12 February 2026 - HLPP

Good afternoon and welcome to the Hawkesbury Local Planning Panel meeting for Thursday, February 2026.

This panel has been appointed by the Minister for Planning and the Council to determine degrees of development applications. My name is Anthony Hudson, and I'm the Chairperson of today's panel. The other panellists with me are Mr Christopher Hallam, expert representative, Mr Greg Woodham's expert representative, Scriven community member. I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land, the Darug people, their Elders past, present and emerging. As a courtesy to others, please keep your microphones on mute at all times unless I call on you to speak. And just on that point, we've been having a little bit of technical difficulties, as they always do with these things, so there may be some echoes.

So that's definitely important to keep your microphones on mute. The meeting is being audio visually recorded. Any part of this meeting that is held in a closed session will not be recorded. In terms of the Privacy and Personal Information Protection Act, this may involve the information provided at the time of the meeting. The recordings are made to assist Council staff in compiling the minutes of the meeting and to enable the podcasting and live stream of the local planning of the meetings. Under the panel's code of conduct, panel members are required to disclose any pecuniary or non-pecuniary interests on the matters in relation to the matters on today's panel. Panelists have completed disclosure forms, and I declare that, sorry, there is no declarations by myself or any other panel members.

The panel will deal with items in the agenda order. There are three items. We will hear the people who are scheduled to speak, and then we will have a private session, and the final minutes will be on council website later this week, probably next week. I will start. There's three matters, as I said, but before we go, the second matter is 1 Old Sackville Road, Wilberforce, and I understand that at this point we are not really in a position to deal with this matter because there are still some negotiations going on about the which Crown development or State Government development or associated public authority, those conditions have to be agreed, effectively, before we as a determination of the development application.

So unfortunately that matter will be deferred. I'll come. Are there any applicants who are Mr Heath or Hesson or Halliwell here?

They're not here.

Okay, fine. So we'll note that will be noted in the applicants were here, which probably as they knew what was going to happen, and so that matter will be deferred. Onto the first matter on the agenda, 355 Stanix Park Road, and I understand we'd have Patrick Hurley and Simon Graj. Is that correct?

If

You'd like to unmute them. Chairman.

Okay, so I'll just get rid of this. Okay

So if you'd

Like, have you seen the report, and is there anything particularly you'd like to address in terms, more importantly, I suppose, or importantly also the conditions? I'll just turn my microphone off

Mr Chairman, no, we've read the report and the conditions, and there's nothing in particular that we need to note. We'd just like to thank the council officers for the time taken with this application. It has taken a bit of time, but we do appreciate the work that both Council and the EPA have taken in getting to this position, and we hope the panel will support the recommendation.

Thank you. Now, we have some, I think we've got questions. Firstly, I'll ask if any of the panel members would like to ask questions first.

Who would like to go first?

Yeah, I'm happy to go first. Patrick, one of the issues that I've had is the assessment on traffic roads mainly just looks at peak hour mid-block capacity. I am concerned about the safety of the intersection of Sackville Road and Stanix Park Road. There was some seven-year-old traffic counts put in there not related to your application that more or less said, Oh, there's not much traffic there now. We won't add much to it. But I'm more concerned with the safety of the intersection, bearing in mind you are dealing with very large trucks up to B-doubles in size plus semi-trailers, and I don't think there's been enough of an assessment of that intersection in terms of— Cut traffic flows in 2025-2026 and the impact of the development.

And here I see the development where you are seeking to increase your approved annual production from 4,000 tonnes to 99,000 tonnes. In other words, we're not starting with a ground zero of 36,000; we're starting with a ground zero of 4,000 in terms of total flows onto Stanics Park Road. So I'm concerned that there hasn't been an adequate road safety audit or enough analysis of that intersection in terms of public safety with the particular size of vehicles you're using and the increase that there will be. Do you have any comment on that?

Just on the public safety issue, off the top of my head, I can't remember when the counts were actually done, so I'd have to go back and have a quick look at that. In terms of production, the original consent was 5,000. The operation is currently running at about 48,000 tonnes per annum. That was the figure that was put into the EIS at the time. So we're sort of starting at around about that 48,000 is where I would say the benchmark is, and it's been running at that for a number of years, be it outside of the terms of the consent, which I believe the committee would be aware of. My understanding was that at the time there weren't any issues identified with that intersection. The reporting, I can't remember the dates of that, so unfortunately I can't add too much to that without going back to the report to review that.

It's been a little while since I've actually opened up that traffic report, to be honest.

Patrick, what you just said, you said it's 48,000 now. That's different to all of your reports. They say 36,000.

The total of 48, there was compost, aerial plus the blending, which added up to the total of 48. And that's written in the EIS.

All right. The traffic report basically did a prorata increase from 36,000 to 99,000 for the heavy vehicle movements from the site. And that's where I thought the 36,000 was the key number.

And 36 is the blended material, and then there is also compost material in there, but the net result, the figure at this stage was 48,000 tons.

All

Right. Any other

Questions, Chris?

No, I mean, that is my concern, and I'm not happy that it's been properly assessed at this point.

Okay. Now I've got any other, Greg or Laura?

No, no, I'm okay. I don't have any questions.

Greg? Just that matter about the contributions, that's all. I think you were going to pick that up? Yes,

Absolutely. So, Patrick , when I look at the planning, there's quite a bit of work to do if you look at the...

Just more changes

Just

Drop in and out a little bit. Sorry

Is that better? That's much better.

That's much better.

So what I'm just getting to is I think there needs to be an update in the costs of all the works that are really being approved by this consent, including little things like putting something around the mill. There's all the earthworks, sort of the bund wall's got to be up, I think, on the Stanix Road, and then all the engineering conditions. I suspect that would be more than $100,000, so that in the end there really would be a contribution. Now, I don't know, might be thinking about...

I'd like to get that sorted out also. Yep. Okay.

So there is no bunding proposed. That was— the alternate measures looked at the noise, and the noise was looking at the implementation around the machinery itself, around the scalper and things like that. So just to clarify, there was no bunding, but understand what you're saying. Yeah,

I mean there must be a whole lot of works here, so that needs to be— that's one small thing. Then just a very small— this is a very small point really. When you talk about the hours of operation and you're going to do the bagging in the evening up to midnight or past whatever exactly it is, does that include that the noise report, the way I read it was that you would not have any of the bags stored outside the— Structure , you might do it in the day, but at the time the bag'll be stored inside if it's after six o'clock or whatever that time is in the evening. Yeah, the intention is to— sorry

The intention is— sorry.

Yeah, you go, yeah.

So the intention is to undertake that bagging within the machinery shed. The report does identify that the door may need to be opened from time to time, but that would be minimised. The

Operations

Would be enclosed within the shed itself. Within the shed itself.

So that all the bags would be stored generally in the night, and then if they had to be moved outdoors, that'd be done in the day.

That'd be done during the daytime operations, correct. That'd be done during daytime

Operations,

Correct.

All right, thanks very much. All right. Water quality . Now, the other thing is, given the nature of the fact that you had the consent and it's now a lot more than what it was, and I'm not fussed about that, but it seems to me that all these works that are now being proposed, all the environmental working works, they should be done before you're actually operating at any further capacity. Now, the way to handle that would be a condition, and I guess I'd say to you, and it may be that we might be deferring it to get some more information, how long do you think they'd take? Because I would be proposing a type of condition that says you've got to do all those before you have your extra capacity, and you've got to do it in a certain amount of time, otherwise you go back to 5,000. I mean, you know, that type of thing.

Yeah. So in terms of some

Of the works have — I'm not asking you to — sorry. So I'm not asking you to commit anything now, but I'm just saying that's in my... No, fair enough.

Okay. No, fair enough.

Yeah. So it comes out of this process, I understand. Okay. I don't have any other questions for the moment or comments. Anyone else?

No, no, Laura's no. So that's all. Thanks very much, Patrick, and Mr. Grange, if you're there. Otherwise, any other comments, that's it for the moment.

Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chairman

Thank you, panel members. Thank you very much

Okay. So that brings me then to the next matter of 262 Springwood Road, Yandina, and I think we've got a number of people there if they'd like to come on, however they're going to do it. Have you got one spokesperson, planner or whoever it is, Chris Shannon?

Anthony, I'm just admitting them. Just bear with me.

Righto, thanks.

Yeah, we can just close this

Yeah, Anthony, you can proceed. Thanks.

Close it

There. Mr. Grange, I think I can hear you. You're quite welcome to be there, but if you just put it on mute.

Thank you. Okay, so who's—we got, sorry, I'll beg your pardon. Now I'm on to 262 Springwood Road, Yarra Mundi, and I understand there's a number of people. Is Mr Shannon going to be the spokesperson for the moment, or someone, whoever it's going to be? Yes,

Thank you. Yeah, Chris Shannon's my name. I'm the director at Meco, and we're acting on behalf of the Y and

We're the applicants for the proposal

Okay just you've said

You've seen the report. Any concerns about the conditions and any general comments, or do you—

No, so we are only registered to say that we don't have any issues with the report or, obviously, the recommendation for approval. We've reviewed the conditions with council prior to you receiving it, and we're satisfied with those conditions. So we're here just to answer any other questions that you may have. And with me on the line is Rickalogio and Alex Torval from the Invoke Property, who are the project directors and development managers on the job, and Rob Canar, who's the CEO from the Y. And I understand Bryce Classen's arborist on the project is also joined online, which I can't see, but I think they registered to speak—not to speak, but just to hear for questions.

You're on mute, Anthony.

Sorry, I was just going to ask a very quick question. Just for the clause 4.6 variation, it's just for the height, it's just for—and it says in the report , the standards, the poles for the high wire stuff and all that. Is that correct?

That's correct, yes. So the recreational activities, there's poles that need to go up a certain height to carry the facilities, and they breach the height limit.

I understand. The reason I say it is, in the event there's an approval, I suppose I have to be specific in the sense it's technically 68 breaches. So I'll just say a general thing, that it's for those 68 that that probably would cover it. I just want to make sure you'd be comfortable with that.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. It's just that, I suppose really what I'm saying, it's just that.

That's correct. That's right. Just those 68 poles. Thank you. Thank you.

Got it. Okay. Any questions from any other members of the panel? Laura, no.

One from me. Chris, there's about 300 trees to be removed, and I think there's been some negotiations with the council arborists, and I just wanted to be sure that there has now been a resolution of any outstanding issues between council and yourself about the landscaping and arborist issues that had been raised before.

Yes, that's correct. So council's arborists did raise some concerns with the, well, asked us to provide additional information, I should say, not necessarily concerns, but they weren't yet satisfied about the number of trees to be removed, and we've since had some minor adjustments to some boundaries to be able to retain some of the trees. But in total, it's 304 trees, and we're now satisfied, and we believe council's now satisfied with that. So we've reached an agreement around that

Thank you. Nothing else from me.

Laura or Chris, any questions?

No, nothing from me.

Thanks, Laura.

Chris.

No.

Okay. That takes care of that. Thanks very much, Anahan. That is Chris, not Chris.

Thank you very much. Okay

Thank you. All good. Thanks a lot. So that brings us to the end of the open session. So, and the recording, I understand, will now cease of this part of the meeting.