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As a courtesy to others, if you can, please keep your microphones unmuted at all times unless I call on you to speak. This 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 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 broadcasting and live stream of local planning panel meetings. Under the panel's code of conduct, panel members are required to disclose any pecuniary and/or non-pecuniary interest in relation to matters on today's agenda, and each panellist has completed disclosure forms.
I declare that I have no conflicts of interest. I'll ask each of the panel members whether they have any conflicts to declare. Graham? Graham Brown, no, I have no conflicts. Thank you. Chris Hallam?
Thank you. And Katrina Hiltbrunner? No conflicts of interest. Thank you very much. Now the panel will deal with the items. We've only got one matter on the agenda today, and that's the matter relating to DA 0366 of 25, relating to property 2651 Bells Line of Road, Bilpin. It's an application to use the property for a place of public worship, construct certain structures and alterations and additions to an existing dwelling on the land, amongst other things. We have one person registered to speak on behalf of the applicant, and I hope— Colleen Lux, are you there, Colleen? Yes, I’m here. Hello, Colleen. My name is Graham. Now, you as
Representative, there’s generally a five-minute limit. I’m not going to enforce that today, bearing in mind you’ll be the only speaker. But if you can, I mean, do you propose to present to us about the application, or are you just attending for the purpose of answering questions? What’s your role, Colleen?
Oh, excellent. Okay. Good morning. I’m Colleen Lux from Judith Stubbs and Associates. I’m speaking in favour of the proposed place of public worship at 2651 Bells Line of Road, Bilpin, known as the Mountain Spring Monastery. I’m speaking on behalf of the applicant and landowner, Plum Village Australia, particularly Brother Phap Hai, the senior resident monastic, and Judy Stubbs, who I work with and who has worked with the monastery for many years to plan the proposed development. Both Judy and Brother Phap Hai are in Nepal at the moment and unable to attend today. I’d like to tell you a bit more about the applicant and the steps that they’ve taken to address all the issues and concerns that have been raised by Council and neighbours.
One Village Australia is a registered charity, part of a global network of Zen Buddhist monasteries. They acquired this land in 2020 with the intention to establish a New South Wales practice center for meditation, spiritual instruction, social support, and special events for its sangha, or congregation members, and the wider community. Since that time, they have worked hard to become part of the Bilpin community. An initial development application was submitted to Council in 2023, and the applicant has worked hard for the last two years to revise its plans and address all issues and concerns that were raised by Council.
This proposal has been designed by award-winning architects to be low impact and reflect the rural landscape and natural environment of Bilpin. The new meditation hall, dining hall, and landscaped areas will provide a beautiful setting for meditation, spiritual talks, small group discussions, mindful horticulture, and meal sharing. Particular care has been taken to address issues to do with traffic and parking and tree preservation. The car park has access via a single gate off Horsfield Road and a one-way on-site loop to ensure that any potential queuing is contained on the site. It's been designed to be a porous and tree-sensitive car park. To protect the remnant shale cap forest vegetation in the council reserve along Horsfield Road.
Upgrades to the intersection of Bell's Line of Road and Horsfield Road will improve safety and meet all requirements of Council Transport for New South Wales and Crown Lands. The management plan ensures no adverse impacts to neighbours and the environment, with measures including no more than 100 visitors to the site, limited hours of operation, limited numbers of resident monastics, no amplification of music, and no nighttime activities outside of the buildings. It is the applicant's genuine hope for the future that this development will deliver positive economic impacts for the local Bilpin and wider community through its visitor economy, and positive social impacts for all who visit and participate in activities at the Mountain Spring Monastery through improved health and wellbeing.
So, like I said, John and I have worked with Mountain Spring for a long time with Judy to plan for this development, and we're very happy to answer any questions that you might have about the application.
Thank you, Colleen. I just, I suppose I wanted some clarification. As I understand it, the property has sort of been in operation for a number of years, but obviously on, I suppose, a different scale to what is proposed here. I'm just, I suppose, curious as to what is the position with the people who come and stay on the property. Is that on a short-term basis or is it on a longer-term basis? It just wasn't clear from the SEE or the plan of management exactly how, or what length of stay those people generally have on the property
So there's no proposed overnight stays. Apart from the resident monastics who will live in the brothers' and sisters' dwelling, there may be some guests of those monastics that may come, just as people would come to another dwelling house, but it's not proposed for overnight stays. People will, when they come for the days of mindfulness, it's generally day visitors from Sydney mainly, and the local community and a bit further afield. If they choose to stay in the area, they'll stay in local tourist accommodation. That's the intention. Yeah, no overnight sort of stays or tourism, if you like, is proposed.
I'm not 100% sure. It definitely depends on the individual monastic. I know some of the brothers and sisters that have been there since the property was purchased in 2020, so they've been there for many years, whilst others may come for a few years of instruction and practice there and then move on to another place or return. There is a practice centre, a Plum Village practice centre in Victoria, so there's some connection there.
Yes, we have. We have had a look. I don't have any particular concerns No, we understand the nature of those and where the council's coming from with those conditions.
I've sort of looked at them, I suppose, in a bit of detail. I mean, I can tell you that I don't have any particular concerns about them. There's some matters I may raise with the council about wording of some of the conditions, but nothing that's particularly dramatic. So I think the application, to your credit, has been well prepared, very thorough, so you get a tick there. Obviously the panel will look at it holistically and will go from there. But the panel members, I suspect, will have some questions, obviously, so just stay on the line
It's been a long process of collaboration and responsiveness with the council over many years. Many pre-DA, lots of feedback, and yeah, so we have worked very hard to address concerns, even in this, since the lodgement and the request for additional information and responses from our technical experts, we've sought to address everything that they've raised.
Yeah, I've sort of read between the lines. It's been a fairly lengthy process, but obviously it's been some mutual cooperation between yourselves and the council in order to prepare and submit an application and address issues as they've arisen in the assessment. So, yeah. Yeah, but the other panel members, do you have questions of Colleen or—
After a very minor question, Colleen, Chris Hallam. With the driving into the site, the anti-clockwise circulation means that it would facilitate setting down people near the hall. Is that what's intended? I'm just curious as to the one-way circulation.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, is there—not, I've got zero problem with it, but is it part of the design to enable people to set down passengers in their vehicle before parking?
The intention , in collaboration with council upon an initial plan for the car park, there was a desire for any queuing of people that, as people, particularly only in times of the special events, of which there's only five in the year when we expect to even get near the hundred visitors, that any —when they would arrive kind of at the same time, that any queuing that could occur both on the way in from Bells Line of Road is able to be contained on the site. Council was really desired for that to happen, so we've designed it in such a way that that's possible, as well as when people leave at the end of the day, even though that'll both coming and going will be staggered to some extent, they will be able to circulate on site and then exit and not sit in Horsfield or on Bells Line of Road. That was really important for them. I don't know if— I was just going to— Yeah,
I'll just add to that, that the main reason for the anti-clockwise circulation is, as Colleen said, to ensure that any queuing into the car park can be contained on site. But as you say, presumably it will facilitate sitting people down at the centre itself. You know, someone can drive past, someone's handicapped or whatever, they can drop people off there, whatever it might be. So that option's available.
Yeah, I mean, it's not a big point, I mean, but it does introduce crossovers. If you're coming in, you sort of cross over anyone going out at the same time. Whereas if it had been a clockwise circulation, you wouldn't have had that. But a clockwise circulation wouldn't have had the ability to drop someone off. So that's your choice, so that not a big problem.
A problem with clockwise circulation is any queuing. So if someone's parking, you have to wait while they park and all that sort of thing. Any queuing would be pushed back out into Borsfield Road, or could be. Okay
Look, I only had one thing for Colin, and it's not a big issue again, like Chris's. It's more of the characterisation of the residences on the property. There is a problem with having, one , firstly, two residences on one property, and two, they're not really residences; they're accommodation for people associated with the place of public worship. Rather than call them residents, I think it's better from a planning point of view and for you ultimately. That they're just called accommodation in association with the principal purpose of a place of public worship.
Two lots, of which the application does include a slight boundary adjustment, so we can have everything in the right spots that it needs to be. There's existing dwellings already there Yeah. That one is currently occupied by sisters, residents, and the other one is for the brothers, for the men. And the application includes some alterations and additions for that—the brothers' house, their existing dwelling houses. The sisters and brothers that are living there are residents of those dwellings and residents of community. They're not short stay or— No, no. I
Wasn't—look, it's more a definitional thing that they're associated with the use of the premises as a place of public worship. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having accommodation for people associated with it. That's ancillary to the principal purpose of a place of public worship. I just didn't want to get down the track somewhere and someone raise an issue with an approval for a dwelling when it's—a dwelling is sort of an independent dwelling that anyone can use, whereas
Look, we'll have a bit of a talk about it. I understand it's more of a technicality than an issue. I mean, there are certainly, I wouldn't oppose it if it was called accommodation associated with the principal use as a place of public worship. That's not an issue. That's quite legitimate. It's just the characterisation of it. We'll have a bit of a talk about it afterwards, but it doesn't change anything to do with your application, and it doesn't change the recommendations, and it's just more of a definitional thing, if anything. So anyway, look, your position is you'd rather suit stays residences. Is that correct? Yeah. That's fine.
Just one other question, Graham. If it was characterised differently, would that have some implications for the National Construction Code classification?
I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, look, it's clear what the intent is, and the intent is quite a legitimate reason to have those residences or accommodation on the site. So I'll talk to the council. I mean, certainly this isn't a deal breaker. It's just more of a definitional thing. Okay.
I just have one sort of general question. I'm just out of pure interest. What is the percentage of local versus visitor? Numbers that you're getting on a regular basis, you know, for the regular things, plus also for the, you know, for the big events. What is the difference in percentage there?
I would think 10 to 15 percent local, if you like, Loon Mountain kind of area people for a larger event. So there's, especially for larger events, there's quite a lot of people from Sydney who are associated with the Plum Village tradition who would attend those larger events. So just off the top of my head, I think 10 to 15 percent would be local people for those large events. For the ongoing , the general thing, there's quite a lot.
15 percent or something like that, and it gets a bit... Yeah. And then some people who are associated with the village who are not actually monastics as such live locally.
If there's no other questions and no other speakers, then none of that will close today's meeting, and therefore I formally close the meeting at 10:20. Thank you, Colleen, John, for addressing us today and assisting us with understanding the application, and we will go into closed session now, make a decision with respect to the application, and you'll be advised in due course. Thank you.
