, Sutherland and Waverley all do the same. Coringai does it by way of an 8.5% discount for pensioners rather than a dollar amount, while Ku-ring-gai does it by exempting pensioners from some specific charges like their environmental and infrastructure levy. IPART recommended in their report that there be new mechanisms, such as the creation of new categories and subcategories like an environmental land category.

We have a bevy of property types which are exempt from rates altogether, like churches and schools, and I think that many people think that they can and should make a contribution, especially when the tenants are private schools with fat balances or state government tenants. I would like to know whether we might use the definition of rural land in the OLG's rating manual, rather than the definition in the Local Government Act, to give relief to acreage landowners between two and five acres. I'd like to know whether the mechanism that I've proposed will improve horizontal equity for households who are paying twice or more than twice the amount of rates that other families are paying, despite the fact that their access to services — rubbish collected, roads repaired — and their ability to pay, as the statistical demographic data in our own social atlas reveals, and Mr Gribben said as much in his presentation, is identical.

I cannot accept the claim, as has been made before in this place, that acreage landowners deserve to pay twice as much because they're rich and can well afford to pay. Claims like these may explain why the Greens vote in these suburbs is usually under five percent.

Mr Mayor, do we have to go through this bullshit again? Really.

Mr Mayor, I think my comment was fair game. I'll resume and take the rest of my time if I'm able. I believe this notice of motion, if passed, may take some of the heat out of the public's perception that we are out of our mind to ask for such a significant SRV when the last one finished its rollout only four years ago. Australians are very sensitive to the issue of fairness. This motion does not by itself change any council policy, but it asks for a report to look at what might be done. On that basis, I hold some hope that every councillor who cares about fairness will be prepared to support it. Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've got no issue with having a report. I do have issues with how fairness is portrayed in this actual space. And to begin with, Mr Mayor, I think that, I think Councillor Zamprogno's motion is aiming to provide some ratepayers with rate relief based on a theory which is applicable perhaps to taxation, but not really applicable to respect to land rates. He's actually arguing for virtual equity rather than horizontal equity. But anyway, a good rate system should balance both. An application of the principle of horizontal equity to land rates would in fact dictate that properties of comparable values and characteristics in the same area should be subject to similar rate calculations to ensure fairness amongst property owners.

Yet by nature of definition within the Local Government Act, the size of the property is the determining factor. This then means that neighbouring properties with exactly the same access to services in the same villages, etc., would be paying land rates at different rates. There's zero horizontal equity in that. In the manual that Councillor Zambrano refers to, the 2007 manual, on page 23 it states, Councils are cautioned that if it is their intention to provide a sub-categorised residential ordinary rate to all residential lands outside their towns and villages, relying on the use of rural residential sub-categorisation would result in a failure to achieve that policy objective. This is because the rural residential land ordinary rate can only be applied to land which fits the definition.

All land in rural areas not greater than five acres would fail. It goes on to suggest exactly what we have, which is the simple and correct method to implement on residential ordinary rate is the same unless categorising around centres of population, which was a former metric that was used but which is no longer used. And that's why I was asking Mr Gribben what legislation he was referring to, because it could be something around that. Basing rates on an ability to pay, I find it absurd. I think, you know, who is going to ascertain who can afford what. If you've got no children and a double income, you've obviously got a lot more money to pay than if you have got six kids and you're on the same income.

I mean, how you would say that someone's ability to pay. And so the Local Government Act has taken, or the Office of Local Government have taken the approach that the thing to use is land value. That is how they apportion that, and that is why there's a rate applied in part on land value.

I mean, rates are similar to a tax in that they're a non-voluntary, mandatory payment, but the way that they are set are not like an income tax or not like a tax. We cover everything that's not business, mining or farmland as residential, and in my mind, that is a fair way to deal with it. The principles of economic theory is fairness through consistency, not fairness through making people who live in the same area pay a different rate dependent on the size of property you happen to own. So if you've only got 4.5 acres and you live next door to someone on 5 acres, the person on 5 acres, you want to give them a cheaper rate than the person on 4 and a half? I don't know how anyone could sit here and say that is fair, but that is what that proposal gives, unless you get around the definition and you can have the definition that rural residential is categorised as being in a certain location or being in a different way applied.

There's no fairness in using it as a category, as the Local Government Act specifies and as we know we have to act with how the Local Government Act tells us what to do. Also, I am happy to look at various things, and I'm hoping that an amendment might emerge, that we really need to look through many things around rates. We have to look moving forward with more development, how we're going to deal with various things like dual occupancy. I think we've got some outstanding things to look about how we're dealing with short-term stay accommodation, whether that determines somebody to have a business premises on their property. There's a lot of things that I think in an evolving world that we probably should have some review around that.

Where are my other notes? Here we are. Yeah, so definitely the pensioner rebate is a problem. I mean, for governments to have not increased that since 1993, with it standing at $250 is a problem. And I'm pleased to hear that other councillors are finding a way around, but I think it would be very difficult in our council to suddenly come up with something like giving all pensioners an extra $200 off when we're in this financial situation. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Councillors.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm happy to support this notice of motion, but through you, Mr Mayor, I'd like to ask the mover if he's willing to add a section E, that we also look into the ability to offer better rebates for pensioners in the Hawkesbury, given the matters noted by Councillor Strogno in his speech. Thanks.

I can address that, Mr Mayor. Look, I would contend that section 2C of my notice of motion, that asks staff to look at not only subcategories but any other available means, I would suggest that the words any other available means includes things like an additional pensioner discount, and certainly staff that are listening in to understand the remit that we're giving them, I hope, would pick up that. If it would please Councillor Djuric to have that stated more explicitly, I would be happy to insert into part 2C, after the words other available means, such as pensioner discounts. Would that satisfy Councillor Djuric? Then I so amend my motion. Thank you.

Councillor Veigel, happy with that?

Thank you. Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Mr Mayor. First of all, I will be supporting the notice of motion tonight because I would like to see the content of this report. I think we need to have that information presented to us so that we can make an informed decision. One thing that appears to be lacking from the notice of motion, though, is a time frame to deliver that report to the chamber. Was there an understanding of a time frame that you wanted this information in?

Deputy Mayor, part 2D of my notice of motion says that the options will be presented in time to permit both public consultation and the implementation of changes to the rating structure for the 2026-2027 financial year. So that is the reference to a time frame.

Yes, I don't think that's... Stringent enough. I think we need to get this report quickly. And the reason I'm saying that is, whilst I'm supporting the notice of motion to obtain this report, I am very nervous and very worried that the public are going to confuse the potential SRV with potential changes to the rating structure. And when I have spoken to people in the community about this, they talk about, and Councillor Lyons-Buckett touched on it, they talk about the word zoning, they talk about the word rating, they talk about the word rating structure, they talk about the words rate rise. And I get it because when I was first elected in 2016 and Latin words like ad valorem were being thrown around, I'm like, what language is this?

Like, is this some foreign textbook I'm reading? It takes a long time to understand the rating structure of New South Wales. It is really difficult, hard reading. And I'm really concerned that if we're going to potentially implement a rate rise at the same time as a change in rating structure, that we are going to have a community who is not, not that they're, you know, no one, I'm not absolutely doubting the ability of this community to absorb information, but it is difficult information to understand. And I am concerned if we go and throw in a rating structure change at the same time as the implementation of a potential rate rise. So I wanted to flag that very early on, that that's going to cause significant confusion and anger in our community.

Now I'm not saying either way that I'm against a rural residential subcategory of the residential category. It's been in place before, and I would love to see the data on that again. My understanding is though, because that will be a smaller subcategory, there's a different rate in the dollar. And I want to see that modelling based on what those properties would look like in those larger areas that would fall under the rural category compared to the properties that would not, and that is a land-sized value. And I do recall back when we had this debate back in my early days of being elected that the analogy is correct, that you could have a five-acre property, you know, in the middle of Freemans Reach that's right next door to a house block, but they are rated differently.

And so that concept of equity, whether it's horizontal or vertical, I'm not going into that debate, but it's a relevant consideration of equity holistically. And so, as I said, I'm not against implementing rural residential if I can see that that would certainly make an impact. I'm very worried about doing this at the same time, and that all depends, of course, on what happens in two weeks' time when this chamber votes on the potential rate rise. I'm not looking forward to that at all, but we need to see what happens in two weeks on the 18th. Then this report's going to come back. So there are some steps along the way that need to happen that we just don't know what that outcome is going to be.

But again, I reiterate, confusing the community with a potential rate rise at the same time as a rating restructure could have some people's rates go through the roof more than 40%, and it's going to be very difficult to explain that to some people. But I look forward to the report and the content, and I'll make my mind up at that moment. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Scott-Lash. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm not

I'm speaking against this motion. One of the things that kind of occurred to me when I read it was , what

Does Councillor Zamprogno think the staff do other than all of these things?

In 2017, when we had, when we changed from having a rural residential rating subcategory, we went through a lot of briefings, and it was really quite interesting how it panned out that it was actually quite unfair. And I think Councillor Lyons-Buckett was pointing out that the fact that there were people that lived next door to each other, and I think you did too, Deputy Mayor, that were just had the same kind of, you know, same sort of living in the same sort of area, but paid ridiculously different rates. It was just unfair. And I thought we had put that to bed quite unanimously then. So the premise of this motion is that we go and do all of these things that I am sure the staff do, and that is that they're mindful of balancing access to services and ability to pay.

I mean, this is, you know, bread and butter stuff. Seek to ensure that households are broadly equal in respect to equity. Examine and articulates both the mechanisms under the Act. And presents these options when we need to make decisions. This happens, we do this all the time. We revisit how we set our rates.

This, to me, this motion is just, it seems to be pushing out to our community that there might be fairer options, and it sort of makes that, it infers that there is potential in the rural residential subcategory, and I don't think there is. It's very hard to have a notion of ability to pay, and I remember those conversations we had so very clearly, because we were all new to this and, as the Deputy Mayor said, this is complicated stuff. This isn't, this isn't a good idea to do on one particular rating subcategory. If the notice of motion had been put to us that we asked staff to revisit and look at any new options that might have come about, you know, how Councillor Lyons-Buckett said, the differences or changes that are happening in Airbnb and how people are using their properties as farm, you know, as sort of farm stays or— You know, farm experiences or whatever.

So things are sort of changing from a commercial point of view, and that might be something that we could look at. But this just seems to me to say, please look at one particular thing that I think, you know. Might work, and I don't think that's the right way to do this. I'm happy to have staff look at all sorts of options that might be new, but as far as I'm concerned, the staff already spend a lot of their time doing, trying to allow

Us to have the fairest possible system. And to suggest otherwise is , I think, I don't think that's right. I think everybody wants to see fairer systems, and our staff, I'm sure, want to see everybody get as fair a go as possible. So I won't be supporting this motion in its current form. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'd like to move an amendment, if I could. The amendment is with the staff.

I'll second that, Mr Mayor.

So, funny Councillor Kotlash should mention that. I haven't discussed this with her. This is that more fulsome report, I hope. I haven't put a timeline on it, and I'm happy to take a timeline suggested. What this seeks to do is look at bigger options than just— Do

We have a seconder?

Than just a rural residential ratings strategy. We haven't looked at this for a long time, since about 2016, 2017, when we looked at changing the categories. And I think it's high time we explored particularly business rate categories, where we have a single category that I think disproportionately disadvantages smaller businesses over some of the very large businesses that we have in the LGA that are currently getting away with much lower rates than we could possibly obtain from them. You'll notice that this report asks for different categories across; it doesn't specify a single category. It also looks at base rate versus minimum rate. Our surrounding councils use that to a greater and lesser degree.

With increased multiple occupancy properties, it's probably time we looked at something like minimum rate as opposed to base rate. And it also asks for us to explore rating structures that would be available for dual occupancy or secondary dwellings, not just on rural properties but also on residential properties where we're having increasing numbers of granny flats that have come in under the SEPP. I know that the rating structure is really limited, but it's a discussion that I think we need to have, and also of short-stay accommodation and tourist facilities, which may have come in under some of our residential categories, and also a broader discussion of hardship and pensioner concession provisions.

And I will remind councillors and anyone playing at home that the pensioner concession provisions made by the state government have been the same for 30 years or more. They used to be, they were set at half the average rate in New South Wales when that average rate was about 500 bucks. Those days are long gone, and this no longer provides a reasonable level of fairness for people on fixed pensions or very limited pensions.

I need to address the repeated misrepresentation of my position on this, and I apologise for swearing earlier. But frankly, after being abused to my face, over the phone, online, and yet again this week, Councillor Zampronio, on social media, abused, vilified and misrepresented. I've had my family members abused. I've had my car vandalised due to the misrepresentation of my position on the rural residential category. If you are on a property that is worth three million dollars, and if you are paying, if you're paying rates, some of the rates quoted here, then your property is worth a substantial amount of money. You are, by nearly every measure, better off than someone whose property is worth far less than you, simply because you have choice. You mightn't want to make any of those choices, but you have a greater access to choice than someone whose property is worth far less than you.

So this idea that you can be on a property worth three million dollars and be poor,

Frankly, I can't get my head around it. And if you want to vilify me for standing up for people who are of lower means, then you go for it. Go for your bloody life. The idea that rates is a reflection of access to services is a nonsense and an aerial at the Hawkesbury. In Wilberforce where I live,

Thousand square metre properties on one side of the road, five acre properties on the other side of the road. Absolutely identical access to services. If you don't choose to use council services, that's your business. Kurrajong, Ebenezer, Bilpin, parts of Pitt Town, all the same. Small blocks side by side with large acreage. Why should those people on small blocks subsidise those people on large acreage? Why should families in the mortgage-belt areas of Bligh Park, Pitt Town and Homeartville subsidise people who have retired and have had windfall gains from properties that are now worth orders of magnitude more than they paid for them? This is not a reasonable proposition.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak in favour of the amendment because I think it does broaden the scope and it allows us to take an overall view to look at all the various categories in light of what I mentioned before, which is a quite evolving change. We now have pockets of more dense development in suburbs like North Richmond, again an area surrounded by five-acre properties, we're adjoining them. We have our vineyard component. So we've got shifts in land value and we've got shifts in the types of properties that we have here now. So I support looking at different models that may lead to a fairer system, particularly for pensioners, as we've mentioned before. Looking at other council areas is sometimes a bit fraught because, you know, people get online and they say, I've put in my land value to the calculation for Blacktown or something and I'd pay much less.

We can never do that. Rating is so complex that unless you really understand how the entire thing works and how every single land value in our area has to be thrown into the mix and the whole thing apportioned throughout our whole area, you can't simply say those sort of things. The other thing is, you know, we need to know the impacts of what any changes are going to do and we need to understand those because any shift where we see someone getting a decrease is always going to mean someone else gets an increase. So, you know, if it was rural residential, for example, so certain people on five acres and more would get a decrease, and neighbours or other suburbs an increase. So there's no fairness there, and I don't think any argument on the planet can make you think there's any fairness there.

But we know that the smaller lots in many of our rural areas are also the ones that are much further burdened than anyone else in this area, and they've got extra costs such as sullage collection. They're not big enough to have on-site sewer, so they have to have pump-out. They have to buy water regularly because many are on building blocks and they don't have big enough tanks. And these things are a legacy of decisions made in here, Mr Mayor. They've been made in here, poor planning to allow a lot of subdivision with no utilities connected. And these people, the people of Bowen Mountain, last time this rural residential— Category came in. Their rates were ridiculously expensive on top of what they pay for their sullage collection.

I mean, many of them are paying, including their sullage, but many of them are paying around $5,000 a year. And I mean, that's a legacy from decisions made here not to ensure that development in that area had proper services and infrastructure. So I think that it's very easy to just look and think some people who've had increased land values should get some relief. It would be lovely if we could come in here and say that was the case, but we just can't do that. We can only work within what we've got. And I think that this amendment allows us to sort of go back to square one, look at the different categories. I too think that the business category needs a bit more work on it, and I did raise that prior to when we were having SRV discussions, and that we do need to look at these other sort of changes that we've got going on so that people understand it.

And I think it would be a good exercise. I know it's work for staff, for the Chief Financial Officer is looking happy about it, and I think that, I think it would be very beneficial to do this exercise and get the information back. I note Councillor Wheeler didn't put a time frame, and I'm not sure. I understand Councillor McMahon's concern about doing this at the same time as any other changes that could occur. That definitely is a concern, and it's very confusing for people. Ultimately, if we're really going to be honest, people don't want any increase in their rates ever under any circumstance, but that's not reality. Thank you.

Thank you through you, Mr Mayor. In addressing the more comprehensive report, Councillor, I just want to flag that, again, depending on what Council resolves to do on the 18th of November, that's a piece of work that we would likely need to get some expertise to probably accelerate the work on that. What you've got before you on your briefing papers for Thursday night is a comprehensive 48-page piece of work from a consulting firm that probably would have been great to inform the discussion you're having tonight. But that would be the type of work that we would probably need to leverage into, I would think. So just flagging with you that we may need to, in the next quarterly budget review, bring some money out to fund some consulting work there.

Thank you. Could I just ask a question on that, Mr Mayor? Yes, Councillor. Would it be considered, though, valuable information going forward to have that done as an exercise?

Through you, Mr Mayor, when you read the 48-page report, absolutely.

Councillor Brogden. Mr Mayor, I'm speaking against the amendment. The amendment, to my mind, looks like a very pale shadow of the considered words that I'd put together and was seeking support for. And I'll be specific. I mean, we have particular circumstances here, and I've articulated as best I can the fact that, yes, we do have to balance both vertical equity, that's ability to pay, and horizontal equity, that's access to services. And we can do a variety of those things. We can take care of horizontal equity by not applying a one-size-fits-all. category to all residential land, or for that matter to all business land. We can take care of the vertical equity by providing various kinds of concessions, by way of exemptions from certain charges or by offering a more generous pensioner discount.

Blacktown Council offers a discount not only to pensioners but to residents who have been in the area for more than five years. So they unashamedly favour certain types of landowner, and it's their right to do so. We can choose the mix of rates that we want. My motion charges Council staff to go away and put together a fairly detailed report that encompasses all of these things. I'm happy to include business category rates in my motion as well. I'll put it after the words that Councillor Djuric encouraged me to insert, so I can say, and can look at all other means, including pensioner discounts and variations and subcategories to the business rate, and that takes care of it. Beyond that, this amendment effectively eviscerates the tone of the report that I think a majority of councillors would want staff to bring back and gives them a much muddier and more limited remit, when we could do a better job by just going with the original form of words.

Thank you.

Further debate? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. I wasn't ready to go yet, but I have to almost laugh at the last bit there by Councillor Zamprogno that this amendment makes it muddier and limited, when in fact I think it makes it clearer and expanded. So I just had to highlight that straight away. Perhaps if I said something so loud and pompous, you might believe it's true even if it's not true. I'm not sure. But I think that I'm happy with this amendment here. I think this is going to deliver more information. In the report, I'm happy to bring more information forward to both us as the elected body and to the public so that they have a better understanding. And I fully take on board that we might have to outsource that information.

But I also just want to point out, two CFOs ago, she did a lot of work on this. Her voice is still in my head talking about rating structures and rating categories. That's how many briefings we had on this. So, if that information is still somewhere back of house, I think that would be really important to draw upon as well, because I can't remember what year that was. Was it 2018, 2017, 2018? That was an extensive amount of work. I think it was almost in every briefing was rating structures and rating categories, and it was really valuable information. And I'm just trying to recall as well when the change to the base rate came through. Obviously, I'm a huge advocate for a 50% base rate. I think that was just after the 21 election, so that must have happened around some time in 2022.

So, there are so many different terms that are really hard, as I said before in my speech, to get your head around. I don't think we should ever touch the base rate. I think that regardless of what category you might be in, the whole LGA having the same base rate of 50% fairness rather than a 70/30, which is where it was at, to me is the best way to go, and that's why I've heavily advocated for that in the past. The access to services argument is a difficult one because if people recall back when the amalgamations were on the table, there was a significant push, and I wasn't elected to this council at the time, but there was a significant push to amalgamate with the Hills, and by and large, the people of the Hawkesbury did not want to do that.

By not merging with an LGA that has a larger density in certain parts, because we wanted to protect our rural amenity, that's going to come with the fact that we are an LGA that has the biggest geographical area in Greater Sydney. So you're going to have to drive a little bit more to get to those services. And so that kind of argument doesn't sit with me, because if I say, well, okay, you don't, you know, the people in Richmond live closer to a pool than the people in Kurrajong, but you chose to live in Kurrajong knowing there wasn't a pool there. So, you know, if you want to have us to cut services so that rates are cheaper, what services are we going to cut? And a lot of that time they go, nothing.

I don't want you to cut anything. You go, but these are the genuine conversations that we have to have when we as councillors are trying to balance a budget to be able to deliver those services that community expects. And again, you could have the argument, well, if you don't live close to a town centre and you're not near the pool or the library or the museum, and you live further away, you're driving on more roads that we're maintaining. So there really is an argument for sort of every kind of thing that somebody might want to discuss when it comes to the point of access to services. So I just wanted to make those points as well. I think they're important. I'm happy to support the amendment because I think basically it's going to deliver us a lot more information and the public a lot more information, hopefully in a way that's easy to digest what is, as I've said before, a very difficult topic to get your head around.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you, Councillor Wheeler, for putting up such a good amendment. It is really what I was trying to articulate, so thank you for that. I think the reason I said that I thought that when I was speaking to the original motion, that I thought council— Sort of did this is because, as the Deputy Mayor has said, we talked about rating structure subcategories, we talked about population centres, and it was so interesting because it's not that simple. It's very complicated. And I guess that, I guess it's probably time we revisited it, and I'm thinking that I hope there are other levers we can pull. I'm probably, you know, we are constrained quite a bit, you know, from our legislation.

But this is a very good alternative to Councillor Zamprogno's motion, because I think it doesn't say up front that the rural residential subcategory is somehow worthy. It may very well come out that it isn't worthy of much deliberation, let alone points A to E. So, yeah , happy to support this. I do wonder whether we shouldn't separate hardship and pensioner concessions. I sometimes think that hardship is an interesting policy area, and we seem to have sort of put our hardship and pensioner concession stuff in the same thing, whereas I think there are possibly other mechanisms that we could, you know, flesh out there. So, I mean, that's neither here nor there. Happy to support it, and, yeah , and— I think not just yet.

We have to do this properly and not confuse it with the special rate variation. As the Deputy Mayor said, I think this is not very well timed, in my opinion. Thank you. Yeah

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll be supporting this amendment. Being a new man on the council, I believe I need to get as much education as I can in relation to rates. There's something that people speak to me regularly about, and I listen, and I feel that our ratings can be better done. I feel that we have a lot of other things coming at us when I look at Vineyard and go past Vineyard and see the multi-storey buildings there. How are they going to be rated when they arrive here? Because they are coming at us along the train tracks. So, look, I'm fully supporting this amendment, and I'm looking forward to seeing the results. Thank you.

Anyone else? I'll be supporting the motion tonight. Not that I think that the amendment has not got merit, but there's going to be opportunities to talk about a whole heap of things soon. And with what Councillor Zamprogno's put forward has been something that's been discussed for some time and need clarification amongst us councillors. There's been views about this for some time with previous councils and the like. The document the General Manager was talking about, I got them printed up this afternoon, and they're on my desk. So before you go tonight, take them with you. It's just a shame that it's— That we didn't get a map, but the general manager's been working. She's aware of the frustration that's around this table in relation to the discussion tonight and in a week or so, and made as much information available to us as she can.

And with the support of a consultant, the information that's in there is vast and much appreciated. Any further debate?

We've got an amendment before us. The amendment is as written. I'll put the amendment. Those in favour? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash. Those against?

One, two, three.

The motion's carried. The motion's lost, sorry. The amendment is lost. And vote against it was Councillor Ambrogno, Councillor Djuric, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor

Reardon and Councillor Sheather.

Would the motion be before us? Would I reply?

Assuming that there were no other councillors that wanted to make a contribution to the amendment, the motion itself

Okay, I'll accept right of reply. Councillor Wheeler mentioned a particular instance that I think rather proves my point. A road in Wilberforce where there might be properties of 500 or 1,000 square metres on one side of the road and five-acre properties on the other. And Councillor Wheeler says, Well, why should— Why should the people on one side of the road subsidise the rates of people on the other side of the road when they make the same access to council services? But that's precisely my point. It's precisely my point. You've got families with similar incomes. Some of them live on acreage. Some of them don't. And they have the same access to services, and yet the people on five acres are paying two or three times the amount of rates.

That's my point. That's, I think, what offends many people's sense of fairness about the way that we put our rating structures together. Councillor Lyons-Buckett suggested that horizontal equity says that properties of the same size or characteristics should be rated identically. No. Horizontal equity says precisely the opposite of that. Horizontal equity says if you make more or less the same access to a service, you get a benefit from the government, then you should, as far as the system can be rigged that way, to provide equity of how much you pay for access to that service. She also suggests that there's a warning in the Local Government Act that says that rural residential properties may fail in some circumstances to meet the definition of being in a certain locality, being a part of a centre of a population.

What she's not distinguishing is the difference between section 529, subsection 2, subsection B, subsection 1, and then subsection 2. It is perfectly legitimate to say that you can create a rural residential category simply because the land is rural residential. There are other levers that you can pull if the rural residential land is part of a centre of population. There are ways that we can create a business subcategory based on whether the business is part of a locality. Unfortunately, as much as we might want to, we can't simply pick on businesses above a certain size or with a certain revenue. But we can create centres. So we could create a patchwork quilt of definitions that try to capture those high-yield businesses and then favour small businesses.

I wish we could do that. And here's the thing: we're perfectly at liberty to do so. What I think offends people's sense of fairness is the cookie-cutter approach, the one-size-fits-all approach, that the person living on acreage, the pensioner on limited income, living in Oakville or Moralia or Vineyard or one of those areas that are adjacent to development, where they have neither the desire nor the ability to subdivide in their lifetime, even if they should want to, and that their land value has doubled or tripled because of real estate speculation. I have lost count of the number of real estate signs that I've taken photos of that says future subdivision potential. And it's in an area that's not identified in our residential land strategy for subdivision ever.

And I call them up and I say, are you suggesting that you know something that I don't? And their rates, the ad valorem component of their rates, spikes. And yet we apply precisely the same formula to that property with that particular difficulty and a pensioner living on a block in South Windsor or Hobartville. We have the ability to use the levers, as blunt as they are, as imperfect as they are, in a way that tries to maximise fairness. I'm glad that the amendment failed because the amendment didn't even provide a mandate to the staff to say, look, our objective here is to favour horizontal equity or indeed to favour fairness at all. That amendment simply would have produced a report that presented sub-areas that we already knew.

So I'm glad that the motion has the wording that it does, and I'm enormously hopeful that it will get up. And it was not my intention that this would be back before we make a decision on the SRV. The SRV is breathing down our neck, but I think it's an enormous gesture that the public will respect that we are saying to the community, it's a big ask to put rates up by the amount that's being suggested. But we are also mindful of the fairness argument, and we're doing work to see how we can adjust the formula. And unlike the Deputy Mayor, I think we can do both and argue publicly to help people understand the system and to distinguish between the formula and the quantum of rates that we collect.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Those in favour?

Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Sheather. Those against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Isbagger, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Cox. The motion is carried.

Those against? Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyes-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Kotlash. The motion is carried.

Thank you, councillors. We'll go to reports, exemption reports. The items 10.— excuse me, 2.1, 10.3.1, 10.3.2, 10.4.2, excuse me, 10.4.3, 10.4.4, 10.4.5, 10.4.6,

11 .1.1.

Mr Mayor, I have a conflict in that item.

Yep. Discard 11.1.1, 11.1.2, and 15.3.1. Would someone like to move? Yeah, I'll do that.

Yeah

15.3.1 is confidential, and we'll deal with that separately. Would someone like to move that way? Councillor Reardon and Councillor Veigel

Councillor Creed.

Move your seats . All those in favour?

Against? Councillor Kotlash, were you abstaining or— sorry, it was unanimous.

Those against? It's carried unanimous. Councillor— Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyes-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creed, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reardon and Councillor Sheather.

Okay. 11.1.1. Mr

Mayor, 10.5. Sorry.

Oh, that's Councillor Wheeler's.

Sorry. Isn't it 10.5?

Yeah, a bit low. 10.5.

10.5.1.

Can I move that,

Mr

Mayor? I'd like to move the recommendation in the business paper.

That's how it works, Mr Mayor.

Do we have a seconder?

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you. I am very glad that we finally got our approval to do our black soldier fly larvae trial at the waste management facility. It did take a long time, and I guess that is why I'm in favour of moving the commencement time for FOGO, if that trial is not successful, to give it the time and, you know, to give it as much time as it needs to see if it does work. So I'm really happy to do that. But the other thing that occurred to me when I was considering this item is that it seems to me that a lot of councils around the traps are actually having quite a few issues with rolling out their FOGO. And I think that the longer that we extend commencing , I think is going to be advantageous, because I think what we're going to do is we're going to learn from their kind of— Maybe not mistakes, but from their experiences.

So things like, you know, what messaging worked better, you know, maybe what people tended to be more confused about. Definitely, you know, things that just about distribution of the caddies, all of those sorts of things. This is a real— FOGO, when we implement, if we have to implement FOGO, which I'm desperately hoping we don't have to do, since it's so expensive. But if we do have to do it, I think by then we'll probably be in a very good position to have taken on board all of the experiences that other councils have had. One of the things that I heard when we were discussing this previously was that we really should be starting to reduce our landfill. And what this trial will do when it starts early next year will actually start to divert

A lot of waste from our landfill just in the trial. So 6,000 tonnes, which is 25% of our red bin waste, will be what the trial will be aiming to do. So that's an enormous step forward. And I think that, I mean, I really want the trial to be able to be wrapped up in 12 months, but if it's not and we have to extend it, at least we are still doing something to try to divert from landfill. So I think there's really nothing, nothing would be gained with not extending this commencement date. I think it would be, now that we've got all of the, I'm assuming most of the construction for the actual trial is done, and we're just raring to go. So I'm really, really excited about this, and I desperately hope it works.

It seems like other councils that I've read about are actually having quite a bit of trouble with people not necessarily, not actually working the way that they thought it would work, and people aren't really putting, you know, the right things in the right bins. So, you know, FOGO isn't perfect, and anyway, maggots rule. That's what I say. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Question to the General Manager. In relation, in the documents it was indicated there's going to be a strong consultation with households. How is that going to be enforced? To what degree contamination is going to be a big part when FOGO is introduced? How's those—

I'll pass that through to the Manager Resource Recovery. Sam, you want to take that? The lead-in work required ahead of time is critical here, but I will ask the staff to articulate that.

Thank you. Through you, Mr Mayor. Look, there's lots of things that we need to do to manage contamination. The key thing is, is obviously communicating across the board, you know, what can and can't go in, and then progressing them through that. Given the way that, you know, communities, you know, find out things, a lot of that will be physical notices. There will be likely a contamination, excuse me, audit. So we'll probably send people around just sort of give them, hey, just to let you know around that. So all of that kind of thing will be built into that campaign. The first sort of almost 12 to 18 months in the lead up to a start date is literally telling people, fogo starts this date, get ready.

And then the last six months into the lead-up day is really, this is what you need to do, this is what's going to happen, tell us if you've got any issues. Those kinds of things starts to happen. So to give you an example, one of the issues that Blacktown had was they had bags, and they had to do a lot of campaigning around how to actually open the bag, because people thought, you know, at the supermarket, trying to do that, they didn't know how to do that. So there's lots of things that we're starting to pick up, but that's the sort of depth that we'll have to be going through.

And is the major problem contamination or people just not conforming,

To almost ask? So I suppose there's two issues. One is there is contamination, so people putting things in the wrong bin, but the big one is, is a lot of councils have faced, is that they're not getting the capture rate. So I think sort of a few councils around the Sydney region, the capture rate, how much food they actually get, is very low compared to what they should get. So they're getting maybe 10% of food. Really, they want to be aiming for 40 to 50% of that food, and that's sort of where FOGO really needs to get up to that 40 to 50% capture rate, all of that food to make it actually worthwhile.

And in relation to community information, how much, what sort of timeline do we need to be looking at that when it's operational?

So once the date's decided, it's really that 18 months just to work through, and then it's really six-month intensive program before, and then almost at least a six-month intensive afterwards. But then it's similar to recycling; it's continually reinforcing that message around this is what we need people to do, this is what we've found really giving that reinforcement. So it's an ongoing messaging essentially after FOGO starts, similar to what we've been doing with recycling for the past 20 years.

Thank you. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Mr Mayor, I just had a follow-up question from what the officer just said. In the low rate of food that they're getting, are you saying that the people are putting some in the compost, some in the whatever caddy or whatever they've got, and they're still putting the rest in their red bin?

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, that's correct. So 8% of that food in that household is going in that, or 8 to 10% is going in that green bin, and the rest is still going in that red bin. So you're not getting the emission savings that you would like because, you know, 90%, 80, 90% is still going through the red bin through to Lucas Heights or wherever it is, yes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak on the motion. It is, I feel a little bit that the delay, and I know that's nothing to do with us, but the delay is a little bit unfortunate because, you know, it pushes us back. My only concern I've got now remaining is that if the trial doesn't work and we've got to roll out FOGO, we're on a very small time frame, really, even though I suppose that's balanced with getting the experience and the information from others to roll it out quicker. I'm just wondering what level of education we'll do, and I think you might have just been alluding to some, but generally just around what food and organic waste is, how one day something's going to happen and you're going to have to do something with it, either keep putting it in your bin or put it in a different bin.

But really just so people understand, and things around, you know, packaging around it, and people throw plastic in compost and sort of that sort of thing. Will we have an education system going ahead of time regardless of which of the systems we'll be using?

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yes. So regardless of which system we would do, so obviously with FOGO there's a lot of education behaviour change required to get that transition, and a lot of that really is, just to let people know what FOGO is. The advantage is, is that we will likely have, well, Blacktown is starting to roll out their single unit dwellings, so we'll have them on board. Blue Mountains would have gone, and possibly the Hills. So most of the councils around us would have gone. So we're hoping that most people would know what FOGO is, but there's an extensive amount of education to get people putting from one bin to the other. Should the trial be successful and we don't need to implement FOGO, there's probably a different story to tell and we won't need to spend as much actually getting people, because we don't need people to do anything different other than don't bin your batteries, which is what we're trying to get people to do now anyways.

So there's sort of a difference in terms of level of education that way.

Thank you. I'm really hoping the trial will work, of course, because that obviously is going to give us a much bigger recovery rate, even though it has to be separated, et cetera, but that will be a really much better thing. The other concern I would have about if it doesn't, and hopefully it doesn't and we have to roll out FOGO, have we been given any information about where our FOGO would go? Would that be to Eastern Creek or wherever that facility is over there somewhere, or would we build one here?

Through you, Mr Mayor, no, we've currently got a contract where we would opt in for ANL, so that would, at the end, go through that product. So all of that is locked in. We just sort of need to set dates and go from there. Okay,

Thank you. Well, and I thank you for the work on this. And of course our overall aim is to reduce the amount going to landfill and reduce emissions, of course, and support the circular economy. So I support getting it in as early as possible, however we can, which I suppose is everyone's goal. But, you know, if that means moving out a date to compensate for that, as long as I feel certain we'll have it in as soon as possible and that the rate of what is going into the trial would be comparable to if we were rolling out, for example, a FOGO trial. Is that the case? So basically the reduction that Councillor Kotlash was just speaking about, the reduction of what would be going to landfill would be comparable.

Through you, Mr Mayor, that's right. So Sam, sorry, the Manager of Resource Recovery indicated that the capture rate for some neighbouring councils is down around the 8 to 10%. With the trial underway taking 25% of our red lid bin, that almost guarantees a capture rate of 25%. So we're already ahead of our neighbours through the Arcanto trial without any education and without any significant impost in cost either.

Great, we could just do another trial in the following year. Thank you.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks. This is making me feel better because I have to say when I saw this kicked out until 2029, I was very, very uncomfortable, and I wasn't likely to vote for this. So this is a nice example of not making up your mind before you get into the chamber. What happens? So it looks like we run this for 12 months. How fast do we think we'll know if it's not working? Are we likely to know? Because I'm not quite sure what— because this is going to take both us and the provider to decide that it's a success, and I suspect that our criteria will be different to theirs. Theirs will have to have a commercial viability component to it. How fast do we— what will constitute success, and how fast will we know if we're going to fail?

Because if we're going to fail, I'd like to cut and run quickly so that we can perhaps bring that transition in in advance, because every piece that we put over that weighbridge costs us money and it costs us emissions.

Through you, Mr Mayor. So I suppose there's probably three key stakeholders. So it is obviously Council as the primary stakeholder. There's the provider, Arcento. But the third key critical one is actually the New South Wales EPA. And so that 12-month trial really is to help demonstrate not just the technology is successful, not just it's commercially successful, but also to demonstrate to the EPA that where the products and what happens with, you know, when the bugs eat them and all that kind of stuff actually works. So what I'm hoping is within the first six months we'll understand some parts of it, but it'll really take 12 months to ensure that we can understand the seasonal variability and those kinds of things.

So really after that first six months we'll have an understanding about, you know, how it's all going in terms of the operations, in terms of that. But really that 12-month trial will actually then give us the confidence for the provider to then work with the EPA and go, this is the products that we can get out, this is what we know we can do with them and move forward from there.

Any further debate?

Councillor Scott, right of reply. Yeah

Thanks. Just quickly

There's so much—I'm putting so much hope into this trial working because the benefits will be so good. I mean, you think about it, if we have to go to FOGO, we have to have the green bin collected every week, not every fortnight. So that's 50% more truck movements, you know, and it's just if this works, we don't need to bother with that. We don't need to bother with all of the caddies and— Education about that bin, it will all be on the 1 bin. So the benefits if this work works will be so great. And I see, when I was contemplating this, even if we didn't do anything with the end products, which, you know, depending on whether there's contamination or they're good enough or whatever, even if we didn't do anything with those, other than maybe put them in landfill, we're still winning.

Like, there's so many win-wins with this. So I've got everything crossed that this is going to be a successful trial. And I guess, look, if it doesn't, if it isn't, you know, it'll be worthy of having a go. There you go. I'll end on that. It's great that we're having a go at being innovative and, you know, trying to actually get a hugely better deal for our community. Thanks .

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour of the motion?

Those against? That's carried unanimously. Councillor Zamprogno, Councillor Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan

Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Regan and Sheather.

11.1.1. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I have a pecuniary interest in item 11.1.1, the Heritage Committee minutes. My home is included in the Heritage Listings Project, so I'll leave the chamber.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

I'll move the motion in the business paper, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor Creed.

Any discussion?

Not necessary, Mr Mayor, unless anyone has any questions on the contents of what's in it, because I was in that meeting, so if anyone had any questions. Okay. Thank you, Mr Mayor

Any further discussion? Right of reply? Those in favour

Those against?

Thank you. The motion's carried. Councillor Brogden, Councillor Wold declared an interest, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creed has left the room, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Regan, and Councillor Sheather. The motion's carried.

11.1.1. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I have a pecuniary interest in item 11.1.1, the Heritage Committee minutes. My home is included in the heritage listings project, so I'll leave the chamber.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor

Lyons-Buckett .

I'll move the motion in the business paper, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. Councillor Creed.

Any discussion?

Not necessary, Mr Mayor, unless anyone has any questions on the contents of what's in it, because I was in that meeting. So if anyone had any questions. Okay. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Any further discussion? Right of reply? Those in favour?

Those against?

Thank you. The motion is carried. Councillor Brogdon, Councillor Wheeler declared an interest. Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric, Councillor McMahon, Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Creed has left the room, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Regan, and Councillor Sheather. The motion is carried.

The next item.

The next item is 12.1.1.

I'll move that way, Mr Mayor. I'll second, Mr Mayor, seeing

It's been

Abandoned

By half the motion. Before we start in debate— half

The motion mover's gone.

Before we start in debate, councillors, do you mind notifying Councillor Wheeler? Right.

Away you go, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I actually have decided to declare a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in this item, if you don't mind, so I'm going to put that on the public record. And the interest relates to the fact that I'm a member of the Hawkesbury Communications Brigade for the RFS and we are talking about that. So I'll fill that in a little bit later, but I'll be staying in the room, obviously. Thank you very much for allowing me to introduce this motion tonight. Danielle's not here yet. We just discussed that when you were

Absent from the

Room.

She's just been waylaid, but she's in a minute. Thank

You.

We don't have to wait. She's right here.

Can my time please start again? Thank you. Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to deliver this notice of motion this evening on behalf of myself, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Kotlash. The notice of motion is calling for a meeting of the Disaster and Emergency Committee as soon as practical. Can I just pause my speech to ask a question? Are we setting that date for that meeting tonight, or that will be done post this meeting?

The gentleman will notify a practical date as

Soon as possible.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate that, Mr Mayor. If we could have that at some point by the end of this year rather than into the next year, that would be helpful given the fire season. Thank you very much. The purpose of this meeting, again, to convene this committee meeting is to invite representatives from the RFS District Office to address the committee on the matters basically relating to the upcoming fire season. At the last disaster and emergency committee meeting, we didn't have that happen. And I think, given the context in the local community and the narrative of misinformation out there right now, I think this is really important. And I am not going to sugarcoat it, and I don't think anyone ever expects me to sugarcoat it, but there is no doubt right now that both the council and the RFS, for whatever darn reason, are completely under attack by the Hawkesbury Gazette.

Shane, they've left the room right now. We are under attack. I have people ringing me on the phone in tears, telling me they are at the end of their tether because of the misinformation that the Hawkesbury Gazette are putting out in our community about bushfire preparedness, both on behalf of council and the local RFS. It sickens me to my stomach that this organisation, who has done so much in the last few years when it comes to disaster preparedness, not just bushfire but also other natural disasters, is copping an absolute barrage from a few local people who have a personal vendetta and are causing so much pain to individuals in our community. And that's why this notice of motion, brought by multiple members of multiple political parties and an independent.

have decided to get together and say that we want to set the record straight. And that's what this meeting is supposed to do, where you just don't hear from us, who people go, Oh, these are politicians. You're hearing from properly trained individuals whose job is to protect this community from bushfire. And you couldn't get a more authoritative voice than the district manager here at Hawkesbury RFS. So that invitation will be extended so that he or any other representative can come into this room and put on the public record what the RFS is doing to prepare for the upcoming bushfire season. As you can see, the notice of motion also wants to write to Minister Dibb and Minister Saffin to discuss a meeting on what is happening holistically from the point of view of the New South Wales government when it comes to disaster preparedness.

The Disaster Adaptation Plan, the DAP, that is being prepared by the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority is half a year late. I don't care how they want to say this is delayed or why they want to say it's delayed. It is half a year late. Premier Minns sat in this very building right next to me in the room next door with a whole bunch of other ministers so that he was looked after, and a whole bunch of staff who all heard the same thing, that we were going to have a DAP by June. It's November. We don't have a DAP. So when we are one of the most disaster-prone communities, if not in the whole country, if not the state, if not the whole country, this isn't good enough. And I don't want to turn this into a floods debate, but he's taken away the raising of the dam wall.

I know my motion colleagues don't care for that. But my point is, what have you left us with, Mr Minns? You've left us with nothing. So give us something. A six-month nearly late DAP isn't good enough. So anyway, I'm a bit off topic, but I want to be a supporter of convening this committee meeting because I want proper information on the public record. The story after story after story, where I'm not even looking at Facebook because, you know, sometimes I'm off social media, what other people might not believe is the case, but I get sent links to me from these stories and I open them up and I am horrified. Horrified that a member of this community has put those words onto paper and thinks it's okay and puts it out there in print, on social media, and actually tells the community outright lies.

And some people, because they think it's the Hawkesbury Gazette, trust it since 1888. Well, let's be honest, there's no trust anymore. People in the community are reading that as gospel, and they are so misinformed, and then starts the barrage of criticism against our local RFS. And let's not remember, I know I've got 20 seconds, they're not just paid people. They are volunteers across our 23 brigades who voluntarily give up their time with families and time from employment to ensure our area is prepared for bushfire. So let's get the experts in, let's get the right information on the record and stop the misinformation through this committee meeting. Thank you.

Thanks, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, I was happy to jointly call for this meeting to have another disaster and emergency committee, and I think it's quite a good one to have a single focus for a whole committee meeting, and in this case around fire. You know, I think it's a really important and timely thing. We know we've got a lot of new residents moving into this area. We've got a really changing population, and even though the RFS do such wonderful work around their Get Ready weekend, and I've been to a couple of those, often it's the people who are already really good at doing that sort of stuff that go, and they just have it reinforced that they're doing the right thing and they're ready. And some of the new people, it slips by.

So I think by holding an information session like this, it enables us to get the correct information, as there has been misinformation and disinformation put out around certain things. It allows the RFS to update us around the hazard reductions that have been done. You know, perhaps they could give a general clarification of what is a hazard reduction as opposed to any other words that could be used for it. And it enables the people who work in the field every day to say it in a public forum so that it's there, recorded, and we can refer to it if necessary. Anybody who's new to the area can access that information and see what's being said. And I think that it's really important that we're on the front foot about it.

It is a hard task to get it done probably before the actual fire season starts, which probably has started now. It's November. But we always need, I think, to be pushing forward around any of these disaster issues to ensure that, even though our role may be limited operationally in here, our role to ensure that our community has accurate and timely and helpful information is really, really important. And that's something we have the facility here to simply hold a committee meeting, have that information come, allow councillors to ask any information about it, and then we have the real picture out there for everybody to see. So I'll be pleased to hear from the RFS. I value their work highly.

It was great to go to their recent competition they had and to catch up with a lot of them. And I think that it will be really good to have this committee sitting to look at fire-specific issues and also to write to the various ministers. You know, I know both of those ministers actually have a lot of experience around disaster management, so it would be good to get the information back from them, and it'd be good if they could come here and address us. Well, it is to have a meeting, but to address the councillors would be really interesting as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further debate?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, could we just get some clarification on what's happening with the communication towers? that were funded by the state government, by

The— Through you, Mr Mayor, is there any specific tower that you refer to? Let's

Talk about the one at Berrambing.

I gathered that was the case. We are currently in conversation with both the federal agency and the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority in preparation for what appears to be the potential of some additional grant funding being provided to the council for the Berrambing site in particular. The Berrambing site, as you're aware of, is essentially shovel ready. The approvals are in place. Telstra are on board. Telstra have indicated that they are prepared and motivated to cooperate with the council and the relevant funding bodies when and if additional funding is provided. So, as the matter presently sits, it's with the federal agency and the New South Wales Reconstruction Authority in anticipation of a proposal being put to the minister and pending that proposal being reviewed by the minister, I'm hopeful at this particular point in time that additional funds will be provided by way of grant and the project will be completed in due course thereafter.

Thank you. And look, I say that not to pick a fight, but just because these are the things that wind the community up. And I think it's important. We've had a few instances of both levels of government... Pitching , making election pitches that they expect local government to carry out for them, and that's all well and good, except that local government has its own constraints. And in this instance, one of those constraints is getting approval for the development. So unlike people who build things and ask for forgiveness or retrospective approval, council isn't in a position to do that. So, and hence sometimes the hold-up. And look, we could say the same for the WestInvest projects. You know, when you go chucking money around to try and win an election, and you leave councils with the responsibility of building that infrastructure or approving that infrastructure, then you are risking that something is going to go pear-shaped.

So I'm pleased to hear that council is doing its level best to try and deliver this infrastructure, but we can't just do as we please under the legislation, which the minister, which the premier has cheerfully reminded us, is we only exist by grace of the great and glorious state government. I think the focus on preparedness is really important. What I would also like, what I would like to see come out of this briefing is some information from the RFS as to how people can best prepare their own properties. And I think there's often an idea that someone will do things for me, that the RFS will look after me, where at the end of the day, you know, we saw in 2019-2020 that individual property preparedness is absolutely fundamental.

The better prepared you are, the less drain you are on resources, and that goes for, that went for COVID, for floods and for fire. If you can make sure, in the example of flooding, even if your house isn't likely to be affected, that you can put aside a week's food and a week's fuel, for example, then you lessen the impact on other resources. Fire is very much the same. If your property is prepared and ready, and you are prepared and ready, then that's one property that the RFS doesn't have to worry about as much, while it's out worrying about people who are more vulnerable than you. That sort of information, really simple stuff like having a supply of water on your property, a dedicated tank, a tank that can be accessed.

We heard in St Albans that people had water in tanks, but the RFS couldn't get it out of the tank fast enough because the aperture was the size of a small garden hose. That's completely unhelpful. Marking whether you've got a swimming pool or something on the property out the front. Fire hydrants marked on the road, and those little— Blue buttons not removed.

Having gates that are wide enough to get a fire truck through. These are all things that people simply don't think about when they set up a property, and particularly people who move from, like I did, who move from city areas where you take all this stuff for granted. I'm particularly keen to meet with the minister. Janelle Saffin has been an incredibly effective advocate for her area. What I would like to do, though, is get the Hawkesbury's disaster risk back on the radar for both, for the ministers, so that, because I think we have, unfortunately, each time we have a disaster, someone else has a slightly worse disaster. And that means that everybody goes, Well, look, it's a real old look over here, you know, and I think that makes it really hard for us to advocate.

So this I see as a key piece of advocacy that is probably a little bit overdue, and so hopefully getting us on the front foot. But this really is about us being in a space where we're all speaking the same language, across the board, so that we can be both prepared but also confident in our preparedness. Because the more time people are sitting around worrying about whether we're prepared or not, the less time they are focusing on their own preparedness and making sure that we're all heading in the same direction.

Councillor Sam Bognar.

Mr Mayor, a question through you to staff, if I may. Why could not the approval for these towers have been granted via a CDC under the Infrastructure SEPP?

I would have to take that on notice, Councillors. If I can just clarify one point here. The delay actually wasn't so much with the development application. The delay was in the first couple of years in finding a site that was suitable. So there were a number of sites right across the local government area in a number of localities. The Berraming Tower is just one of, I think, six or seven towers, and there were a number of, I think Telstra effectively had the lead on that aspect to find the location, being assisted by our staff, as I understand it. And the delay was around that site location. There were a number that were identified, subsequently ruled out. Each one of those sites goes through investigations.

We find suitable sites. We don't have owners that are willing to give us the land. It's that process, particularly in the Berraming one, that was the length of time, as distinct from the DA necessarily, which moved as quickly as it could given the type of application that it was.

I appreciate that, and with your consent, Mr Mayor, I will put that question on notice, because I'm informed that Section 21 of the Transport and Infrastructure SEPP 2021 would have provided a pathway to approval for this. So maybe an answer to that can come back. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion?

Just quickly, Mr Mayor, I think it's going to be really important that at this next disaster and emergency committee meeting that we're asking for, is that the experts who are out there making decisions about— Preparedness and how we go about protecting our community is that they get an opportunity to knock some of the ideas that are floating around the community that have sort of been debunked, but keep resurfacing because nobody is really explaining why we don't do some things that to a sort of, you know, your average person might seem quite sensible. And I think that's really what's missing, and I really, really look forward to having those sorts of discussions on the public record. I think it will do a lot of good, and it will put some of the angst that we're all hearing from our RFS and other people in the community.

We don't want people to think that we're not doing things because, one, we're incompetent, or we don't care, or we can't be bothered. I mean, all of this sort of, all of this narrative that somehow, you know, we're hapless and it's, you know, we aren't doing our best to protect the community just really riles me. And I think we really need, you know, a sort of sensible, calm discussion about why some of the things that are constantly, constantly being mentioned, you know, can be sort of put to bed, I guess. And I think that that will be great. Lots of other things are going to happen in this meeting. Everybody else has talked about it, so I'll leave it at that. So I hope everybody can support this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion? Right of reply, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I am thankful for the words that were said tonight by my fellow colleagues, and I thank the colleagues who have actually agreed that this committee meeting right now is important and essential. I'm really looking forward as well to the update on the Hawkesbury Fire Control Centre, the new one. We haven't had an update in quite a long time as to where that is in the process, and I get asked that question a lot, where it's up to. So I'm looking forward to that information being delivered as well. I just want to say as well, you know, sometimes in this chamber we can all throw cross words at each other and it doesn't feel good. But sometimes to work with other colleagues who you don't have a lot of agreement with when it comes to political matters, and you find common ground to work for something that really has a whole-of-community benefit, really is a wonderful thing to be a part of.

And I think that this mechanism of this committee meeting delivers and provides an official and uncontroversial way for both Council and the RFS to say as one voice during one meeting, these are the things that we are doing. Both of the organisations have boundaries and limits regarding their jurisdiction and what they can and cannot do and deliver. And I think having that in one session to the public to come out and be on the record is going to be a fundamental way that we do things. And hopefully, when we have our next disaster and emergency committee meeting, we can also invite our other superintendents from the police and Mr Jones from the SES and, of course, the ambulance, as we have done in the past, so that all of our emergency services can provide us with an update on what they're doing in that regard.

So I thank everyone who will be supporting this notice of motion tonight. I look forward to receiving the date for the committee meeting and having the correct information on the public record. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Those in favour?

Those against? That's carried unanimously. Councillor Brogden, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Durey, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Michael, Reardon and Sheather. The next item.

The next item is 13.1.1. It's information in relation to questions with notice. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. In relation to the matter for Sydney Water, I had that—I should state that I had that on the up for response before it came up in our rates meeting. I didn't just leap on that bandwagon. I came across that Francis Street particularly is in a really deplorable condition, thanks to Sydney Water. It was not one of our bad streets. It wasn't necessarily a thing of great beauty, but at least it wasn't. But now it's a wreck, and Pitt Street leading into it is really bad as well. So can you—I know you've explained it in some detail. Can I just get reassurance that it will at least be as good or better than it was before they got there?

Yes, through you, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. That's all I need. And is that the whole route, not just Francis Street, all the bits?

The agreement with Sydney Water is for all roads that are impacted by their works. Excellent.

Thank you. Can I just follow up on that, Mr Mayor, and say, of course, that includes on the North Richmond side as well?

Through you, Mr Mayor, that's correct.

Yeah.

I've got a question in that regard. It says that road pavement will be extended by at least one metre either side of the trench. A lot of Francis Street, it's up the middle of one lane. And then it veers over as you get up towards East Richmond onto one side of one lane. Would the join be made in the middle of that lane so it'll track on wheel tracks, or will they go to the middle of the road?

Through Mr. Mayor, the agreement for the pavement is for, as you've stated, the pavement to extend one metre either side of the trench. The surfacing, which is the more critical component for a construction joint, is the full lane width. So the joint would be either edge line to centre line, or diff line to diff line, and straddling the centre line. But the idea is to keep those construction joints out of any wheel paths. Thanks very much.

Councillor Veigel.

Yeah, thanks, Mr. Mayor. Just a clarification on procedure when it comes to questions answered. I don't recall we got into this at the last council meeting. There were some answers that council ordered, and we never—we went through it, and in fact that meeting was ended particularly abruptly, considering the question that I asked about how much was the playground up there at Turnbull when it comes back. And I think there's a few other questions that were never addressed, or some councillors may have wanted to make comment on. So can somebody just clarify— Councillor—was that not in order that we missed that part of the meeting?

Not that I'm aware of. Councillor, the questions in relation to the item, in specific item the Councillor Wheeler asked, and there's clarifications of the answer, if it's any more than that.

No, I'm talking about last—the last meeting, not this meeting. I'm specifically asking the question on the procedure that we missed this part and no councillor was asked to respond to an answer. On a council question.

Not this meeting

I'm talking about last council meeting.

Yeah, the last council meeting, Councillor Creed took it up with me after the meeting. I called it. There was no lights on, I hands up, and I went to the next item.

Well, okay. That's not how I recall it, but that's okay.

I'll deal with the turnbull thing when it comes back to council when it comes to costs. That's where I'm at with it, okay? Because we didn't discuss it then. No.

Okay. The next item is 14.1.1.

And the last, the last item that we deal with— sorry, the second last is 15.1.1, Australia Day awards.

Move we go into confidential.

The next item is 14.1.1,

And the last item that we deal with — sorry, the second last is 15.1.1, Australia Day Awards.

Move we go into confidential, Mr Mayor.

Those in favour?

Against? It's carried unanimously

Deal with item 15.3.1,

And then we'll come back to . .

Thank you, Councillors. Well in session. I need

To. ..

The declarations that were made, Councillor Ryan.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I declare a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 15.1.1. I'm a friend of a nominee in one category, and she was also on my council election ticket.

And you left the room.

Councillor Ryan. Look, I'll claim a significant non-pecuniary interest in item 15.1.1. I'm known to associate with three of the people who have been on the Citizenship Council this year.

And left the room during those votes. Thank you, Councillor.

General Manager. Thank you, Mr Mayor. In regards to item 15.1.1, the 2026 Hawkesbury Australia Day Awards, whilst in closed session the Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Creed, seconded Councillor Reardon, that Council: one, adopt the confidential recommendation developed in closed session of Council in regard to the recipients of the 2026 Australia Day Awards; two, update the existing Hawkesbury Category Awards in 2027 to include the Event of the Year award category for community events.

For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Sheather. Councillor Lyons-Buckett and Councillor Ryan were absent for the vote. In respect of item 15.3.1, acquisition of easement, part of 34 Putland Place, Vineyard, whilst in closed session the council resolved on the motion of Councillor Lyons-Buckett, seconded Councillor Creed, that one

Council undertake the compulsory acquisition of sections 186 and 187 of the Local Government Act 1993 of an easement comprising an area of land as shown in Attachment 2 to the report in the order of 287.92 square metres within part of 34 Putland Place, Vineyard, Lot 4 in Deposited Plan 244901, being Deposited Plan 131496 for the purposes of extending an existing drainage easement. Two, Council approve the making of an application to the Minister for Local Government for the issue of a proposed acquisition notice under the Land Acquisition Just Terms Compensation Act 1991 with respect to the acquisition of the easement. Three, Council approve the making of an application to the Governor for the publication of an acquisition notice in the New South Wales Government Gazette under the Land Acquisition Just Terms Compensation Act 1991 with respect to the acquisition of the easement.

Four, Council bear all costs associated with the process of acquiring the easement. Five, authority be given for any documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Six, Council grant delegation to the General Manager to execute any documents on behalf of Council associated with the compulsory acquisition process which do not require the seal of Council to be affixed. Seven, details of Council's resolution to be conveyed to the affected landowners together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of the resolution until such time as the appropriate documentation to put such resolution into effect has been executed. For the vote was Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Djuric, McMahon, Kotlash, Creed, Veigel, Reardon and Councillor Sheather.

Thank you, Mr Mayor

That concludes the meeting, Councillors.