21 July 2026 - Ordinary

Thank you, Councillors. Welcome, Councillors and those who are viewing and who are here tonight for the meeting of the 21st July. I'd like to start by saying that Hawkesbury City Council acknowledges the Darug and Darkinung people as traditional custodians of the land of the Hawkesbury. We pay respect to all Elders past, present and emerging, and acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this country. General Manager.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Members of the public attending the meeting are advised that in the event of an emergency, you will be asked to proceed in an orderly manner to the nearest exit following the guidance of our warden. I'd also like to advise that in accordance with Clause 5.3.4 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. If you do not wish to be recorded in the live stream, please move to the foyer and we will turn the foyer speakers on for you. The recordings may be made available to other persons where such access is in accordance with the relevant regulations. The recordings are stored on Council's record management system and uploaded to Council's website. Meetings of the Council may be separately recorded with the prior authority of Council. And finally, it is also requested that if any person participating in or attending the meeting tonight has a mobile phone, that they either turn it off or turn it to silent.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

We have no official visitors this evening. Apologies we don't need. Declarations of interest, Councillors.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a far less significant non-pecuniary interest in item 10.1.1. I live in the area where this item is being conducted, and I'm a life member of the Pitt Town Progress Association, and I will be remaining in the chamber for that. Thanks, Councillor Ryan.

Councillor Djuric. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I have a pecuniary interest in item 10.1.3.1, a pecuniary interest in 11.1.1, and a less significant non-pecuniary interest in 11.1.2. Two of those matters are in block. They'll have to be removed, please. What was the second one, Councillor? The second one was 11.1.1, a pecuniary interest. Yep .

And 10.1.1, there was another one?

That's 10.3.1, 11.1.1, and 11.1.2. 10.3.1.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you. Any further declarations? Thank you, councillors. Confirmation of the minutes of the 16th of June.

Councillor Reardon. Councillor Veigel.

Any discussion? Those in favour? Those against? It's carried, carried by Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed. Djuric and Sheather. The motion is carried

Items to be addressed to the public in block , sorry, items to be addressed by the public are items 10

1.2, 10.1.3, 10.3.3.

That's it.

Okay, the first item we have is 10.1.2. There's Mr Matthew Cooper and Mr Peter Fuller. Mr Cooper, would you like to address Council

Mr Cooper, there's five—yeah, around here—there's five minutes. At four minutes you'll hear a buzzer. You have five minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. Look, thank you, Councillors, for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Redbank Communities tonight, definitely in favour of the Kemsley Park planning proposal.

Really what tonight puts before you is essentially the logical conclusion of Redbank for the end of its development through there. It has followed a process that has followed all the conditions of the gateway that the Department of Planning has mandated on Council plus the applicant to get through, those particularly being resolution of public exhibition, getting to the completion of that, responding to any submissions that had been made through that process as well. And really at the end of it, it continues to demonstrate that it has strategic merit, both from site specific and alignment with government policy. Again, that commitment and alignment with strategic merit is confirmed in the gateway determination that was put to Council, asking them to finalise it for adoption essentially three months ago.

In getting this report to Council, the Redbank team have worked with Council's planning team essentially to respond to all the submissions made by the public and also collate the last of submissions from agencies, allowing us to resolve to that. At the end of that public consultation, though, there hasn't been any fundamental change in the strategic merit that has been demonstrated for this proposal. In getting, I guess, the last of the agency concurrences was really from Transport for New South Wales, of something that we've worked through from there. The last matter that really remained on this one was alignment of development phasing relative to the construction of the Grose River Bridge.

When we looked at our programs against Government's program to complete at the moment, the Grose River Bridge is due for completion in September of 2028. When we worked through all our civil works programs, assuming a favourable rezoning decision this evening, we won't be in a position to have our first residents move in in Kemsley Park until October of 2029. That in itself is providing a year buffer on top of that completion program for the bridge. That said, we had very much worked with Council's team to find opportunities for a different point of comfort that we could offer Council so that development could commence at least, but Council has assurance that the bridge will be completed in a suitable timeframe.

Where we've landed on through that process is essentially to update our letter of offer to the planning agreement to make the commitment that we would only deliver the first 175 residential lots. Should the bridge not be completed post that, we would be unable to complete remaining subdivisions for the 175 lots that would remain. Whilst we don't think we need that safeguard, it's something that Redbank Communities is more than happy to offer to Council to provide that assurance to allow the favourable decision of a rezoning tonight. There is another matter before you this evening, being both the DCP and the VPA. Those changes are, again, reflected in that VPA document that Redbank Communities and Council's planning team is essentially asking Council to support just the start of the public exhibition process.

I guess moving through process of all eventualities where there might be other unforeseen delays to a favourable decision for Redbank from there, we've had to continue working with the Department of Planning as well to confirm that their support for our proposal remains intact, and that they are very much of the opinion that strategic merit remains for this project. When we get to a situation of more delays that may come about, it forces us to get to a position of having to work with the Department through a rezoning review process, and it's very much Redbank Communities' preference and intent for us to finish this through with Council. The rezoning, as we've proposed with the supporting documents being a DCP and the VPA, are really to cement what we think is the best infrastructure offer from a local community and placemaking point of view.

When things move through a rezoning review process, it doesn't necessarily have the same teeth to stick things to, and we would very much rather have a VPA that is exhibited and commented on by the public and Councillors if they so wish, to further allow its refinement to get the progression of Kemsley Park. So I guess in closing, and if it pleases the Councillors, I'm happy to take on any questions, say of a technical nature, and I'll do my best to answer them. But in closing, what we're asking Council to do this evening is to support growth in a location that makes sense. It's the final stage of Redbank to fill in the missing pieces from that. It's to support growth that has already been confirmed as having strategic merit, both by Council's own local planning panel, the planning team, plus the Department of Planning as well.

Really to support growth that will match its surroundings in that the scale of development we're proposing ties in with existing Redbank. Thank you, Mr Cooper.

Is there any questions of Mr Councillor Zamprogno? Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you for coming in, Mr Cooper. When the council was looking at Redbank, one of the sweetnesses that we were offered was a variety of capital investments not just within the envelope of the Redbank estate, but beyond that would be of benefit to the broader community. And I'm looking for the same features for this development here. And it would appear to me on my reading that the capital improvements are those necessitated by the development itself. What capital improvements of broader benefit to the larger community are there in this VPA?

Thank you, Councillor. In response to that, whilst not tied in the planning proposal item itself, but to the VPA as well, we've worked with council staff to essentially identify two external works that have been included in the schedule. They relate to pedestrian safety improvements external to the Kemsley Park project itself, albeit within Redbank broader community that are now part of council's community.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Cooper. When you speak about strategic merit, which you did several times then, which of our strategic documents do you think it specifically aligns with? Do you think it's our housing strategy, or what specifically do you think it's aligning with? Sure.

So that strategic merit essentially was confirmed prior to coming to Council last time, but ratified by the department also. It really became around alignment with the local strategic planning statement and the local housing strategy itself. In basically having housing targets that are suggested for Council to hit to meet a broader contribution to housing across metropolitan Sydney is what drove that part. It was also around, I guess, how the metropolitan rural area can be used and developed in that part, really seeing Kemsley Park as an expansion of the Redbank Village that is already well established in that ground from there. And then I say finally then, if you were to look at Council's rural land strategy and the way that it suggests buffers be applied to rural development, it basically, because of Redbank that is already existing around it, basically negates it from having any viable agricultural land use that could be retained in its purpose.

So I guess in summing it all up together then, it's a culmination of Council needing to provide a contribution towards new housing in metropolitan Sydney, that there were limited other opportunities within Council, particularly with changes that came out of the low-rise housing code, floodplain policy that had been applied more broadly across Council, as well as— How the rural land strategy works within this site itself. And that's how we essentially got to strategic merit from there. Okay,

Thank you. Mr Mayor, may I ask a follow-up question? Who was it that arrived at the figure of 175 lots? Was that Redbank or was that the council, or—

Good question. My understanding that it was a negotiated outcome between council staff and Redbank from there. I would believe that we went in with a position that we didn't need to provide any trigger that would, I guess, stagnate the ability to complete the development. But it was something that we arrived on in unison with council. So would you be happy if that wasn't the figure? I would say yes, but it is something that we're happy to offer to provide certainty for council in this equation.

Okay. So you'd be happy if no lots could be released before the bridge is open?

No, that's not what I said, though. Essentially, the terms of what was offered in the VPA is that up to 175 lots would be able to be registered before completion of the bridge. It would be the remaining 175 lots that would not be able to be completed until the bridge was completed. Okay.

Thank you.

Mr Cooper, in relation to the council's house and strategy, the 175 and then the 380, I think, all up, propose over what period of time and what percentage, if you're aware of, council, where that fills council's percentage of— to fill that housing gap.

It is a good question. Look, with us really being able to, assuming

If they were

Sorry. Yep. Assuming a favourable rezoning, there's a development approval program. I think you'd be in for a year to obtain that, plus another year of civil works to be able to get it to completed lots. Homes really are seeing the ability to be completed with first occupants being moved in by October 2029, of which, say, it's going to be a staged development. I would say it's in the order of 20 to 50 lots within a stage that would be rolled out over quarterly or six-monthly periods of time, essentially to get to. So I think you would be seeing total build-out—I guess what I'm trying to say is, you would see total build-out of homes within Kemsley Park by circa 2035, but with first homes happening in 2029, which would then align also just after the housing accord period that everyone was tasked with completed homes by mid-2029.

Yeah, and even if your expectations are exceeded, what percentage of houses compared to what council is obligated to?

I'm going back a little bit in history through here. I think council's expected target through to 2036 was in the order of 5,000 homes from there. So we are a minor—or let's say it's a modest contribution to getting towards that target, but we're not the solution to all of council's housing growth through there. We play a role in doing that. I would expect that council will continue to experience rezonings and planning proposals to keep trying to plug that gap going forward as well.

Thank you. Any further questions, councillors? Councillor Vike.

Thanks for coming. I just need to go back to what Councillor Lyon Buckett—the 175 lots. Yes . Where that figure, can it be lower?

Look, it could well be, and I would think, and it's not for me to tell you how to do the job of councillors or council for that matter. The means to do that is to start the exhibition process of the VPA. Given the way proponents and now council staff are able to engage with councillors, you don't have the opportunity of briefings anymore of where those sentiments could be made known, right? There used to be an easier ask to make. If there was the need for a different, like, threshold for when the completion of the bridge were to roll out, the best means to extract that kind of information from councillors at the moment, as I see it, is through the public exhibition process so that you can make the submission transparently and known at that point.

So yes, in answer, the threshold could be lower. We still need significant certainty on the project to say, yes, we can start, and there's a pipeline of product that we can roll out to get there. I would say anything else becomes a negotiated position from there.

Thank you, Mr Cooper . Thank you, Mr Cooper.

Our next speaker is Mr Peter Fuller. Thank you, Peter.

Okay. Good evening.

So thank you for allowing me to be here and talk. I'm a local resident in North Richmond. So dear Honourable Mayor and councillors, my name is Peter Fuller. My wife and I live in Flinders Place. And I lodge a submission during the exhibition period of this proposal. I'm not here to argue against housing. My concern is that Council should have confidence that all traffic impacts have been properly assessed before making its decision. The exhibited traffic assessment concludes that the surrounding road network has adequate capacity. That may well be correct; however, road network capacity is not the same as local accessibility. My concern relates specifically to Riverview Street and Gracevale Road intersection.

This intersection is the only practical vehicle exit for approximately 60 households in Flinders Place, Riverview Street and Shortland Close. Pitt Lane is a one-way into the precinct and cannot be used as an exit. Turning right from Riverview Street onto Gracevale Road is already difficult. Long delays occur during commuter peaks and, in my experience, often continue well beyond those periods. Riverview Street is not simply a residential street. It has evolved into a principal access road for Aldi, Coles North Richmond Shopping Centre, a childcare centre and numerous other businesses. Consequently, it carries a level of traffic that is atypical for a suburban residential street. The recently established childcare centre has further changed local traffic conditions.

During weekday drop-off and pick-up periods, many parents park on Riverview Street because on-site parking is limited. Vehicles are continually entering and leaving the centre, while parked vehicles narrow the available carriageway. Unlike school zones, There is no dedicated traffic management measures to manage these concentrated movements. I have reviewed the exhibited planning documents carefully and have been unable to identify where these existing operating conditions have been specifically assessed. The reports analyse the performance of major intersections and regional road network, but I have not found any assessment of this intersection, including existing delays, gap acceptance, queue lengths, or the effect of the additional Kemsley Park traffic.

I have also included a local plan from Google Traffic image taken at approximately 9.30 a.m. this morning. This image is not presented as a traffic study, but to illustrate that the congestion at this intersection frequently extends beyond to traditional commuter peak. My printout happens to be black and white, but on the coloured one it shows the density of traffic at that time. So quite a length of Riverview Street is red, which means the traffic is not moving. My request is straightforward. If this assessment has already been undertaken, I ask Council to identify where it can be found. If it has not, I respectfully ask Council to require an intersection-specific assessment before this proposal proceeds further.

Thanks for your time.

Thank you . Any questions, Councillors? Councillor Isbucket.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Mr Fuller. I actually have sent in a request asking about that same intersection this week, actually. How do you navigate around that? Do you— I was just a question while you're here speaking about it— do you go left and go up to the roundabout and come back?

Occasionally. I know my wife does that because she finds that a little bit less stressful. But I generally just wait, and you have to really time and negotiate traffic coming down Gracevale Road and wait for a sufficient gap to shoot out and get around there pretty promptly. And it can be a little bit hair-raising at times because people turning into Riverview, going to the shops, for example, often sort of get halfway around the corner and then panic and stop and then everything. I haven't seen any accidents there, but I'm anticipating that it might happen one day. So, yeah, it's a real challenge to turn right there.

Thank you. Yes, I go left. Thank you.

Further questions, councillors? Thank you, Mr. Ford. Thank you.

Councillors, the next item, the public address is 10.3.3. Mr...

Mr Mayor, don't we debate, now

Okay. All right. The matter before us is 10.1.2, planning proposal for Kemsley Park.

Moved the recommendation, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Bygott. Councillor Reardon. Councillor Bygott.

Speaker.

Did you have to speak

Ron?

Yeah. Do you wish to speak on your motion, councillor?

No, I'm quite happy with it, thank you. Okay,

Thank you.

Councillor Vogel. I do, however, wish to speak on it, if I may, and I thank you for the motion to be put up for debate .

The parcel we're talking at Kemsley has already been delayed. Now, the question was specifically asked when this was brought to Council the last time, was there a timeline? I believe there was a timeline, and that was set by planning, and that was unfortunately given to the Council, hence we're back here with it. I do believe it needs to go out for public comment. And the parcel we're looking at Kemsley, I believe, was in the parcel residential planning when the Redbank Estate was planned many, many years ago.

It was always, as I said, it was always a part of the development, and it was delayed. But why was it delayed, Mr Mayor? I think history would say that it was probably delayed because, on the request of the Peel family, because they wanted to use that parcel land up there as their home until circumstances changed differently. As mentioned, the rezoning has gone through public exhibition. My fear is if we delay it again, we may not get a say in this development. We've seen this happen before in the Hawkesbury. Case in point was Pitt Town, when it was taken out of the hands of this Council. Another case in point where we haven't had any say was Vineyard, where we get 1% of the contributions. I can remember vaguely in this chamber it was about $8,000, we were in deficit to go and do the infrastructure work there.

I suspect it's a whole lot more than that, and we had to borrow money for that, and forgive me if I'm wrong, it's around about $20 million. We're all the ratepayers are paying to finance that. If this goes through and Redbank is the manager of this development, they continue it on. They will pick up all development infrastructure costs, dare I say, and I believe there's maintenance on against the VPA anyway for parklands and roads and all sorts of things thereafter. Hawksbury hasn't got the funds to develop this the way I believe the residents of Redbank want to have this done. It's one of the best, by country mile, estates that I've walked through in the Sydney metropolitan area. You might get one close to it down in the Camden area, maybe Harrington Park if you're lucky.

But I don't believe the block sizes are generous. The roads are generous in size and width. The verges are quite wide. It's not an Allara Marsden Park where it's very, very dense, and it's a development we should be proud of, and I think it's a development a lot of people in the Hawkesbury would like to see in future development. Now whether we like it or not, and we've discussed this in this chamber before, residential housing is going to be developed more in the Hawkesbury. If we don't do it, somebody else will, and I dare I say, there's no reason, and it may happen, that they'll just push this back out and say we can go with the 11 contributions. And 1%'s yours and we'll walk away and you can find somebody else to do it for you.

I don't think this council has the resources to do that and to do it to an estate which meets the, I suppose, the level of the estate which is already up there.

So I believe we do need to have this ratified. The bridge is an important part of the infrastructure too. That shouldn't, I don't think, should delay it anyway. We've had a comment here that it should be finished by around about 28, I believe, if it gets started quickly. I believe it's with Traffic New South Wales at the moment, they're acquiring the land through perhaps the general manager can make comment and bring other councils up to date, dare I say, anyway.

I don't want to add much more to that, but I will be voting for it to go for the recommendation by the staff to push this out, Mr Mayor. If anybody, I think I've covered most of what I wanted to say on this, dare I say. But I'm really fearful, really fearful that we'll get a landcom development up there. And it won't be uniform and it won't be in keeping of what that estate is up there. But I think most of the questions are asked the last time this came to council about the Hoop Pines, et cetera, have been answered. But I'll leave it to the rest of the debate. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Lines-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll speak against the recommendation. Just to clarify, there's two items. One, this one is about sending this to Gateway. The other one about the VPA is about going out to the public, so they are two separate things. And I'll try not to blur my discussion with the two. I don't support this going to Gateway. There's quite a few things about it that cause me quite a bit of concern. I raised them when it came forward a few months ago. But the reliance within the documentation on the Hawkesbury Residential Land Strategy from 2011, that document merely said that parts of North Richmond could be further investigated. There's also other studies, and Mr Cooper confirmed it when he was speaking, that it relies on having strategic merit from the Local Housing Strategy from 2020, the Local Strategic Planning Statement from 2021, and both of those—

Excuse me a minute, Councillor. You said a while ago this is going to Gateway. I'd just like to clarify. I don't know exactly what the situation is

With — Through you, Mr Mayor, the recommendation that's been moved is to finalise the plan, which is the stage— Sorry

Yeah, it's been to gateway, I meant. Yeah, the other one's going out for public exhibition. Sorry, I was just trying to draw a distinction because there's two items. Yeah, that was when we voted for it to go to— some of us did for it to go to gateway. Within those other strategic documents, there's a recognition that 1,400 lots of Redbank, which was the original amount, are part of us meeting our targets, and we are constantly told that we can meet those targets as dictated by the Department of Planning. We have enough development in the pipeline to meet those targets as it is now. So that can't really be used as a justification for the need for an additional 300 or 350 homes in that area. Historical identification for investigation is not a contemporary strategic justification for rezoning.

And we know from the documents we've had coming through with the draft Sydney Plan that there's a lot more stringent objectives and principles around what happens with land in rural areas. Back when this was first approved, which was a long time ago, Redbank, not this specific piece of land, that piece of land was left as a sort of buffer with a lot of development around it. And there was a lot of guarantees at the time that developers wouldn't come back and ask for more for that piece of land when people raised it, but here we are anyway. But in the interim, the existing residents that live beyond Redbank have put up with the traffic congestion, which we've seen. They've put up with the transformed landscape, the unavailability of any future utility services for water or sewer in other areas west of the river.

And that's been fairly hard on the people who live beyond the estate. And I'm not criticising the estate. I think it's been done in a very good way. I'm speaking about having it expand any further before we have any relief from any of that for so many people. People who are paying thousands of dollars a year for sullage collection, people who sit there for hours just to get to the traffic lights at North Richmond. And that is a really big problem, and that comes through in the community submissions that are there. But I think the clincher in this one is the special use to allow dual occupancy in the R2 zoning, which is a specific privilege being given to Redbank because the rest of the Hawkesbury in R2 zoning do not have that ability to have dual occupancy.

We are prohibited from dual occupancy in the R2 zone. So moving on to the local housing strategy, our local housing strategy doesn't just call for more houses. It identifies a mismatch between our existing housing stock and the needs of our changing population. It says we need greater housing diversity with more smaller dwellings suited to older people, lone person households and young couples, particularly in areas, and it emphasises in areas with access to services and transport. We don't even have public transport to speak of west of the river. You might get an occasional bus that takes you on a tour all over the place, and you might get to Richmond just to see a train heading off once you arrive.

But we are very car dependent, hence the issues around congestion. And there's no advocacy or there's nothing attached to any of these proposals that advocate for better public transport for people to alleviate the issues that we have there. So the strategic question as whether Kemsley Park delivers more housing is not whether Kemsley Park delivers more housing, but whether it proposes to deliver the type of housing the strategy says the Hawkesbury needs. I can't support it on the basis it is. Thank you.

I'd just like to clarify some of the comments that were made. Firstly, in relation to our housing strategy, have we at any time over the last decade

Got the required amount of housing that we've proposed to put forward?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I might refer that to either the Director of City Planning or Manager Strategic Planning.

Thank you,

Mr Mayor. So in terms of the current housing target that we have from the State Government, so we're required to provide 1,300... New dwellings by 2029. So that's our short-term target. So we are on track to meet that in terms of our existing commitments, which is primarily Redbank, Jacaranda around the Vineyard precinct. What our housing strategy also identifies is the need to look at medium and long-term housing provisions as well. So there will be a need for housing beyond 2029. The 2029 target is a state government mandate that we are meeting. So in looking at planning proposals such as this, we have to consider those medium and longer-term need for housing, and there's provisions in both the housing strategy and also in the current Greater Sydney Region Plan that talks about looking at local growth in and around our towns and villages.

And in this particular instance, we've got a site that meets that in both in terms of strategic and site-specific. It's basically horseshoeed around by the existing Redbank development. So in many respects, it makes sense for a rezoning, in our opinion.

Do we exceed the housing amount in that time with what's been proposed before us, or don't make it?

Historically, we've probably fallen a little bit short in terms of actual houses delivered. But in terms of the current target, the 1,300 by 2029, we're well on track.

Thank you. A further question, General Manager. Was the intersection at Richmond and Grose Vale Road part of— Part of any agreement with Spreadbank, and is those tanks on top of the hill, are they for water and the work that's been done by Sydney Water in relation to upgrading the water plant. Is that all because of Redbank, or is that outside influences created that?

Through you, Mr Mayor. I'll deal with the latter question first, which is quite simply that I'd have to take it on notice. I'm not entirely sure. To the first question, I'm not aware that the intersection of Riverview and Grose Vale Road was part of any prior VPA or proposed in any draft VPAs. I confirm that's correct. Yes, that's correct. Thank you.

Councillor Kotlash.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Moving along with your question that you just asked about Riverview Street, does the new Richmond Bridge replacement project, sorry for putting people on the spot here, does that have plans to augment that left turning off Bells Line of Road in any way? Because I was just wondering whether there are other, Mr Fuller's question and for his satisfaction, maybe there are other ways we're improving that particular street.

Through you, Mr Mayor, as far as I'm aware, the footprint of the new Richmond Bridge doesn't extend that far up Grose Vale Road, and I don't think that it alters the left turn one direction of Pitt Lane either.

Thank you. I was madly trying to look it up and I couldn't, I couldn't find the maps.

Have we got other levers that we can pull to look at that particular street? I mean, it's been called a kind of a rat run, for want of a better word, and it is a very, very busy street. Is that, are there any plans anywhere in Council to address those problems, or is there a component that could be tweaked in the Kemsley project? I don't think there is. I thought that wasn't really relevant to Kemsley.

Through you, Mr Mayor. I'm not aware of any plans, immediate plans to look in any sort of detail or undertake an investigation into the functioning of the intersection of Grose Vale Road and Riverview Street. But given, I think, Councillor Lyons-Buckett mentioned that there was a Councillor request that had been lodged, no doubt that will be being looked at and where it sits in the order of priorities and so forth.

Last question, if I can, Mr Mayor. When we were considering the Grose River Bridge, the traffic modelling that was given to us at the time, did that, and you might have to take this on notice, I'm sorry that my questions are a bit curly, was there any commentary on what it would do to that so-called rat run? Because that's why I'm remembering that particular, those particular discussions. And some people took offence at the term rat run, but I understood it to be exactly what happens. People skid around that.

That small lane and then into River View Street.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Sorry, Councillor, you've anticipated the answer, which is that we would have to take that on notice.

Yeah, no, I was going to say that's okay. I just wanted to capture it while it was on the table because I think it's an important thing. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking against the proposal. I want to thank Mr Fuller for coming in and speaking about the difficulties of existing residents in now navigating North Richmond. I deliberately don't go to businesses in that shopping centre because, given that I live on the other side of Bells Line of Road, it's extraordinarily difficult to get out of there at any time of the day when the sun is up. It's almost—you really are pushing your luck getting out of that street and turning right. It's four lanes of traffic, fairly unregulated, with really poor visibility. We are going to have a very, very bad accident there, and we will be full of I told you so's. I note the objections to this proposal with respect to infrastructure, and to that end, I'm going to read an email that was sent to me today from a concerned local resident.

Having been a resident of Hawkesbury for nearly 50 years, I'm not in favour of the amount of local land that is recently and is currently being rezoned as residential. The subsequent new subdivisions that are being developed concern me. I work in bush regeneration and land care and witness firsthand the detrimental effect high-density housing has on the bush and riverine areas that makes the Hawkesbury LGA the magnificent country we know it to be. The other concern I have as a parent who has raised my children in the Hawkesbury is that the housing that these developments provide are not affordable for our children to buy. Young people who have been born and raised in the Hawkesbury, if they want to buy their own homes, are having to leave.

The people that are buying into these new homes are from completely different non-rural areas, and this will entirely change the Hawkesbury community. Unto now, my concerns have primarily been related to these factors. This past weekend, my family faced a medical emergency, and my daughter-in-law was admitted to Hawkesbury Hospital. She was admitted on Saturday afternoon, but as there were no beds available in the hospital, she stayed overnight in the emergency department. On Sunday morning, Mel was moved out of the emergency department bed into a chair to accommodate emergency patients. In this chair, in a small room, which also acted as a thoroughfare for the emergency waiting room to the emergency medical space, she and two other patients stayed from Sunday morning until Monday night.

Mel slept in the chair using her jumper as a pillow. This is not okay. My poor girl, who was admitted after a car accident and had two young children at home who had also been in the accident, was, as you could imagine, beside herself with anxiety, and the care situation was exacerbating this. What is perhaps even more concerning than these three admitted patients spending 36 hours in chairs is that Mel was having to be monitored by a cardio event monitor. Because she wasn't in a ward, a mobile monitor was being used. This meant that no records of her heart activity were being documented or being shared with other systems. We didn't know this until a doctor expressed surprise. Having lived in the Hawkesbury for most of my life, I'm familiar with the hospital and have always been grateful and satisfied with the services provided.

Whilst being grateful to the staff this past weekend, this traumatic event highlights to me that our local health service is already stretched beyond its limits in catering to a larger population. I now echo concerns I've been hearing from other residents in opposition to this latest development proposal, and say that Hawkesbury absolutely does not have the infrastructure to support more housing. Linda Collison. Now this is consistent with the comments that have come in from the public authorities, that this proposal is not consistent with the metropolitan rural area, that it lacks strategic endorsement, that it's not identified in any approved

Structures, has remaining agricultural viability, is subject to local— causes local flooding to Redbank Creek and requires rising road access, has heritage impacts. Wastewater can't be accommodated, that they can't guarantee electricity supply, that it must not occur until the Grose Vale Bridge is completed. These aren't my words; these are the words of the state government agencies that we consulted. Both the letter from Ms Collison and these comments clearly highlight the issue with ad hoc planning and rezoning, and it flies in the face of both the New South Wales planning policies and our own policies, especially regarding infrastructure provision. I further echo Ms Collison's belief that this is not and never will be affordable housing. But what is clear is that this has been the plan all along. I don't support this proposal.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Durick. Thanks, Mr Mayor. You're getting the flyover at the moment, Councillor.

I put a lot of consideration into this matter. As I understand it, the people who live in Redbank love Redbank, and they would like to see Kemsley Park completed in the same manner and design as Redbank was. We held the matter back for Councillors' liaison, but I understand that no Council formally submitted their concerns to staff to consider, which leads me to a worry that if the matter is continually held up with no constructive input, do we risk driving the development to the state government at the expense of any VPA benefit? I think that is similar to what happened at Pitt Town, and the lack of subsequent infrastructure benefits was felt by the Pitt Town community. And if we were to lose VPA benefits at Kemsley Park, I'm wondering exactly what that might mean for the North Richmond area.

But I feel the biggest issue for this development is the lack of supporting state-level infrastructure, firstly with the lack of delivering the M2 to Londonderry, which seems to have gone by the wayside. And one of the main community requests on the new North Richmond Bridge was that it take traffic out of the township, which it simply doesn't. And with this and the prospect of adding potentially 700 more cars to the mix... I can't help but feel guided by community sentiment, which leaves me feeling cautious in regards to supporting the matter. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm speaking against the recommendation for the following reasons. I've long opined in this chamber about the weakness of the VPA that accompanied the Redbank development, but I acknowledge that there were capital improvements that were of broader benefit to the wider community that came with Redbank. Some of them are yet to be realised. Some of them have been terribly delayed, but we'll pass over that. So I was hopeful that if there was a proposal to effectively extend Redbank, which is what this does, is that there would be a similar degree of broader benefit to the wider community. Now, when I asked Mr Cooper what those wider benefits were, he had identified pedestrian safety.

But I've had a look at the contents of the draft proposal, and the footpath works in question merely link this new development to Redbank. So as I said in my question to him, it's only the capital improvements that are accompanied or necessitated by the Kemsley Park development itself. There is no benefit to North Richmond. There is no benefit to local roads beyond the immediate precinct of the development, and that's of concern to me. Our concern in this chamber, if we're presented with a proposal, is indeed to work out whether it's lawful and consonant with larger policy frameworks. But we are entitled to To ask for better bang for our buck, and in this case, clearly we're not getting that.

Furthermore, I feel that we have been shortchanged in terms of the way that this was originally spoken of as something that would only follow the completion and opening of the Grose River Bridge. And if you were to look at the form of words that's being used in this proposed agreement, it is true that they've undertaken not to register more than 175 lots, but that's not good enough. They can do so many other things. They can subdivide. They can provide various other approvals, but they can't register. In other words, this development can be very substantially advanced to an enormous degree without that bridge being built. Now, we all hope that that bridge will be built, but the thing is, the way in which this was originally spoken to us, it was, we understand what the cracking traffic congestion issues are around the intersection at North Richmond and elsewhere.

Therefore, this will not proceed until now they're having a better each way. I think it would be more appropriate for the owner of this land to advance a proposal of this scale after the Grose River Bridge is opened and then commence the conversation, and indeed wait until the new North Richmond Bridge is opened also. Until that occurs , I cannot give my consent to this. I think we're being badly shortchanged.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll keep my remarks short. As I can see how long we've spent on this particular item already with a very thick agenda. I guess, first of all, I'll put on the record for people who think I'm pro-development, I'm not pro-development, but I am pro-sensible development. And to me, given the circumstances around this development, it is the missing piece of the puzzle in that area. I no longer live in Redbank, hence no declaration this evening. But as someone who has lived there previously, I can hands down say that the residents that live in that area love the community that they live in. They love the estate. Being that missing piece of the puzzle, I would much prefer that the housing to go into that area maintains consistency with what is there.

That that theme of what it looks like, what it feels like, what it offers to the community maintains that balance. I feel there is a broader community benefit to the development. The parks and the recreational space that people and residents outside of Redbank and outside of North Richmond can use, those facilities certainly have had a benefit to our community. And that investment into the Grose River Bridge and that vital infrastructure that is needed, along with the Richmond duplication project — I don't know if it's called that anymore, the new Richmond Bridge — it's not a replacement, it's an addition. That's all right, the new Richmond Bridge. When both of those bridges are built, and let's make it clear, one is on taxpayer funding, which I've got an extensive history with, and the other one is paid for by the developer due to the VPA for the initial Redbank development.

When those pieces of infrastructure are in place. And it is a few years off, but that will fly by. That is going to be a game changer for the Hawkesbury. Of course, there's traffic modelling that's being done, but we don't know what the reality will be. But those extra multiple lanes delivering a crossing, both of the Hawkesbury River for the new Richmond Bridge and the Grose River crossing, are going to deliver demonstrable benefits to this community. And I wasn't part of the original vote for the first part of Redbank. That was the term before me. But I am pleased that it got through at that point in time because there wasn't half a billion dollars funding on the table for the Richmond Bridge at that time.

And the fact that my understanding that went through because it delivered the infrastructure with the Grose River crossing that we, as elected representatives, could never have seen coming in terms of the half a billion dollar investment for the new Richmond Bridge, which, for the record, I'll say still doesn't cut it for me where it's going. But anyway, that's another story for another item. I did just want to say that I think this community deserves housing choice, and this gives that housing choice. I understand the concerns around the need or the potential lack of affordable housing. I get that. As a single mum with three kids, I get that more than anybody. That affordable housing is essential.

But to me, it makes complete sense to keep with, as I've said previously, the consistency of that area. You wouldn't want piecemeal development like we're seeing in Vineyard, which actually brings a whole bunch of financial issues to this council with drainage and the like. You'd rather it be done by the same developer, keeping in with the same theme, as I've said. In that regard, I'll finish up there, Mr Mayor, but I will be supporting the recommendation this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Councillors, I was on Council when we first spoke about that particular area, and I think we've got a speaker coming up, Mr Bill Snedden, who sent a photo that was in the Gazette at the time of me walking up the paddock supporting what was to be Redbank. I'm not sure whether Redbank was proposal at that time. We were talking about extension of villages in our city. It goes back that far. And I'm proud to be part of that direction, as with Pitt Town. When we go to places where we've got the state step in, Vineyard comes to mind very quick, that it costs the community money. You might recall we borrowed a lot of money to put the infrastructure in for that. Anyone remember how much we borrowed for Redbank?

None. None. Done by the developer. What's happening out on Poundy Road, our community, people at Bilpin's paying for that. We'll get the money back. To have the state step in and override, as part of Pitt Town happened , to be part of a council and allow that to happen is criminal, because we can't come to a decision on housing strategy that we haven't met in the past. And taking on board the comments that Councillor Wheeler and Lyons-Buckett made about the type of housing, we can do something about that too, but we haven't. But what we do provide is housing, and, well, it's not housing, it's homes. When you look at Boundary Road, they're houses, one after the other, they're houses. When you go to Pitt Town and go to Redbank, people are proud to live there.

They're homes. They bring their kids up there. You know, they're part of our city and are very proud to live there, I bet. And with matters like the Mr Fuller spoke about, that's our responsibility and how we deal with that. As Councillor Buckett has already put a request in in that regard. The bridge over the Hawkesbury River is not going to change that intersection one little bit. Only we can do that. And we need to look at how we do it, along with other places of significance. As we build houses, we need to fix the infrastructure up. And we can either do it by preparation, and some with our roads program, with the rating increase, some of that will be done. Otherwise, we need to go to our state and federal members to support those infrastructure programs.

That's our job. If we allow the state to overtake by constant refusal, and we've had the opportunity, and the next item we're going to talk about is Voluntary Agreement. There was debate in the chamber, and I supported at the time that we discuss it further. As it turned out, the minister said, That's not going to happen. But there was a request go out to all you councillors that if you had any issues in relation to the next item, to get back to the staff. No one got back. That didn't happen. We've missed the boat in relation to the bridge across the Grose. It's doubled in price since the agreement was done. We're not talking about what hardship we're putting on a developer to build a bridge that was said it was going to be built.

They're just getting on and doing it. In relation, community centre, they are providing infrastructure. We've got playing fields down there that opened up, the OOSH centre, that now it's not done on council land. It's being worked through to go on government land at the school in the very position where it should go. So, councillors, to take away opportunities that can progress our city in a fair manner. We're not talking about thousands of homes happening tomorrow. We're talking about 380 homes that are going to happen over a decade. And in the meantime, a developer who's given us one of the best housing developments in this state, probably the country. And I know because developers who come and speak to me all go to have a look at how that development's been done.

So, councillors, I'd ask you to consider how you may think and vote on this tonight, but I believe that the project's a good one. It's fair for our city, and it's something the council should support. Any further debate? Councillor Creed.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I've just got one or two questions through you to the staff. In regards to the local strategies that we have that have been mentioned tonight, can I just get an answer from the staff? In regards to the federal government's Home for Australia's program, where they're expecting us to build 1.2 million extra dwellings, are our strategies up to date with that sort of stuff, or do we need to review

I'll throw that through to the Director City Planning.

Yeah, through you, Mr Mayor. Yes, our strategies are up to date. So our local strategic planning statement is current, and our housing strategy is up to date, and we are working towards the 1,300 dwelling target by 2029, which is the state mandated target.

So that's the state mandated target, but with the— Federal Government's new program, the $47 billion program. During their wanting to fix the housing shortage, is that up to date? Because that's only been out for a couple of— I'm just trying to understand if we've updated our strategies, because I know the federal government's putting a lot of pressure on the states and local councils to deliver this as part of their— I think it's— sorry, I just, I looked it up just then, because you've got the $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund and all that sort of stuff, and I'm just— because I haven't seen it reviewed since I've been back on council, that's all.

Through you, Mr Mayor. Yeah, as part of the National Housing Accord, the states were all given targets, and then from the states, each council has been given target. That's our 1,300 dwelling target. In terms of our housing strategies, we haven't specifically updated them in light of the Federal Housing Accord. However, what has changed is the target that has been imposed on us, and ours is the 1,300 dwelling target. We can't update the Local Strategic Planning Statement until such time as the state government directs us to, and we're at that point now where we're starting to update the background studies that inform that. Okay,

Thank you very much for that. I just, yeah, for my own head clarification. The other question I just wanted to ask in regards to Sydney Water, and there was a statement, I can't remember who mentioned it, about the infrastructure for the water. My understanding, Sydney Water's investing, I think it's about $200 million to upgrade the water and the connections and all that sort of stuff over the western side of the river where I live, and that's why we've had a lot of complaints about the roads being dug up and not being repaired straight away, because we're waiting for Sydney Water to— can I just understand? Because I'm assuming they're not just investing 200 million for no reason. So can I just get an

Update on that? Through you, Mr Mayor, Sydney Water has been undertaking a number of projects in that vicinity. So the one that is of immediate concern that you referenced, which has resulted in a number of our roads being excavated by Sydney Water, is the redirection of wastewater flows from North Richmond Wastewater Treatment Plant to Richmond Wastewater Treatment Plant. But they have also been undertaking upgrades to the water infrastructure, the potable water infrastructure in North Richmond. Now, I'm not across the details of those, but they have largely been driven by the development at Redbank, and I know that the Redbank communities have been working very closely with Sydney Water on the provisioning of those services.

And sorry, just one more question. Can I just get clarification, because we've heard it raised a number of times. Redbank Creek, does that fall under Council's responsibility or is it a state?

Through you, Mr Mayor,

The vast length of Redbank Creek, my understanding is it's under private ownership. Towards its confluence with the Hawkesbury, it may fall under Crown waterways, which is ours. But the exact reaches that are those two tenures, we'd have to look into.

Okay. So just, sorry, based on that, because I've heard it mentioned here before and I've had discussions with local residents about when there has been localised flooding at Redbank and there's been issues with the banks, that wouldn't come down to a Council responsibility to fund, we would have to go to the state? I'm just trying

To understand. Through you, Mr Mayor, those past instances of erosion caused by flooding to those banks, to my knowledge, have all been on private property. And hence it follows that the costs associated with any repair works or stabilisation works falls to the owner of those properties. Okay.

So, thank you

So, I was on council. I was one of the three councillors that are actually still around this chamber tonight that voted on when Redbank first came up. And I will say, originally, when it came up for, the land came up for rezoning, I did vote against it because I had concerns about the minimum lot size that I saw in there. It went through. So I'm very much a pragmatist that turns around and goes, okay, it's gone through. You know, you've got to get on with it and try and get the best outcome for the community. And I'm more than happy to say that it's actually turned out a hundred times better than I thought it was going to turn out. They have done an extremely good job. I do, I don't live in Redbank.

I live outside of Redbank, but I do regularly use the facilities at Redbank on Wednesday nights. I regularly attend men's mental health, which is called Walk It Off, and ladies have theirs on a Thursday night. And we do, we meet in the middle of Redbank and we walk around Redbank, and it's got quite a good number of people that are involved in it now. To be honest, I don't think we could have done that on the western side of the river. You wouldn't have been able to do it from Meet at Northrich and Shops and try and go for a walk. I do say to people that if we have to have development in the Hawkesbury, this is the sort of development that I think that we would want. I am absolutely 100%, a thousand percent against developments like we've seen in Marsden Park, even the new parts of— Glenmore Park over in the Pemrith LGA.

People don't move to the Hawkesbury to live in boxes with barely any backyard, barely any front yard. You know, we are quite a distance away from the city. You know, they come to the Hawkesbury because they want a change. They want a different lifestyle, and I think that this particular development has done well. I am concerned that, I mean, this was talked about. This parcel of land was always talked about as the last stage of Redbank, and from my discussions back then was that the owners, the Peels, wanted to pretty much finish their time out in their family home, and it was always acknowledged that it was going to be included in part of Redbank. My concern is if Redbank don't do this parcel of land and we end up with a developer that doesn't give two hoots about what the community want or what councillors want or staff want, and they go to the state government, and we end up with a disgusting, you know, essential jungle gym.

Anyway, sorry, I didn't realise I went over time. Thank you, Councillor.

Any further debate , councillors? Right of reply, Councillor Reardon.

No, not necessary, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. The motion is 10.1.2, planning proposal Kemsley Park. Those in favour?

Councillor McMahon, Councillor Collins, Councillor Veigel, Councillor Reeds, Councillor Creed, Councillor Sheather. Those against? Councillor Vroblesky, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Les Buckett, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Djuric. The motion is carried, councillors.

The next item we've got is 10.1.3, Draft Voluntary Planning, again on Kempsey Downs. We've got a speaker, Mr Matthew Cooper

Do you need another two hours? I'll try and keep it briefer with the benefit of understanding. Thank you, Mr Cooper. Thank you again for letting me up here again to talk through, I guess, the remaining aspects of Kempsey Park and how I see this needing to proceed, I guess, in a logical and coherent manner that also serves to protect Council on two fronts. The first being essentially putting in place the right development controls early and expediting the way to get there is going to be critical to how Kempsey Park develops from this point. Starting exhibition is a key step in process that gives the community, being Redbank and the broader community, the opportunity to review and see the next direction of how housing and the remainder of the master plan will be delivered.

And I really would request that Council accepts the commencement of that process. It isn't final. There is the same responses to submissions we need to work through with councillors and council staff to get to that point. But it does, I guess, give councillors much say in the shaping of development controls as they play out from there. Jumping forward to the planning agreement itself, there's definitely the opportunity that Council could proceed without the planning agreement, but I get to spend a significant amount of time in Western Sydney working through VPAs and contribution plans and the like. What you get out of this offer is far greater than what Council's existing contribution plans can afford to deliver.

If a planning agreement of this scale wasn't put forward, which in round numbers, it's around a contribution in the order of $42 million in material public benefit. If Council had to rely on their 712 contribution plan, working through the total cost of this development, like completed homes, you're in the order of $360 million. Council's 712 plan would essentially levy 1% of that, being just under $4 million. What RedBank Communities are essentially trying to do here is take this infrastructure spend and commitment off Council, so you can actually invest your energies essentially in fixing the parts of the community that mightn't have the same degree of access or amenity that RedBank has been able to establish over time.

And really, again, there was the opportunity on both the DCP and the VPA from April for representations to be made through Council staff as to the form and content of the DCP, as well as the planning agreement. That hadn't occurred. What we've since done in the meantime was really to start saying, well, look, we can provide more comfort to Council, particularly around the completion of the bridge. So that's why we've proffered and worked with Council's strategic planning team to put in a trigger, essentially define a point of comfort that gives development certainty for us to allow to start investment in the delivery of the development, but give Council that same buffer at the end to say, here's a threshold of development that is acceptable before the completion of the bridge.

Here's how you make sure that the back end of the development is completed or not completed until Council and the community is made whole on the completion of the bridge. It's something that we don't think we need to do, but we again, I will stress we're happy to provide that to Council as part of this process. So I guess in this part, when you look at all those kind of other areas like Vinyards or, say, other parts of Western Sydney that don't have the same developer working on it, one of the critical things that I guess either sets you up not for as much success is really around the delay of controls and that project certainty from there. And again, we just need to start the exhibition of both the VPA and the DCP, sorry, to put that out to the community for comment so that we all proceed with certainty and have a clear run sheet of what Council and Council officers can expect to be delivered on site.

And with that, I give pause and offer any questions

Thank you, Mr Cooper. Is there any questions, Councillors? Thank you, Mr Cooper. Sorry, Councillor? Yes,

Thank you. Mr Cooper, regarding the DCP, we're referred to the DCP for Cumberland Place for the colour scheme. And if you look at that, it includes what I would now consider to be quite out-of-date colour schemes, particularly for roof colour. So for the Jacaranda development, we have not allowed Jacaranda to put in any roofs that are lighter, that are darker, sorry, than basically a light grey. Yet at Redbank, and we know that this causes serious problems with urban heat and with heat for the residents themselves and increased electricity bills, we are being presented with a DCP in 2026 that still includes black and very, very dark grey roofs. Is Redbank willing to modify that section of the DCP so that roof colour stops at a light grey?

Yeah, look, fair question going through there, and I think it's interesting staring at the aerial of Redbank just over the last few days in preparing for this. Basics has made a significant shift in New South Wales in the materiality of buildings. I think what you're already starting to see at Redbank in their more recent stages is the control that that's already starting to force and pressure to start adopting low solar absorbent material, particularly around roof colour, but even, you know, pavements and the like from there. I would say we're on track already to start eliminating, you know, about a third of that dark-coloured roof materials is what's kind of manifesting in the complying development or the DAs that council are already approving for dwellings.

So our first line would be that state government's BASIX policy is having the desired effect from there. If there was greater push to consider different building materiality from there, it's a very fair comment to make and things that we can take on board through the exhibition process from there. And making that comment, I guess, gives us force to respond to it.

Thank you, because I think

I don't want to leave that to BASIX. BASIX is one of those trade-off arrangements where, you know, if you put in enough— so if you could consider removing that, that would be helpful. The other question I have is regarding the vegetation plans, particularly for the Grose Vale Road verges. We've seen with the rest of Redbank the broad-scale removal of very large trees all along Grose Vale Road, not met with real distress from the community and a really significant loss of habitat. Would you be willing to amend your verge plans for those areas to allow conservation of existing old growth trees?

Again, another very good question, I guess, and I will put my understanding of the situation as it unfolds to that part. As part of development, we're essentially forced to upgrade surrounding road networks, also to comply with council's specification from there. Part of that specification, and this is not finger pointing through that, it's engineering standards across all of Western Sydney, full stop. Basically, you need to achieve certain road pavement to keep making it safe, plus, let's say, modernisation of kerb and gutter and the like from there. Particularly if you consider any further service augmentation that typically runs along main roads from there, they create that perfect storm, I guess, for impact to vegetation as it exists.

I think when councils, and I can't speak to the specifics of Grose Vale Road and how it was approved, but typically if it's occurring through a DA, council holds developers to task, particularly in demonstrating that impact. From this part, I suspect most of that vegetation was identified on a biodiversity values map, of which we need to, one, if it is unable to avoid that impact, we have to make place for the right mitigation and offset to go with it. That's if it's a DA process. If the road upgrades are approved by council under Part 5 of the EP&A Act, similar kind of pathway through there, but council has greater discretion because, one, the need to deliver infrastructure is above just a development; it's about getting it right in the right locations from there.

The ability to consider impact and offset is slightly different from there. So I guess— Without the specifics of that road design in front of me, I could never say never that you wouldn't consider it, if that makes sense from there. Once the detailed design has progressed to that point, we then have a better understanding of that impact from that point and what we need to do from that next step. So either to avoid it of saying, hey, these are the changes you could make that satisfy Council's engineering standards, which are very specific, to this is an impact that has to happen to facilitate broader person connectivity through the area.

Sure, and I appreciate your honesty. I guess my concern comes from the quite specific landscape plans within the DCP, which talk about the type of vegetation buffers, the very specific heights, and drainage setups around different level changes and things like that, all of which seem to be coupled with the vegetation, which then makes me concerned that we're creating wider buffers than perhaps necessary that basically match the look of Redbank without considering what's already there. I don't want us to be locking in—I understand that we are stuck with the engineering standards— but I don't want us to be locking in through a DCP further impacts on vegetation that, frankly, aren't necessary to meet more than the aesthetics of those set by the DCP.

I guess getting to that conclusion from there, it is something we can take on board through public exhibition from that part. If I just kind of spun back to first principles of what the buffer intent was really to achieve was a greater vegetated outcome at those interfaces, knowing that some things will have to be lost to facilitate new road upgrades, the intention was Identify those areas so that at least we can get back to some aesthetic that matches that part. Taking on board that, look, there's things that we can consider through the DCP from there. I might have to take that one on notice and discuss further.

Some comment about retaining vegetation where possible I think might help .

Any further questions?

Thank you, Mr Cooper. Appreciate your time.

That's the only speaker we have on this matter, Councillors. Do we have a motion? Councillor Vigal?

Councillor Reardon. It's a recommendation, Councillor Vigal.

Yeah, I'd like to. Yeah, I know it's a formality recommendation. Can I speak to it now, Mr Mayor? Yes. Yeah, no, thank you. It's a draft voluntary planning agreement that goes out to community comment, that can be changed. I think there's been some recognition that maybe the lot sizes can be discussed and vegetation or whatever. I get the roof colour. You walk around Redbank now that most of the roof colours are more Hampton than it's probably white, if not grey. Some of the darker colour bond there looks a bit out of sorts, to be honest with you, but it's just me. So I think there's scope for that. Our previous general manager had a discussion with me about Windsor Downs, and it was done, as all of you know, that's where my home is, and loved it since the last 31 years.

It's where my kids were brought up. She actually said if that was going to come to Council today, you would have a VPA and it'd be a whole lot better than what we've got out there. There's no parks, there's no cycleways,

And the community does a lot of the improvement with seats and other bits and pieces, with the cooperation of council, may I say, in kind. So having said that, I'm not going to bore you too much for say, but I'll be recommending the draft goes out for comment, Mr Mayor. And thanks for listening

Mr Mayor, I'd just like to say that what I like about the voluntary planning agreement is it does improve Grose Vale Road in that section which really needs it . And I think the taking down of the trees there improved the sightline tremendously. The area had had quite a few accidents. I often drive from up further down to North Richmond, so I know it too well.

Thank you.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I understand this is for public exhibition. I've got no problem with the public having input into it. I don't support it as it is, but I don't think these are the numbers to try amending it here. So I just have some real problems with it, but it will come back to us. The main question I see is whether the VPA is delivering enough public benefit, and it doesn't appear to be to me. None of this is a debate about whether Redbank, the current Redbank, is good or not. It's about the impacts on people within the area and the ongoing impacts on our ratepayers. We have to consider in the long term. We know we're having ongoing costs to council from the existing Redbank. Our ratepayers are already going to have to contribute to future costs for maintenance and upgrade of the open space in Redbank, and also when the new bridge, the Grose River Bridge, is built, we are going to have to be paying for the local road upgrades of the network that feeds into that bridge.

So there's not enough in any of this to show me that sufficiently that it's delivering for the future. The Transport for New South Wales don't want anyone moving in onto that development until the Grose River Bridge is done. Our road network can't cope as it is. We know we've got promises on the horizon, but every single week there's building traffic there because there's new bits in other developments. The congestion is a real issue. And again, as I said before, we have no help on the horizon with any public transport. We just—and we have a really rising car dependency. So there's a real issue for me with expanding it before we have the infrastructure can catch up. So I know it's logical that something would be developed there.

It is a link within an existing development and, you know, in the future—and it sounds like it's a long way off in the future, which sort of defies the thing of saying it's delivering housing in the housing crisis if it's 15 years off. But I just don't agree with the triggers around the bridge. I just think that if 175 lots can be developed before the bridge is open, that's a potential of two or three cars per lot, you know, contributing to the congestion. And I can't think that our community should have to put up with that when they're already having to be, you know, impacted the way they are. It's just some anomalies around it. But when I sit here, I think we represent the residents who stand to be impacted, and those who may benefit, which, of course, people will benefit from more housing into the future.

But currently the former group outweigh the second, and I can't see that the VPA skews it in the favour of having more benefit when we know of what the long-term costs may be. I also think we can do much better when we're planning for the future and, you know, we have to look at how expanding and densifying these areas is really impacting everyday lives of the people both within them and around them. And they are realities. They're the people I speak to every day. And as nice as we think a place is, and as well as a development is done, we still have people that live without basic functions. And the Sydney Water, Sydney Water have said they will not put any more connections to other areas west of the river.

So, you know, I just have a lot of problems, and I've got a massive problem with the specific dual occupancy for some people, when even people in Redbank have approached me that they couldn't get dual occupancy on the large lots in Redbank. So, you know, there's an element of unfairness in there that just doesn't sit well with me at all. But hopefully, hopefully by going out to the community, there may be some people, particularly around water management on the site, which I know is an issue for people who feel that the water is traversing across the site in a way that could impact them. You know, hopefully we get that input from people. I'm not having a go at the development as such, but I think that we can't be so naive to think that developers don't have strategies to persuade us to think that everything is rosy, when we can see some very clear issues around this.

So I've been weighing up the longer-term costs our ratepayers might face against the benefits, and I'm hoping there may be some changes. Councillor Wheeler has raised some issues which were good around the DCP. I recall speaking on the original DCP, and many of the suggestions made, which weren't taken up then about water efficiency and renewables, have now become really standard in developments. And so hopefully we can have some innovative thought around what, you know, may come up in the future for this DCP. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor.

Further discussion?

Councillors, I've been travelling over to Camden fairly often with the mayoral forum I go to, and one of the things that we've got here in the Hawkesbury, I guess, is you can drive anywhere and you're pretty comfortable about the sort of housing that's been done and the likes. And I take on board Councillor Wills' comments about heat. We were given information a couple of years ago from WestRock that indicated there's an issue, especially not far from Redbank in Agnes Banks, actually, is the hottest part of the Sydney catchment.

But when you go over to Camden, you look at a white wall of houses, and why they were a house, and they might even be a home, but it's not the community that we have here. And I say that when you drive through the Hawkesbury, irrespective of where you're driving it, you can feel pretty comfortable. And what's over there, I don't think our community would like at all. So there's other ways to deal with heat, and what I'm suggesting, when you've got voluntary agreements and that, there's opportunities to be discussed, and there have been. And the difference between voluntary agreements and development, I go back to what I spoke about at Mindigoe. With development that's happening in Boundary Road and the likes, it's costing us.

We're building it, and at the moment all that is is drainage, and it's 19 million bucks. There's nothing else been done yet, and as it's developed, because it is hodgepodge in the sense that the state's allowed that to happen, that's what happens. With Pitt Town, what a beautiful place. Anybody know how much contribution they got from the developers to date?

Nothing. Forty years. Beautiful place, beautiful place to live. And it's only just recently that there's been the playing fields and the community building, and that's driven mainly by the community out there and the will of council, not the developer and the like. And that's what happens when the state runs the show. There's a percentage spent on infrastructure, and it was. Things like sewerage and stuff like that to supply the development, the state didn't have to do it, that's fine. But who's going to pay for it down the track? In relation to Redbank, with the walkways that our councillors were talking about at Mindigoe, that was the decision of council in relation to amenity. But we're going to pay for it down the track.

So we can't blame developers for not offering what it is, but it's called a voluntary agreement. That means that the staff is aware of what the council requires in relation to the community and what the developer is proposing. Much greater than what the state would ever offer. To go out and to draft a planning proposal with some of the comments that the councillors have made, and I know there's others that would like to be made. And because we can't have the consultation process for us to discuss, as we should, the process of good community benefit, I'd suggest that take the opportunity to put pen to paper and pass your comments on to the staff in relation to the sort of things that you would like to see.

So, councillors, I support going out to the community. The developers, not only these developers, anyone that comes, they're trying to sell their property. They want a good development, and they want what the community want, and you people represent them. So happy to say that I'd support this going out on public exhibition. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Look, I really wish we had had a discussion about this, about these documents . We are the consent authority here. We are entitled to discuss the planning documents that this council approves for our community to live with into the future. It's not enough that it just comes to a council meeting and then goes out on public exhibition. I also want to speak to this big fear of the state government setting up a development and the demonising of those developments and the poor people who live there. I mean, the idea that people can only be proud if they live in a development that's been set up by a developer at great expense and at future great expense to the ratepayer, frankly is— It is pretty disgusting.

I grew up in a bog-standard housing estate on the outskirts of Seven Hills. I can say at 56 that it is the best neighbourhood I have ever lived in, and it wasn't in the Hawkesbury.

There are people who are very proud to live in Box Hill and to bring up their kids there. We're not the only people who can set up a decent development, and developers are not the only people who can build community. People make communities, and the culture of those communities makes communities, not roof colour, not wide streets, not fancy footpaths, not really expensive DCPs and VPAs, and really expensive homes. And I find it really troubling that that's the standard that we seem to have determined gives people a good community and therefore a worthwhile place to live. We are the consent authority here. We don't lead well as the consent authority by running from some supposed boogeyman that we have created out of the state government.

We do lead well by making really clear standards for the developers that come into this LGA, and I've been calling for that since before I was elected in 2016. I would like to bust a few myths by asking some questions of the staff around the current VPA for Redbank and its impacts on future development. So, can I ask who holds the funds for the Grose River Bridge?

So at the present time, the requirement to build the Grose River Bridge is with the developer, Redbank. So neither the state or council holds funds to deliver the bridge.

So council hasn't received any funds from the developer to build the Grose River Bridge? Correct.

Thank you. So it's a requirement of the VPA that the bridge is built, or there's triggers that contribution was made to Transport for New South Wales. That trigger's been met a number of times, but the payment's not been made. Developer's been committed to delivering the bridge.

Thank you. Who's responsible for the upgrade, maintenance and repair of the feeder roads to the Grose River Bridge?

So by feeder roads, we're talking about Grose River Road? Yep. So yeah, there's requirements in the current VPA for upgrades to that road, and they're working through designs in terms of that.

And who will pay for that?

Redbank will pay for that.

Thank you. And who will be responsible for the ongoing maintenance and repair of that road in perpetuity?

It's council road, so council.

Thank you. Will the increased rates from Redbank be enough to offset the additional costs incurred by the development?

That's a good one. Through you, Mr Mayor, we'd have to take that on notice.

And as a subsequent question then, will it provide council with a significantly large revenue stream to offset any further financial concerns that we might have? Is it the bonanza that people believe it to be?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I generally wouldn't characterise any development as a cash bonanza for any council.

Thank you. Who would have thought?

Back onto the DCP, I'm pleased to hear the developer's representative talk about, say that they're willing to look at the colour scheme. It is quite an outdated colour scheme, and frankly, I don't want to leave it to the trade-off that is Bunnings or the whims of fashion. Now, I know Hampton style development, which is basically all white, and you can see that as you drive. I've been back and forth along the Hume a lot in the last month and a half, and you can see the emerging white fashion side by side with the grey fashion that came before it and the black fashion that was beside it. And I certainly understand Redbank's desire to have some sort of continuity across that development, but it's 2026. The days of the black roof are well past, and I think we would like some further surety that it's not coming back.

I would like to see some of the vegetation plan revised as well. There are not sufficient habitat species in that list. English oaks are very slow growing, are not going to survive climate change, provide habitat for precisely nothing beyond a few odd spiders, and several other species in that vegetation plan are weeds, like agapanthus. It desperately needs an update. Maybe go away and consult with the weed authority about what should and shouldn't be on that list. Have a chat to HEN and maybe update that as well. My big concern with this whole project is that it can't deliver the infrastructure, environmental or traffic mitigation that's required by this development. And I subsequently can't support it. But I am pleased to see that the developer is at least willing to take some input on it

General manager, I've got a question. With solar panels on a roof, is there any requirement for approval for those, considering they're black and shiny, that we're trying to achieve—well, the state's trying to achieve the view the councillor Wheelers put forward, and we're covering with solar panels. Is there any process or argument against that, or

It just happens? Through you, Mr Mayor, I might refer that to the Director of City Planning.

Yeah, through you, Mr Mayor, we'll take that question on notice and come back to you.

Yeah, thanks.

Further debate, councillors?

Thank you, councillors. The matter before us is 10.1.3, is the draft voluntary— Yes, you do. What's before us is 10.1.3, is the draft report to go out. Councillor Veigel.

I'll make it brief. Yeah, Hampton first and Mission Brown, I don't think we want to go back to those good old days, I must admit. So I'm quite happy to keep with the style of today. Sometimes I think about my wife with her style, and she's still got some purple streaks in her hair, but that could change because she's an art teacher. So having said that, look, we can't keep going back to the trough when we want to develop. I live in a estate that was developed, as you were aware, because you walked that side, I believe, at Windsor Downs. Back in the olden days, Mr Mayor, and you remember it well. I do. And there was some development contributing to that area, but as I said before, I would have done a whole lot differently to that now.

We all, I believe, most people in this council live in some street or somewhere that's been developed by somebody at some point of time. Somebody's taken the risk and they've put it in there and what, why go? People choose to live up at Redbank. It's their choice. I get the thing about there should be affordable housing, but the whole country has a problem with that at the moment, not just, you know, our LGA. So look, it was mentioned by a speaker, it was about 42 million contribution to that area anyway, and I think it's pretty good. So I'm just saying, just be aware that there's not an open tap when it comes to a whole raft of stuff. It can be done, but if we can do it properly, and we take this out to the public for comment, then so be it, and I welcome it, and see what happens from there on inwards.

So thank you, Mr Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Vogel

10.1.3, those in favour? We've got Councillor McMahon,

Councillor Kotlash, Councillor Vogel, Councillor Reardon, Councillor Cree, Councillor Sheather. Those against? Councillor Zembrogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Onus-Packet, Councillor Ryan, and Councillor Djuric. The motion's carried, councillors.

Thank you, councillors. The next item we've got, we have another speaker, Mr Bill Snedden. It's 10.3.3, Hawkesbury River management. Mr Snedden.

Thank you, Mayor Sheather, councillors, people in the gallery.

Speaking in favour of this item, Hills Shire, in my opinion, is showing a vision regarding the long-term management of our river system. The documents presented here provide a wide-ranging coverage of issues in the vast Hawksbury catchment and the complexity of the government's governance issues involved. I've had personal involvement with some of the complications of multiple agencies, with conflicting responsibilities myself. These go back 25 years plus. My direct involvement with environmental issues goes back to the 1970s, when as a young laboratory worker at a large milk factory in Newcastle, I was tasked with environmental testing for both air and water issues that were affecting both the production areas and also later the possibility of dust from a coal dump affecting the spray dryer intake, which would have produced black-spotted powdered milk had that coal dump gone ahead.

The subsequent employment after my food technology training at Hawkesbury Ag College has involved environmental issues and also as a private citizen, including doing stream watch for at least five years at South Creek during the water weed crisis. Does anybody remember salvinia and water hyacinth completely plugging up South Creek, let alone the Hawkesbury River, and the boat users and outboard motors that were plugged up were not happy. The paper here that's presented to you is a cogent argument for a single overarching body for the catchment with real clout. But it will need funding, and that's going to be a problem, like most things to do with government. Over the past 25 years of which government bodies come and go, listed in significant detail here with their pluses and minuses.

Oh, by the way, does anybody remember the River Sheriff? I think he lasted about a year and a half. I certainly remember it, and where he went, I have no idea. I'm of the view also that changes were often due to parties wanting control of issues, altering the government bodies to suit their short-term interests. For example, land release and control. Then we get on to another example of water control. Multiple things here: water weeds, salvinia, hyacinth clogging up the rivers. Does anybody remember the blue-green algae and the toxic chemicals it puts in the water? It's all gone. There are also, regarding water control, drinking water, recreational, irrigation, drought control and pollution issues, and many other environmental issues in the area.

Many areas of control regarding legislation are also siloed once a control body is set up, and it often doesn't want to cooperate with responsibilities in its area where conflict is viewed with other controlling bodies. Our own River Council has had these sharing problems with other councils and lawmakers over my time attending council meetings, and I've seen quite a few. And funding is just another issue. Who pays for all of this to happen?

Getting towards the end, what I read in this item is effectively for an authority... Priority akin to West Rock Group of Councils, but covering the multiplicity of catchment issues on conflicts in the whole catchment. I commend the intent of this item. Can we be sufficiently adult to cooperate for the greater good of our vast catchment? This is the social contract that citizens need for their legislators. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ned. Any questions for Mr. Ned?

He's probably got the answers if you've got a question for him. Thank you. Thank you. Do we have a motion? 10.3.3. I'll move the motion.

I'll second it, Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Reardon.

Councillor Zamprogno. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll just read to you a passage from a former council meeting. Many of council's previous representations regarding the management of the river have called for the setting up of a single river authority. Whilst a single river authority is not eventuated, the office of the Hawkesbury-Nepean has been set up to assist in the coordination of relevant authorities. I'm reading to you from a business paper from September 2010. Yep. 16 years at least, and probably a lot longer. Let's guess the earlier reference that my little gadget threw up.

I think it's high time, but it has to be done on the basis that this isn't an additional layer of bureaucracy. It's a superseding layer of management that streamlines what is clearly a patchwork quilt. I mean, I remember asking a question years ago about an issue with Bushells Lagoon. And it turned out that there were like six different agencies that were responsible for the management, which meant that if a landowner with misguided intent does something to a location like that that sits within the catchment, there's no way that accountability can flow because everybody passes the buck. I commend this effort, but I worry that it will suffer the same fate as every other initiative, including the one that I just quoted you from 16 years ago. That's go.

Thank you,

Councillor.

Councillor

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'd like to propose an amendment. I have sent the staff some words.

Thanks. Is that it? Yep.

The reason I've put this amendment up is

That the— and I'll first off say that I commend the Hills Council for bringing this issue to light. It's something that I have been banging on about, I suppose you'd say, for a very long time, because I actually worked for the office of Hawkesbury Nepean back in the day. It was first— Councillor

You need to— Oh

Yes, sorry. Thanks.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you. Thank you.

In 2009, Nathan Rees opened the office of Hawkesbury Nepean, and it was a really great initiative, but— Because it didn't get funded properly, and because it didn't have adequate planning powers, it was vulnerable to changes. Well, it was vulnerable to political argy-bargy, I guess. So

Revisiting that particular model, I think, is going to be difficult because , as Councillors have prognosed about duplication of roles, that's when you start to get really needless conflict between agencies that are trying to do their best for whatever their activities require, and you get some tensions that you don't necessarily need. But having said that, you can't manage a river unless you manage the whole river, and I have concerns about giving ongoing support to our participation

In a program that is really just about the tidal and estuarine reaches of the river. And the reason that I want to partition that and change the motion to what's on the screen is that I think we have to be mindful of where we put our support and that we tie it back directly to what is going to be a benefit for the Hawkesbury. It's all very well to say to have motherhood statements and to make these claims about, you know, having to have a whole of system and , you know, managing it in that way. But I would like to have some information, and that's why I've put point two down. I want some information about what are the fragmentations that were alluded to. Get some meat on the bones about what benefits this will bring to us. I think it's fine that we give in-principle support for investigating a better governance model, and I think that's an important distinction.

I think we really need to work out where our best bang for buck stops with this sort of river management, because we are a small council. We're not that cashed up, and yet being involved in these sorts of plans tends to push us towards

Activities that we might not necessarily have gone for because of our smallness and because of our lack of funding. I'm just going to alert you to something that's interesting because it's about the Punt Road boat ramp. That's, you know, another item on the business paper. And one of the, I think there's 11 activities that the Coastal Management Plan has put down for the Hawkesbury, and the last one is that we do an investigation to design a proper boat ramp and entry point to Punt Road in Pitt Town. I'll leave it at that. That's the conflict, and we have to actually address it. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. I'll speak on the matter, and much in support of what Councillor Kotlash has just spoke of. Back in the early days when I was first elected, there was nobody looking after the river whatsoever. Fourteen councils got together and created a river management program that was attended by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and the General Manager. It went for about five or six years, extremely successful. Anything that happened on the river, everyone knew about it, everyone was involved with it, and it went through, with the general managers there, went through any authority or anything that was happening. It worked well. Worked that well, the government decided they were going to follow that process, and then we started having river catchment management systems and trusts and all the rest of it. Well, if you're talking about something going pear-shaped, it did.

We've got a couple of authorities in this country, the Murray-Darling scheme, the Murrumbidgee scheme, and the like. With our river, it's just not ours. There is 14 councils involved, and they go from Gosford. Or Central Coast, Singleton, Lithgow, Goulburn, Wollongong, because there's a couple of dams up there, four of them actually, besides Warragamba, that contribute to our waterway, and they're in other council areas. In relation, in part two that Councillor [unclear] spoke of, the Hawkesbury River system—sorry, part three, the Hawkesbury-Nepean River System Coastal Management Program—it only comes up our river as far as the tidal, and that's pretty well the end of it. And we looked at opportunities with the organisation I'm involved with to look how that might manage it, and to a degree it will, but it won't look after the river.

The river is just not the bit that flows up and down. It's how and what gets there, the development that we spoke about the night, the impact on the river, all that sort of stuff, the environment around it, and all that is having an impact on the river. This year the prawns never grew to the size they were. They never come up the river as far as they did. The salt water as dry as it's been hasn't come up the river. There's impacts on our waterway that's had massive effects, and if something's not done about it, you know, we're going to have another Yarra up here. The only reason that we've got the river we have, that everything above South Creek has been treated well that goes into it, or it's runoff or drainage out of the mountain.

But when we get to South Creek, the next six or seven kilometres downstream from that is always brown, as brown as South Creek is, and nothing's been done about it for years. And my first job was pulling stuff out of there. I'd seen platypus in South Creek. At the toll house. You know, you wouldn't get carp growing in there now. So, councillors, if we're looking for a river authority, there's not just the obvious councils that's involved with this. We're talking about a catchment issue, and I think it's bigger than councils even. The amount of councils that have been involved and the diversity of those councils probably doesn't make it practical. And not saying that the Murray-Darling system is a good one, but at least it happens.

The water heist that Mr. Sedden was talking about—I was chairman of the county council when we cleaned that up, and there were 60 kilometres that looked like a turf farm, and we had a hell of a job. Until Craig Knowles, the minister, got involved, and there were seven authorities. We couldn't do anything, and he rang up and said, How do we fix it? And I said, I need someone to stand up, and he did. And he got in touch with all of them and said, You will work together and you will get the job done. And in six weeks later, we took out over 500,000 tonne of water hyacinth out of a river because one bloke stood up who had authority and did just that. There was no chance in the world that the people that were involved with in the different authorities would have taken that role.

So, councillors, the amendment, I think, has a lot stronger intent of what we're trying to achieve here. I just ask the council agreed whether you wish to stay with the amendment, councillor, or whether you want to forego that in relation to the proposal that's— That is now the amendment.

I'll come back to you. I haven't seen this before, so some have,

I haven't. So just give me a few seconds. Do you wish to speak now, Councillor?

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm happy to support the amendment on the screen. I think that it does, as you rightly just said, strengthen our position moving forward. I guess facts are facts, and it was the coalition in 2012 who abandoned the office of the Hawkesbury in Penrith. So, I mean, they had their reasons that it was becoming a bit bureaucratic, but potentially in hindsight, the abolishment of that office was not the best thing for our area. Therefore, supporting the Hills in their proposition here is something that I would agree with. The Mayor and I have had discussions with other councillors, particularly from the Hills and Hornsby, in relation to supporting one authority that looks after the river.

But Councillor Kotlash is correct in what she highlighted, and it's also highlighted on page 94 of the item. It's not just about the health of the river. It's about the environmental management, the emergency management, the forecasting and modelling, the compliance, the licensing, the planning and the infrastructure provision. All of those, whatever body, in my mind, has the authority to look after the river has to have specific legislation that allows them to make decisions with all of those factors in mind. And I think particularly for us here in the Hawkesbury, after going through the last eight floods and the challenges that we faced as a local council who has the end job to repair all the damage in our community, and our staff who have to go through so many different government departments to get approval and authority to fix things like damage to riverbanks, to get sand removed from people's properties, to clean up the water, who looks after the debris that littered both sides of our river all the way down to the mouth of the Hawkesbury?

It was an absolute disaster for many of us trying to, when we had residents contacting us, crying and in tears, we did not even know who to turn to to get approval to do these very things to clean up people's lives. And it's not just that that's important. People— Live off the river. People get an income from the river, whether that's drawing water for agricultural purposes to water their crops or their food, or whether they are people who fish down where it's more salty in the river. And the river users group in the Hawkesbury and the Hills here is very prevalent in communicating their needs regarding the river as an income stream for them. We need to make sure all of those elements are taken into account.

I get that it's complex. I get that there are many jurisdictions involved that do not complement each other moving forward. But I like that there is some traction in this space. I think the meeting we had here in this office, in this chamber, I'm trying to think what department it was, something to do with climate change rings a bell. Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water had a meeting here, and it was well attended by other council representatives, particularly some very keen interest in council staff members, I think from Hornsby, was it, Mr Mayor? Difficult to talk when other councillors are talking, Mr Mayor.

Yeah, they continue.

Yeah, yeah, they continue . So look, moving forward, I definitely support the amendment on the board. I've made those points about the fact that we do need one central authority taking into account all of those different elements, but it has to have broad legislative powers, and I can't emphasise that strongly enough. It needs to be able to make decisions, otherwise it's not going to have any teeth. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Councillor Veigel

I thought this light might have been more visible since I've moved down a space, Mr Mayor. Obviously not. It might not be the light, Councillor. Yeah, I'm supportive of the amendment, Mr Mayor. I agree with what the Deputy Mayor says about a broad authority. You've got to have one point. Let me reminisce a bit, because sometimes you reminisce, Mr Mayor, if that's all right with you. Thank you. When I was a kid, when I was sailing boats out of the Parramatta River, out of a laneway in the Parramatta River, after heavy rain there was a brown scourge on the top of the river. Why? Because half the houses on the North Shore had their stormwater into the sewerage line, and the pumping stations had an overflow.

Where did the overflow go? It didn't go into the pumping system or the treatment stations; it went straight back into the rivers. Further to that, Parramatta was pretty disgusting, especially up the upper reaches, if you remember the party was up there. Asbestos refineries, the whole caboodle. You still can't catch a fish out of Homebush Bay because of the dioxin pollution, and that was the biggest con that Union Carbide ever walked away, and I think Neville let that one go through without remediation. But having said that,

Government had a resolve to sort it out. So they put retention tanks back under Cammeray. There's no overflows going in there. They did smoke tests right up through the suburbs, and they said, You've got a year to fix it up or we're going to come back and fine you big time. Get it out of the sewer, get your stormwater out. All the channels were put rubbish grates on it, okay? It came from resolve from the state government. I would say the Hawkesbury deserves that and a whole lot more, because the amount of people—it's actually people use as recreation bay and water, dare I say. I still suspect they're pumping water out at North Richmond there for water, for drinkable water up there, bottled water up at North Richmond.

So I totally agree that— is that the bureaucracy, you know, Macquarie Street and perhaps maybe federally, the councils cooperate. Just give us, get the authority to do it and the funding to be able to look after it. Otherwise, eventually we'll lose it, especially with, you know, increasing development in the hills area, dare I say Blacktown and dare I say Penrith too, because they're talking about development on the floodplain up there, just to the west of where Westfield is. It is on a flood reach there, but I'll work with that one around it and I'll probably get there and put units on it eventually, dare I say. So hence, more overflow, more issues with the river. Thanks, Mr Mayor. Thank you.

Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Apologies, I was just trying to understand what was being moved. I'm happy to withdraw the motion, sorry, the motion, and happy for Councillor Kotlash to move this as a motion instead, given that I think it's already been worked out that this is what people wanted to do. So that's fine. I'm happy to do that. And if Councillor Kotlash wants to move it, she can move it, and I'm happy for that to happen. Thanks, Councillor.

Councillor Ryan, was it? Yep. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Look, I've lived on the river all my life. I've seen the changes like yourself, and I've seen all the authorities come up and down and tell us what to do, and we're in a mess. I've looked at the Greater Sydney Plan and the amount of houses that are going to be feeding stormwater and whatever it is into our river. It's unbelievable. And as far as I'm concerned, we're leaving the Hawkesbury the end of the stormwater drain, and we need some real strength and we need some real commitment on this from all the councils around us to stop our Hawkesbury, our river, from becoming just a polluted stormwater drain, and it's quickly getting there. I understand what you said about South Creek.

I understand about Cattai Creek. There— Still this platypus in Calala Creek, I've seen them, but the extra stress on that creek now, I really think that they will be pushed out. And I think that we really need just one authority that we can all rely on to look after our river. Council will have our input, but we just need one authority. We don't need all these bits and pieces. It's never going to work. So I fully support this, and I fully support Councillor Kotlash's motion.

Motion, yeah, and I thank you, and I wish, I hope that all the other councillors move along the same lines. Thank you. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'm very happy to support this motion, and I would have supported the original motion as well. I've got a couple of concerns. One of them is that these discussions have been going on for more than 18 months, and I'm a little perturbed that this chamber is only being brought into these discussions now. I attended that excellent meeting run by DQ here. I wasn't informed of it as a Hawkesbury City Councillor. It occurred in this chamber. The people stood just there. Most of us were not informed of the meeting. The majority of the councillors in this chamber were not able to attend that meeting. All the Hills councillors were invited, I will add, to our own council. I was invited by the general manager of the Hawkesbury River County Council because I was the chair at the time.

That doesn't put us on an equal footing with the other councillors from other councils, and I find that really unfortunate because, as Councillor Ryan says, we are at the soggiest, most polluted end of the river. We should have been brought on board far earlier. One of the things that did come out of that was the excellent, was effectively a briefing on the excellent CMP for the catchment management plan for the river, which I really must commend the staff involved from the constituent councils. I think Hornsby was the lead. Our staff put in a lot of work and did a really excellent job, and it was very clear from the other staff who attended that how respected our staff are in that space, and they should be commended for it.

I've got no problem with establishing a catchment management authority. What I have until now is a problem with the fact that that discussion has been had without most of this council.

I'm really concerned with the lead being taken by councils who are effectively in an extractive and exploitative relationship with the river, who are able to drain into it and consequently drain into our end of the catchment, or to extract water from the river that we then do without, particularly for environmental purposes downstream. Can a catchment management authority fix that? I don't know. I don't know that we have any reasonable track record of that occurring. I'm willing to give it a go. I have to state that I have absolutely no faith in the Department of Planning to effectively manage any of the floodplain, given their past decisions, given their presentations at the recent Floodplain Management Committee.

I think if any government department is to take the lead on this, it's going to have to be DQ, who at least have the scientific understanding to maybe manage the— The catchment effectively, and with a scientific and evidence-based approach, I really don't want to see this turned into a Murray-Darling Basin-style authority which treats the river as basically a resource for an extractive industry with the environment as not even a long second, but frankly something that isn't of much concern at all. I really want some acknowledgement from the players in this about the impact of runoff, particularly on the residents of this council, of the businesses, the agricultural businesses in this LGA. The runoff from the hills from South Creek, from the decisions that the Department of Planning are making around South Creek, from planning decisions like the Marsden Park Data Centre, 21 hectares of what is likely to be nearly all hard standing, water pulled from Sydney's drinking water draining directly into South Creek.

The water off that data centre will end up in the kitchens of Windsor and McGrath's Hill. Can a catchment management authority fix that? Look, probably not. Should it? Absolutely, because this piecemeal, ad hoc, extractive and exploitative relationship that we have with the body of water that has formed us and the Darug people before us, it has to change. We are courting disaster and frankly defying nature and logic.

Thank you, Councillor. In relation to that meeting that was called, it was called by the Upper Hawkesbury River User Committee with the support of agencies and the councils, and they organised everything, who was invited. I'm sure that they would have loved every councillor to be invited. I think it was just the process at the time that it didn't happen. They didn't really expect the meeting to happen either, by the way, and it was very successful.

Any further debate, Councillors?

Sorry, just doing my water pouring duties there.

Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Mr Mayor, when I first saw this motion, it sort of struck me a little bit as Groundhog Day because we've seen many of these things come and go. I was involved with the original River Summit before the Office of the Hawkesbury-Nepean was set up, and that was in 2009, I think, which is a long time ago. I think I welcome Councillor Kotlash's amendment, or the now motion. It puts it a little bit more in a way to sort of deal with it. But my overall concern is the focus on governance is really what are we going to achieve? We seem to know what we need to achieve. Everybody agrees we need, you know, certain things to happen, and we do have the Coastal Management Plan is quite good, and implementing aspects of that would be beneficial.

But I'm just a little concerned of how this sort of will play going forward. On another note, I think given the river really is such a vital component of our identity and our area and our activities, I just feel, and also given its vulnerability as well, it's just almost like we need to have more of a focus on it in everything we do. It's sort of often an afterthought or seen as a separate thing, and yet clearly we know from, you know, the various impacts people have outlined, the challenges we've got, the developments, particularly around flooding but also around the water we're going to receive from what happens upstream, the levels of pollution at different points, it's really something that we have to focus on not only in a body like this.

Obviously, we've got to be in bigger organisations to actually get resourcing and value from it, but I also think that we can have more conversations within here about the river and the river's role and how it interacts with all of our other activities and strategies that are actually going on. So I support this, and I would hope anything coming out of it would have some action attached to it and not just be another bureaucratic layer of what we have seen, the various models that have been mentioned tonight come and go and come and go. So it's a very important thing, and I'm happy to support it.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion, Councillors?

Councillor Greed has mover as a motion. No, I withdraw it, and I

Said that Councillor Kotlash—I'm happy for Councillor Kotlash to have her name.

I know, Councillor, you've got right of reply if you don't want it. No. I don't think it's necessary. Yeah.

Because the motion was withdrawn, Councillor Kotlash has got the motion.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Yes, I'm glad that we've had this discussion because it's really, the ideas that were, you know, that have been discussed, as Councillor Willis said over the last 18 months, are really at a really quite high level and not superficial, but they're not meaty enough for me to make a decision about supporting having a central authority if that is actually where we land, because we might actually be able to have some authorities that are based more on different catchments, so they're less complicated, because there are so many issues with the Hawkesbury-Nepean because of the nature of it, because it's so big, because of the different areas it drains, and also, excuse me, the different authorities, the 26 councils, et cetera, et cetera.

The problems that I think we have to come to grips with, and that's why I left point two as requesting information. I want us to be very mindful about what we are going to get out of such an authority. We have to have outcomes for the river, not outcomes for a plan, and that's what I read in the Coastal Management Plan. I think it's a very good plan, but it still talks about its success being having done the activities that it listed. That isn't an outcome for the river. There isn't anything that has been put together that makes me think that the list of 11 activities that have been put in the CMP are going to make a measurable, demonstrable difference to the river, and that's where we have to always head for.

One of the things that I noted is that these are— if we have a central authority, it might — I want a central authority to be able to tell various councils what they can do to get the best outcome for the particular part of the river that they abut. I don't want it to be a sort of a state government thing that tells councils what they need to do, and that's best practice, and that's going to, you know, if you do this, it's going to be fabulous, and we're going to tick a box in the plan and say how we've achieved everything. That's not going to improve our river. That isn't the way that we need to do this. So we have to be very careful about how we plan this out. I note that there are a lot of things in the CMP that we were doing anyway, doing water sensitive urban design.

We're doing Greater Sydney LLS has already got an agricultural extension officer who does all the things that is mapped out in this plan. This is sort of— Whilst that might be seen as coordination, that's not what we need. And I don't think that that's going to cut it. And people, I think, we have to be mindful that this is a complex, a complex. We're asking for a very powerful authority if we want them to be able to manage all of the different things that happen in a river, and coordinated, and don't ping anybody off in the process, and be able to be really clear about their roles. That is really, really, that's going to be a real challenge. And I just guess I just wanted that to come out in this motion.

Let's get some more ideas about what we really want, what we think is really vital, and let's go for that instead of, yes, everything will be all right if we have, you know, one authority. I think that we have to also come to grips with the balance between user groups and people using the river. And I think the latest term is natural capital, used to be called ecosystem services. And, excuse me. Oh, well, that was an unfortunate sip I think we have to understand where we're, what field we're playing in.

Thank you , Councillor. Councillor Matybi for

Us is 10.3.3. Those in favour? Against. The motion is carried

Councillor Brogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigl, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion is carried. Councillors, the next item that we've got is condolences .

It's for Mr Brett Wild, and there's a councillor who's put some stuff together with support of other councillors. Councillor Reardon, would you like to?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. This condolence motion is to recognise Mr Brett Alan Wild, who passed away recently at the age of 62. Brett was a founding member of the charity Task Force Veterans. He was much more than that. He was a father, grandfather, a community leader, a military man, and a friend to many. Brett often recalled his time as a youngster at Butterworth RAAF base, Malaysia, as the best years of his life, not knowing that these memories and experiences as a youngster at Butterworth would influence him for the rest of his life. Brett's military career commenced with the Citizens Military Forces before joining the 1st 19th Royal New South Wales Regiment and the 21st Construction Regiment, where he became an army engineer.

Brett worked tirelessly to secure the funding to restore the buildings at Schofield. The restored buildings now house community workshops, a library, military vehicle restoration section, function hall and museum. It was always his intention that this facility would benefit the whole community. Brett was extremely proud and thankful for Hawkesbury City Council allowing our World War One restored Krupp gun to be displayed in the museum, and he recently helped me unveil that gun, which is now the centrepiece of the museum. Since Brett's passing, there has been a commitment from the members of Task Force Veterans to ensure that Brett's legacy continues. Brett was a caring man who held his family, his community and his country above everything else. I request that the Chamber extend its condolences to Brett's family and friends, and offer our continuing support to Task Force Veterans.

Thank you, Councillor. Thank you, Councillor. Any other Councillor wish to offer?

Councillor Ryan. Thank you, Councillor. Reading for that condolence motion, and thank you, Mayor, for affording me the opportunity to speak on this motion. I firstly met Brett out at Schofield a number of years ago. He asked the community to come out there and see what they were doing with the restoration of the buildings.

And my thoughts when I first saw the buildings, mate, this is a bridge too far. They were a mess. And thank heavens I was wrong. He really put a lot into it. I regularly visited Schofield and had some great conversations, and as we all know, Brett could talk. He was a great conversationalist, and he spoke in here at the Chamber about the Krupp gun. It was something he told me many times he was proud to have. But as I spoke to him, or he spoke to me, I managed to unearth the layers of the man. I found a man who did not tolerate disrespect or rudeness, but he was one of the most compassionate men I've ever known. I became aware that up in the hunter where he lived, he routinely, like soldiers do, routinely went to the local bakers, bought 10, 15, 20 sausage rolls and grabbed as much milk as he could in cartons.

He would take them down to where he knew the homeless were living, just put them on a bench and drive off, because his theory was everyone deserves something warm to eat, and that's the real mark of a man. Now, some people go through life hardly making a ripple on the community, and that's their choice. But Brett was not one of these people. He made some big waves, and look what he achieved for many people, the benefit of his efforts will go on as a legacy for years, for generations out there at Skyville. Brett was a partner, a father, a grandfather, a soldier, a visionary, and a true Australian and a mate, and that's how I'm going to remember him. And Mr Mayor, I thank you for affording me this opportunity to speak on this motion.

I very much appreciate it. Thank you, Councillor

I met Brett through Councillor Zamprogno, an invitation that went out in, probably five years ago maybe, and I never knew Brett before then, but— But since then, conversations on the phone were fairly regular. He was ex-army, as I am, and around nearly the same period of time, so it wasn't a great difference. But his compassion for, I guess, community was cancerous . He got people involved, he got governments involved. The comments that Councillor Ryan made about the impossible task, it sure looked that way. And his persistence and the support he got from the people he sought it from doesn't happen all that often. So he certainly had a way about him. So I've made contact with his family, but after this condolence, I'll be writing a further letter to indicate Council's attitude in relation to this condolence motion.

Councillor Brogner. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I admire remarks to those of my colleagues. I met Brett under those circumstances because of a shared passion for the history and preservation of Skyville, which is very dear to me because I grew up in that area. And I can only extend my condolences to his partner, Charmaine, and the family. He was both morally and organisationally taskforce veteran, and I can only express on behalf of this Council our hope that that organisation doesn't die with his vision, and that they can continue to partner with both national parks and other organisations and Council, where appropriate, to continue to preserve and enhance the history and presentation of the Skyville site. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler. Thanks

Mr. Mayor. I'll speak very briefly to Mr. Wild or Mr . Wild's military service. We know him now in his retired civilian role. I was a member of the same sergeant's mess as Warrant Officer Wild in the late 90s at Singleton. In order to be a training warrant officer, you have to be a very particular character of person. To get to the ranks of senior NCO and particularly warrant officer, you have to demonstrate a serious level of self-discipline, particularly mental discipline. By the time most people make it to senior NCO, they are well past their physical prime and nearly all the jobs that you do hurt. In order to do that in front of soldiers much younger and therefore far less broken than you, you require some serious mental toughness to stick it out.

To do that with special forces training is another level again. To be a training warrant officer is then to set aside your own personal ambitions and adopt an ethos of passing on your skills so that the people that you train will not just be as good as you, but will hopefully be much better than you. And that takes a really special character of person. Warrant Officer Wild clearly was that character of person, and that certainly shows up in what he's achieved. At Skyville, I've stayed in the 119 barracks a number of times. I've never seen a bird lice infestation quite like that that we caught from the one. 19 barracks. I'm pretty sure that Skyville, that the conditions at Skyville were nothing like the conditions at 119, which was subsequently condemned and bulldozed for housing.

But he certainly had plenty of training in dealing with some pretty ordinary spaces. So to see his triumph at Skyville, I think probably isn't out of character. Thank you. Yeah

Thank you, Councillors.

With a military tradition, Councillors, I'd offer Lest We Forget. Lest We Forget. I'll put the motion, Councillors, for the condolence motion. Those in favour?

Those against? It's unanimous. Thank you, Councillors. The next item we have, Councillors, is the Sister City. Mayoral minute on page, on page 11.

I move the Mayoral minute, Councillors. I won't read it out other than page 13, sorry, Councillors. I won't read it out other than to say the Sister City Association is something that Council established back in '84, I think it was, '83, and it's been a successful program of Council ever since. We had students in this afternoon, as I think all of you were here when they were here, that— Have either been over, or going over, or staying most recently, the three councillors who represent that committee, thank you: Councillor Linebucket, Councillor Ryan and Councillor Creed. We do lots of things in our community, and I guess most of the things we do is to set a better standard for the future. And indeed, those students are our future. The opportunities they will have, and have had, and will offer, is something that very few of us get to enjoy. So, councillors, I commend the mayoral minute.

Any further discussion? Councillor Linebucket. Thank you,

Mr Mayor. Just briefly, I'd just like to add to thank the wonderful committee, their volunteers, who put in a huge amount of work. We saw tonight how happy the children were engaging with each other and, of course, being able to offer a cultural exchange benefits both the children that go, the children that host, but also the wider school communities where these children go into, and of course local... local... have I got a bit of feedback or something? Yes, a

Little bit tonight

Councillor. Yeah. Oh, I've had it all night. I feel like I should sing you all a song. I think that it is a wonderful thing, and I was happy that we had them here tonight. And I know that some of us, Councillor Ryan, Councillor Creed, I'm not sure of you are, Mr Mayor, and myself, will be attending some of their functions or their excursions. We're taking them for the bell ringing, I think, on Friday, so listen out for us, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for the mayoral minute

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just want to echo Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and I'm sure Councillor Ryan would agree, and thank the volunteers on the committee. The work that, since I've come on this committee, the work that I have seen these volunteers do is an insane amount of work. And for a small committee, like , it's extensive, the amount of stuff and the amount of hours that they put in for these kids. Watching these kids go overseas and then come back on this program, the difference in them when they come back is not to be understated. Like, these young kids that have been selected, you know, gives me hope for the future for our community. But, you know, we've got a welcome function tomorrow night.

We've got the bush dance on Friday night. I'm doing the Blue Mountains trip and then the Sydney Zoo trip with some of the committee members and all the kids. Like, by the end of the couple of weeks, the few weeks that these guys are here, there's a remarkable difference in the way that they have , the way that, just even just their outgoingness. And I have to admit, I'm looking forward to the bonfire too. So, yeah, thank you for councillors and council staff for the support of the community because it is important. Thank you

Councillor. Councillor Ryan. Yeah, well, thank you to everyone, Councillor Creed and Councillor Lyons-Buckett, and the effort that's put in by these committee people. There's one lady, or two people I'd like to call out, Phil Turtle. He's just stepped down as president for I just can't remember how many years, but I don't know what he was thinking. He's taken up the job of secretary now. And the secretary, Karen Holman, she was actually participated in this back in the early stages and has retired as the committee secretary after 34 years of doing it. And how many young people's lives did she change? Probably me looking at it through different eyes. I just look at this program as laying the foundations for leaders of our community.

We're giving them the opportunity not just to go over there and see how the rest of the world that they visit operates, but to come back here and to be leaders, to be training. This is their foundation. This is where we start to get our leaders from. And they are, to a degree, expected to continue on with the Sister City program and bring people forward. And I think that's a great thing. It's giving them the opportunity to do this. A lot of times the young people don't have these opportunities, and this is giving it to them. And I hope council and the staff are supporting it so well. There's some matters that we have to evolve because the world's evolving, and our committee's got to evolve.

And I thank the staff for their effort in dealing with this. It's great that we can do this, and the committee, thank them for being able to come along and speak frankly with them and get any of these issues out in the open so we can solve them. And once again, thank you. The leaders who started this back in the years gone by, I know Bruce Brown, there was another lady there, Jean, and there was someone else before her. That was true wisdom to set this in place, and I hope that our council has opportunities to do these sort of things too. So thank you very much. Thank you, Councillor. Councillor. Thanks

Mr Mayor. Just further to Councillor Ryan's comments about the evolving program, I'd really welcome a discussion coming back to Council, Councillors, about where we can go with this program to perhaps expand it, to make it available to more kids. I notice this year that all the students involved in the exchange come from public schools. I think that's really encouraging, but I don't want this to be a program that's only open to kids who think they can afford it and therefore self-select into it. And of course then other kids will self-select out of it as well if they think that it isn't something that they may potentially afford. It is, as other councillors have said, a really fantastic opportunity for young people.

It's a short enough time period that it's not overwhelming, like, say, a Rotary exchange that goes for six or 12 months. It does have a fantastic track record of long-term associations between both the families and host families and the students, but also the broader sister cities community. Many of the students or their parents go on to be committee members and to work with putting on events and things for the community. I think we also need to really thank the host families. It's a lot to take someone else's kid into your house for a number of weeks, to take them out, and we were chatting to one of the mums today who wondered if she hadn't perhaps bitten off more than she could chew or did question a couple of her life choices throughout the day as...

As she watched the kids really extend themselves, you can be really quite blasé about your own kids, but it's much harder to look at someone else's kids and think, am I going to get them home in one piece? What on earth have I done? We've all been there, but they're big decisions when the kid has come from the other side of the world. I also want to mention the young woman who addressed us before the opening of the council meeting. All three speakers were excellent, but I want to make particular mention of the young woman from Kyotamba who spoke to us in English, not her native language, the evening after getting off a plane early this morning. Really quite an extraordinary—yeah, she got off the plane this morning from Japan, addressed us this evening in English.

I think I'd be under the table asleep. She managed to speak in another language entirely. Fantastic effort, and that shows really the calibre of student that this program attracts, but also the opportunity that this then affords the Hawkesbury in terms of cultural exchange and the exchange for our own students as well. I've been to the before and after speeches that our kids give before they go. The evolution of them just in that month is really quite wonderful to watch. They have so much more confidence and capacity. As a result, this is a program that we should be really proud of.

Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, Councillor, I'll just add to, we've been lucky enough all the years it's been operating, and I've seen most of them, that we've had passionate councillors involved. So issues that do arise from time to time, the conduit between that organisation, the councillors and council staff have always been excellent. And it sounds pretty simple, and we talk about it with joy and pride, but to stay in someone else's house is not— Like going and staying at your brother's place or your sister's place or your mum and dad's. The committee go and interview the people's place that these students stay at. They go through the vigorous child protection methods you've got to go through these days.

They do that a couple of times a year, both coming and going. It's done overseas in relation. They're responsible for someone else's child going halfway around the world. It's a big deal. And over the years, we've had little to no issues, other than some younger students being a little bit zealous on what time they should be home of a night, is about the limit of it. So it's an exercise and a project that's worthy of council support. And as Councillor Wheeler said, it's a shame that it's only a very few of our community that get the opportunity to enact in such a good project. No further debate, Councillors? I'll put the motion. Those in favour? Against? It's carried unanimously. Thank you.

Okay.

The exception reports in block. There is 10.3.1. No, that's excluded. Councillor Feigl, I think is it, that's got a... I think it's Councillor Jarrett. Yeah , we'll leave that one out, Councillor. We'll come to that. In block we'll go 10.3.4, 10. 4.1, 10.4.2, 10.4.5 and 11.1.1.

In 11.1.1, Councillor,

We'll exclude that, Councillor. Sorry,

Didn't I include that one?

It was 10.3.2 as well, Councillors.

Do you have to— Oh no, I was just happy to move them.

It has been moved. If no one wishes to speak against it, I'll put the motion. Those in favour?

Those

Against? It's carried. Councillors

Zimbrogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Weigel, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion is carried.

Planning proposals, we're looking at 10.1.1. Mr Mayor, I'll move. We have two declarations of interest.

Councillors, do you wish to declare?

10.1.1.

Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I have a less than significant pecuniary interest in this. I live in the area of Pitt Town, and I'm a life member in the Pitt Town Progress Association. At some stage, I had some correspondence with the applicant.

Thank you. Councillor Djuric, you had an interest in that matter?

None on that matter.

Was there another councillor? No. Okay. Thank you. I'd like

To move the recommendation, Mr Mayor.

Mr Mayor, I'd just like to clarify something. I said pecuniary. I should have said less than significant non-pecuniary interest.

Thank you, Councillor. And you're staying in Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Zamprogno. I move the recommendation.

Thank you, Councillor.

Seconder?

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. This is an issue that just refuses to die. This comes back to my recollection strongly because a proposal at one of these two sites was one of the very first things that I ever dealt with when I was first elected to Council in late 2016. And it bears to remember what the history. The applicant has tried to get some kind of development up on this sensitive ecological site for at least 10 years. He put an illegal fence around that site, mowed one end of it mercilessly so that the bushland was unable to regenerate, was never censured for the erection of that illegal fence. Was defeated in this chamber pretty comprehensively in 2016, seven votes to four. Then it went to the Sydney West Planning Panel on the 9th of March 2017, where they said not to proceed.

And it's come back, and it's come back, and it's come back. And it's worth remembering, to kind of cut to the end of this story now, is that when it came to us in February of this year, we in this chamber voted unanimously to knock it back, unanimously. Only Councillor Kotlash was absent. And the rest of us, we said this is still not appropriate. But the applicant is welcome, in terms of the way we resolved, to come back to us with additional information that will convince us of the merits. They've had that opportunity to do so, and they've come back to us again, and the staff are still advising us to knock it back. So the applicant has not done what we have invited them to do patiently for the better part of a decade to try and convince us that this has some kind of objective merit.

And frankly, the applicant has been unable to do so. And I would invite my colleagues to simply be consistent with the way they voted in February and to say nothing has changed. If you knocked it back unanimously in February, I think we need to do the same tonight. Thank you, Councillor. Further discussion, Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank

You, Mr Mayor. I agree with the recommendation. I support the motion. As noted in the report, there's insufficient money for building the boat ramp. $120,000 does not go very far. And the report outlines, as Councillor Zamprogno just said, the opportunities for the developer to have, you know, made various commitments and to have addressed the various requests from the planning panel and from the last meeting, from the report at the last meeting. The applicant does not seem willing to deliver the infrastructure, which was, of course, part of the original Part 3A application in 2006. It's inconsistent with the planning panel advice and therefore not a satisfactory outcome for a proposal. The lack of preparedness to hand over the land, having had any remediation, is also another issue.

That means that Council, therefore, would be exposed to a financial risk and no apparent benefit to the community arising from how the applicant has responded to any of the issues around the management of the land or the ongoing management of the land. The land is outside of the original development footprint. The proposal offers no benefits and, in fact, presents a financial risk and other risks to Council, with no guarantee of infrastructure delivery for the Pitt Town community that they have been promised for so long. So the original 2006 concept plan included the boat trailer parking, upgrading Punt Road, riverside access, etcetera, as part of the overall development. In 2016, I think it was, there was a DA approved for the boat trailer parking and Punt Road upgrade to be completed by the proponent, with a completion date set for September 2016.

But in 2017, the New South Wales Government amended the 2006 agreement, which essentially released the developer from delivering some of the infrastructure projects which were promised under the original agreement. So this is something that has been circling around for a long time. To sum it up, basically, we won't have money for the boat ramp, and the proposal does not— Benefit the community in any way. So I think the lack of willingness to work for a solution around this is what defeats this. I didn't support it before, and I don't support it now. I thank the staff for the report that has been put forward, explaining the very issues and the responses that were received. And I do look forward to hearing either seeing more happen around the Pitt Town evacuation routes and various other things as a separate issue to this.

But this planning proposal, an increase of lots in an area where there's sensitive environmental land and which is outside of the scope of the original development, I just think it has no basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. I've got a question of the staff, first, Councillor. In relation to the costs, the voluntary cost, that includes both work being done with the environmental area, plus the boat ramp and associated structures with that. The contribution per lot, what's the total cost per lot to the developer, and is that consistent with other blocks of the same size, money-wise, in the same location?

Thank you, Mr Mayor. So the proposed voluntary planning agreement is for a contribution of $30,000 per lot. Which is actually less than the current indexed contribution from the 7-11 plan. And

Does that include the contribution to the management of the land that was proposed?

So the $30,000 per lot is proposed to be put towards the infrastructure for the boat ramp, not for the management of the environmental land. The proposal is to dedicate the land to Council at no cost, but with no dollar funding to ongoing maintenance and upkeep.

Yeah, thanks for that. I just wanted to clarify whether or not there was a hardship , I suppose, in relation to the development. This has been talked about for some time and there hasn't been a good resolve. The boat ramp per se is not on the books. We talk about it, but it's not. It was taken off by the minister some years ago, and unless we put it back on as some approval down the track, it's been taken off any agreements in the past. And it just seems that we're playing a little bit of catch-up. If we have development out there, we need some catch-up. We're a long way behind, but I just think we need to be fair about it. I support the motion. I don't suppose support the application as it stands. Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. You've probably just answered my question. When I was doing

My research into the motion on a Central River Management Authority, I revisited the coastal management plan. And on page—this came to us on the 2nd of October last year—on page 141, one of the strategy seven was for the Punt Road public boat ramp upgrade feasibility study. And I thought, okay. So that's, I guess, if that is off the table for this development, this is why it's been put as needing to be done by us. Okay, Councillor Is that the case?

I just clarify, the boat ramp— Yeah, it

Says— The boat

Ramp itself was taken off the books by the minister. The roadway and other associated access to the river was not. That was part of the program. I'd be happy for the staff to

Clarify. Well, if you just let me continue, I might be able to explain why I was confused, because it said the action for the description, the boat ramp at Punt Road, Pitt Town, and the access road leading to it are in relatively poor condition and currently present challenges for safe launching and retrieval, particularly due to shallow water depths. These constraints limit usability and pose safety risks. This action involves— Investigation into the feasibility of upgrading the boat ramp and access road to improve safety and usability for both powered and non-powered vessels. The feasibility assessment will consider the dynamic nature of the foreshore, the need for all tides and partial tide access, the ramp gradient, the depth to avoid vehicles going into the river too far, compliance with the New South Wales Transport for New South Wales boat ramp facility guidelines.

So it says, subject to outcomes of the investigation, detailed designs and resurfacing works may be undertaken. This action may be eligible for external funding under the Transport for New South Wales Boating Infrastructure Programs. So we are listed as the lead agency. So in my mind, that does underline what you've just said, that this is off the table. So it's interesting that the local planning panel, I thought, put it back on, on the agenda because in their deliberations that they said that they expected this developer to deliver the boat ramp , and that's why I was just trying to figure out there's obviously not two boat ramps at Punter Road. I'm not very familiar with that area . I just think we need to get that clarified.

That was my question. I actually haven't spoken to it. Sorry.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I might refer that question to the Manager of Strategic Planning.

Good, Mr Mayor. So it's our understanding that the Part 3A approval that was originally issued still has the condition relating to provision of a 4.1 metre wide boat ramp with 16 car parking spaces and 14 car trailer parking spaces adjacent to the Hawkesbury River. So it's still a requirement of that approval to deliver that infrastructure

So, I know it was a very long-winded question, Mr Mayor, but that confuses me still.

The information that I've got indicated that it was off the table by the minister at the time. Okay It's been clearly indicated by our staff that it's back on there.

Okay. So there's a couple of questions, and I guess this is for— these can be taken on notice, obviously, because it's about another program. We need to address the CMP, because that clearly isn't going to be something that we're going to be doing if it's back on the table.

And that's an interesting sub-observation of the CMP being a coordinating process.

Speaking to this, I'm not going to support this. I'm supporting the recommendation in the business paper, sorry. It just doesn't seem like this is being

Taken seriously, and my reading of the applicants' motivations and suggestions really fell short of being acceptable. So, yes , well, I guess we're back to where we always have been, to say that it's not acceptable. But I really would like that other—

Issue to be addressed if that's possible. Thank you.

Further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I find the whole boat ramp thing frankly ridiculous. It is now at the point where this is effectively Shrodinger's boat ramp. It is possible for this boat ramp to exist in every planning proposal from 2006 to 2026, and still we don't have a boat ramp.

And even if we did have a boat ramp, we would be up for significant money, not just for the boat ramp, but for the infrastructure that goes with the boat ramp. And I really feel for the people of Pitt Town, particularly those who bought in very early, who paid so much money as development contributions with that development, money that was subsequently handed back to the developer by the Liberal State Government. And that really is where the disgrace of this process truly lies. I frankly will not approve any more land for release in Pitt Town due to flood evacuation concerns. I said that in 2016. I've said it every time a proposal for further subdivision in Pitt Town has come to this council, and I will probably say it again.

I will not put any more people into the Pitt Town flood island. I will not sit in the coroner's office and be asked why I thought that squeezing another five families into Pitt Town was ever a good idea. It is very unlikely that I will ever move off that position.

Councillor Ryan. Thank you, Mr Mayor. As you know, I do live in the area and I have had a lot of history with this issue, going back to about 2008 when it was first kicked off. From my knowledge in relation to the boat ramp, it was the costs of that was transferred just after, I think it's Peter Jackson was our general manager, and while we were waiting for Peter Conroy to come on board, it was transferred across in a variation, a 3A variation, to the Thornton area . Now I don't know what's happened to it since then, but I have asked some council— I put a couple of councillor requests in in relation to who owns the land, or does Council own the land where the boat ramp is going to be, and if they don't, how much will it cost Council to purchase that land, and has that agreement already been made on the cost of that land?

And the people talk of the boat ramp. The boat ramp is the section that goes into the water, the concrete section, and we were informed Craig Johnson was working here. We came out and we put together a submission to Waterways to have the ramp built under a grant there. That didn't go ahead because of a number of reasons, and also because it was not suitable because of the road surface, no parking and all those sort of things. So I think it's a big call to put that in this— Issue at the moment, because all it's going to do is get the people of Pitt Town's backs up again and say, where's our boat ramp? Council's knocking it back, which I believe is not achievable through this. I come to the flood evacuation route.

I continually make inquiries through state government and everywhere I can on what's happening to our flood evacuation route, and I agree with Councillor Kotlash — sorry, Councillor Wheeler — and it was said to me pretty bluntly, if we don't have a good evacuation route, we won't be counting people that get out of Pitt Town if we have a major flood. We will be counting bodies, and that's what it is. And I think most of you, or some of the new staff, may have not have seen the video that I made of it in the last flood. It was pretty telling, the issues that we had getting out of town with semi-trailers coming into town to take the sewerage out because it was overflowing. The amount of people that just didn't know how to get out of town, and it would have only taken a tree to fall over on that flood evacuation route at any section, and I know council's done some really good work on it, but it is still a dangerous thing when it has to be used.

And the video was at night — sorry, it was during the day. This was happening at night. And we can't continue to put people there without giving them the access, the ability to save their lives. That's it. If they go there and think we're going to be able to get out of here in a major flood, they're going to be sadly disappointed. And I've lived there all my life. I noticed that airstrip Road, and I've seen, my wife told me, I've seen 23 floods in my life, and it was the first time I ever saw Airstrip Road go underwater at the time it did, and that was from local water. And we had a real issue with opening the evacuation route that went through the national park, and somehow it just magically opened.

I don't know what happened, how it was opened, but anyway, it was open, and people were able to travel through it. So I think we really have to be serious about how many people we put on this flood island, and if it was a viable thing to have this happen, it would have happened years ago. It's just not viable. It's putting too much pressure on the other ratepayers of the Hawkesbury to have to support this, and no, I won't be supporting it. And I thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Councillor. Any further debate?

Councillors then, [unclear]. Well, I'm gratified to hear that we're all on the same page. Fun fact: the punt that ran between Pitt Town and Wilberforce ran between 1812 and 1921. So effectively that site's been more or less abandoned since about the 1920s.

What I wanted to ask was a question that I should have thought to ask earlier, and through you, Mr Mayor. This comes from a comment that you made to me recently. Is it true to say that there are special engineering challenges in resurrecting a boat ramp at the Punt Road site because of the lay of the riverbed at that location and the variability of the riverbed at that location that would cause— A boat ramp to be more expensive to engineer. Could somebody comment on that? Yeah, you've got it right the first time.

It's a right of reply, Councillor, that's it. Hmm ? You can't ask questions in right of reply.

All right then

Your question's valid, but ask it later. All right then, well, if that's it, I've concluded my remarks. Thank you. Thank you.

Councillors, those in favour?

Against? It's carried. Councillors Zembrogno, Councillor Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Weigel, Reardon, Creed and Sheather, those against the motion's carried, Councillors. Councillors, did you want a break for a couple of minutes? Yes.

Councillors, we'll break for five minutes.

Thank you, Councillors. The next item on the business paper is 10.1.4, slab barns. Councillor Wheeler, you've sought to be brought forward.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll speak in— I'll move the motion. Sorry. I'll second that, Mr Mayor. Oh, I don't know what it is, but

I'll second. I doubt that, Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I just want to commend this motion to the chamber. It's some additional slab barns found in the slab barn study and the first tranche of additional heritage listings. These listings are 15 years overdue. I want to sincerely thank the staff, especially Mr Kearns and Council's senior heritage officer, Mr Reeves, for their commitment and hard work, and also the Heritage Advisory Committee and the listings working group, some members of which have been promoting the need for these listings for more than two decades. I'm really proud to chair the committee that's finally got to this point. Listing these items is is a key step to protecting them and in doing so protecting the character of the Hawkesbury that we depend on for both our identity, but also for further opportunities like tourism.

It's a really varied and fascinating collection of houses, church, a war memorial, a couple of groups of farm buildings that showcase the character and fabric of the Hawkesbury. Listing these is not an impediment to owners. What it does is open up opportunities for funding, and you'll see in another item, which is the Heritage Committee minutes, the result of that funding for a number of recipients. It allows the owners' commitment to the buildings to be recognised both by Council and by the broader heritage enthusiast community, I suppose. And owners are really quite proud of their heritage-listed buildings. It says that they're worth greater than just what the owners think of them, that they have significance for character and heritage for the entire local community and for the broader community across the state and country.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I was very pleased to note at the last Heritage meeting that some of these are actually being restored, which is great.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Just to carry on from what Councillor Reeden just said, that was very heartening to know that some are being restored. And actually, it's really been interesting to see how, for quite a small sum of money, quite significant structural improvements and improvements can be made that contribute to the protection, which of course this wonderful list and this wonderful amount of work has, you know, outlined the various locations and significance. And also, this is a really good report because it puts into context how the planning proposal fits in with all the various planning priorities and objectives on all the different levels, so the state, the regional and the local levels.

And I think it's a great piece of the historical fabric of the Hawkesbury. I really appreciate it. And it's really heartening to actually read this when around us so often we feel how much we're losing of both our history and also of what, you know, what sort of obstacles in the landscape that we come to know and see, like the slab barns. It's really great to know that they're afforded another level of protection through going through this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, Councillors might recall, I think the year before last, we doubled our budget from 45 to 90,000 to support such projects as this. And it's good to see what's happened within that committee and the opportunities that's been supported by the community to achieve these outcomes. Councillor Ryan.

Yeah, just a quick question, Mr Mayor. In the original barn study there was a section there to develop a tourist handout list to put at the tourist centre in Richmond . I did bring it up last time and I was told no, that this wasn't going to happen. Then I got a note back to say that it was on the council staff's to-do list. Perhaps we could just chase that up for me.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, we'll chase that up. Yep

Any further discussion? Right of reply, Councillor Wheeler.

Not necessary.

Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. The item before us was 10.1.4, those in favour? Those against? It's carried unanimously. Councillor Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons, Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlas, Weigel, Reardon, Creed and Sheather. The motion is carried.

The next item, Councillor, is 10.1.5, stormwater.

Sorry?

10.1.5. Can I have a motion, Councillors?

Anyone? Deputy Mayor.

That was Councillor Veigel.

Any discussion? Those in favour? Against? Carried.

The next item, 10.2.1, Office of Local Government Councillor Conduct Reform. Councillor Lyon-Buckett, Councillor Wheeler. I'll leave

That, Mr Mayor.

That was Councillor Veigel. Councillor Lyons-Buckett.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I find quite a big irony connected with this, that because we cannot have briefings and could not have a briefing around... That are dictated by a fellow code, I found it a little odd that we could have had a briefing and sorted this and given Council direction on a submission, but we're doing it the long way round. I was alerted to just an incorrect wording on our attachment number one to item 10.2.1 by a very diligent member of the community who follows our Council processes, that it says policy statement improving Council accessibility rather than accountability on this document. Very,

Very good, Councillor.

Yes, well, I didn't notice it, an astute member of the public did. Thank you, Mr Mayor, and I shall do as instructed and send in some information to the staff. But just regarding what's before us, there are some elements of improved fairness in these documents. I'm not quite sure it really reduces the weaponisation of the Code of Conduct as a tool, but we would have to see it in action to see how that went. There are a number of areas identified in requiring more detail, and I do agree with those. So I have concerns around the privileges committee that if there's political appointments made, there could be some sort of issue around that of assessing peer behaviour. That could be problematic, but as we haven't got the specific details of how that would play out, we'd need to know more about that.

The other areas that I would be keen to have any more information, if there's any other supporting document that may have come with it, is from clause in the policy statement, clause or provision 6.3 about the self-reporting of conduct in councils. Is this the only information we actually got? Is this it? Like, we've got one paragraph here, or that's it. Yep, okay. Okay, it's very minimalist of the government, but I am very interested in that as a process, which 6.3 is about the undertakings for early resolution, where there can, rather than the performance improvement orders, which the Office of Local Government has the current power to issue, we can, you know, sort of self-refer, I guess the thing is.

And I'm not suggesting we need to, as a council, this is about councillor conduct. So I'd like some more information around that. Also, section 7, which is about the appeals process, I've got a number of issues around that that I would like clarified. And also clause 5.1, oh, that's about the privileges committee. Within the actual code itself, clause 7.5 is quite ambiguous around not being able to discuss the contents of the code of conduct, and not to publish information about a code of conduct until it is determined. So that implies by its wording that once something was determined, then you could publicly disclose it. The case previously having been that it was confidential, even then, unless it was subject to a council meeting, and even then with things around it.

So that's reduced a clause to another thing. So I will send in some information that I've got as requested, and I'm happy to have the general manager delegated to complete that process. But, Mr Mayor, I'm just putting on the public record, in case Mr Honig is watching us tonight, that I'm sure he

Is

But I would just like to tell him that I would be just happy if he could allow us to have briefings on matters such as a code of conduct, which is instrumental in how we operate and how we, you know, have standards met to enable us to carry out our functions. Thank you, Mr Honig.

Thank you, Councillor. Well spoken.

Any further debate?

Councillor. I've got a

Question on it. Based on that, I don't know if we're wasting our time, but is it appropriate if we did write a letter back to the Minister and suggest that maybe we should have briefings on this again? Or is it just, you know, he's just—he's blinkered and he doesn't want to, and deaf, or the above even?

We've been asked, Councillor, never think that you don't make a difference. The comments that Councillor Lyons-Buckett made and the Office of Local Government, everyone's on the same page in relation to getting better outcomes with these matters, and it has been discussed in many places. I just hope at the end of the day that we can come to some understanding about how to deal with some of the issues that come before us. Part of the problem is that a lot of issues do come before us from time to time, and they can come from anywhere. The different panels that's been proposed now, they're going to deal with that. That's, I think, fraught with political disaster. I really do. And I don't know how we deal with that, but I guess if we don't play up, we'll never find out.

Councillor Creed. Thank you, Mr Mayor. I just, I want to echo Councillor Lyons-Buckett's comments about the privileges committee. I think this is setting a very bad precedent with how to deal with this, that it is, it could end up being political or... I just , yeah, I think this is a really bad path to go down for this particular thing. So, completely echo Councillor Lyons-Buckett's comments on that. Yeah, thanks, Councillor. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. If possible, through you, could I ask Councillor Creed if he knows whether Local Government New South Wales, what Local Government New South Wales position on this is, and whether they've had any discussions with the Minister?

Thank you, Councillor.

Councillor Creed. So I have to, and this is something that fellow councillors on the board have been in discussions with the staff about. There are certain things that we're allowed to discuss in the board meetings that we can't discuss outside. I know that the President, Darcy Byrne, the Mayor from Inner West, he's been in constant discussions, same with the CEO, David Reynolds. We're still waiting on an update. We do have a board meeting next week that I'm sure this again will come up. We have been quite, I wouldn't say... Forceful, as in, like, you know, but we have been quite strong in the wording in regards to briefings, and I think the views around this council seem to be the view around LG New South Wales when it came to the changes.

But they are trying to work constructively with the minister and the government. The Office of Local Government, I think there has been some good advice from them to the minister. It just depends on whether the minister will actually listen to the OLG or LG New South Wales or other bodies when, especially when it comes to briefings. Like, I think most councils have been pretty strong on that.

Thank you, Councillor. I just make comment, and for your contribution on that organisation.

Councillor Wheeler.

Thank you. Perhaps the minister will listen to Councillor Lyons-Buckett this evening. Yeah, we can all live in hope. I think there's good and bad in this document. I'm not sure that it achieves what the minister claimed he was going to achieve in his grand spiel to the Legislative Council. If 7.5 infers that you can speak to the findings of a code of conduct after the investigation has concluded, I think that's welcome. One of the problems with codes of conduct complaints as they exist now is that they really have excellent potential to be used as gag orders on the councillors that they are put in on, rendering us unable to speak about the complaint or, in many cases, about the issue that's under investigation as well.

And I think that's really problematic. I agree that a panel of our peers is an improvement on the current system of using what appears to be largely former police officers who have absolutely no understanding of what it's like, what the responsibilities or the demands are of elected representatives, particularly local government elected representatives. I'm not casting aspersions on former police officers. I'm just saying that with the exception of Councillor Ryan, they probably have no understanding of the demands of local government. I'm glad I've made that clear. Thank you. I'm not sure, though, how that group of peers will be appointed, and I think therein lies the problem. I'm pleased to see that it now includes councillors as well as mayors.

I think the minister's first foray into this council of peers was to just include mayors, and I think that's really politically loaded. But I don't know how he's going to select experienced councillors and what experience is actually after, coming from the extreme left of politics, I suspect very few of my colleagues will be chosen for the panel. I think the triage system largely remains pretty opaque at this stage, but I do think it has merit for weeding out minor or vexatious complaints. I think there's a real difficulty, I think, for general managers under the current system, which makes it particularly ludicrous when you consider that the general manager is the employee of council to then be responsible for triaging and referring on, deciding whether to refer on or not, code of conduct complaints about the councillors who actually employ them.

I think that's really problematic. But I think it's also a bit politically loaded when those complaints come in, and general managers quite reasonably feel that they need to refer it on to an external reviewer in order to satisfy the perception of that complaint being fairly handled. So hopefully, having the triaging being done by an Office of Local Government monitored process will cut out some of that space. The threat of a surcharge seems to apply only to councillors in the current wording, and that seems to infer that vexatious complaints are made only by councillors. It's very clear in my experience that that isn't the case. It's very nice to see natural justice mentioned as a principle because in my experience this has been sadly lacking in the Code of Conduct to date, and I can cite several examples where natural justice has been very sadly lacking in the treatment of councillors.

I've got big concerns about the idea of unsatisfactory behaviour. I think that's very subjective. I think it's particularly determined by people's particular value system, and that's very hard to judge and very hard to then determine where that line sits. I think timeframes are needed. It's very stressful to have matters drag on, especially when Code of Conduct complaints are used as gag orders. And I think it's very opaque currently regarding costings, and that's lovely for the Office of Local Government, but that's not good at all for the councils who will end up paying these bills. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Any further discussion?

Councillor Lyons-Buckett, right of reply.

Not necessary, thank you.

The matter before us is 10.2.1, Office of Local Government. Those in favour?

Against? It's carried unanimously. Councillor Zamprogno, Weir, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion is carried. The next item is 10.3.1. Councillor—

Mr Mayor, I have a pecuniary interest in this matter, in that I am a financial member of a group seeking funding, and I'll be leaving the room. Thank

You Councillor.

The matter before us, Councillors, 10.3.1, Community Sponsorship Program. Someone like to move that way? Councillor Veigel. I'll second it, Mr Mayor. And Councillor Creed.

Any discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Just very quickly, it's a shame to see Hearts not funded. I think funding for performing arts groups is quite difficult to get, and can I suggest if they are watching at home that they look at their community outcomes and the specific inclusion strategies available to them and reapply. Thanks.

Yeah, Councillors, from time to time these issues come up along these lines, and we can discuss it with the staff, put recommendations in, requests in, sorry, or put motions up where we can have Council, our staff reassess some of those. Quite often there's some that miss out that are probably very deserving, but they just don't fit the criteria we've set. There's a couple of people approached me that I felt very similar, that how could we miss them, but they don't fit the criteria as we've got it set. So, and our staff, they deal with these people all the time. They speak to them on the phone, they understand them, whatever, but they've got to give them a response that it doesn't fit a criteria where they might very well know, even that might happen very often, but they've probably got a good rationale on how to fix some of those problems. So to bring it up is not out of place.

Mr Mayor, sorry, I'll just comment on that. If we could have that come back to us to review again, potentially with being able to have some specific things for specific sectors, such as the arts and cultural sector.

Take it on board, Councillor.

Any further discussion? Councillor Veigel. Sorry. Sorry

Councillor.

He thought I was Councillor Veigel . Right.

Councillor Kotlash, you're in.

Sorry, I just want to say that with this process we have, and we've got categories and we've got a scoring system and a matrix , if the outcomes aren't what we want, we need to change the scoring and the matrix. You don't use the same matrix and then say, Oh, they missed out. Sorry, we do this all the time and I don't know whether it drives the staff crackers, but it would drive me crackers because we have that scoring system and that matrix because this is really hard to do. We have too many people wanting us to support them, and we have to have some system. Where somebody misses out, that's just, I mean, I know, I think hearts are brilliant, but, you know, if they don't meet the criteria, let's have a discussion about changing the scoring or the criteria if we've missed something.

But if we're still happy with that criteria, we just have to stick with that, and then they have to, you know, they have to either do something differently or change the way that they, you know, are able to convince us that they have whatever we're asking them for. Just have to say that because we really need to have solid processes to be fair to everyone. That's really important. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. As per Council policy, we said we might be able to have that in some sort of workshop or something. I'll speak to the staff about how we deal with Councillor Buckett's lines, Buckett's request.

Any further discussion? Councillor Veigel, right of reply.

Not necessary, Mr Mayor.

Thank you, Councillors. The matter before us is 10.3.1, Community Sponsorship Program. Those in favour? Those against? It's carried unanimously, with the absence of Councillor Durek. Those who voted in favour were Councillor Brogden, we all, Lyons, Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed and Sheather. The motion is carried.

Councillor Veigel, would you like to grab Councillor Durek? Thank

You, Councillors

Councillor, so the next item is 10.4.3, draft naming of roads and place policy. Councillor Wheeler, you asked that to be—

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Look, I'll move the recommendation in the business paper.

Thank you. Do I have a seconder? Very .

But I do want to raise that I would like to see a change made in the policy where it talks about the consultation. It still doesn't do enough to ensure that we don't end up naming something after somebody who is palatable to a particular group and unpalatable to another group. So I will again refer everyone to what happened in the Hills, where someone who had run an Aboriginal mission site in the Hills had a road named after him and was later, as part of the Royal Commission, exposed as being extremely abusive and a paedophile with the children who lived on that mission. It took decades for the survivors to get that road name changed. You stop this by consulting not just with the group as this policy lays out.

So this policy says that if it's a military issue, we'll consult with military groups. If it's a First Nations issue, we'll consult with First Nations groups. If it's a heritage thing, we'll talk to the heritage people. You have to talk to all the people, because the people who've put the person forward, who thinks that they're a good person, aren't going to tell you about the other stuff. So it's not enough to just consult within that silo of people. You have to ask across the groups, and we most particularly have to ask the people who are the most vulnerable and the most disadvantaged. That is frequently First Nations people, but it also means that we need to talk to perhaps women's organisations or LGBTI organisations or other organisations across spaces so that we aren't siloing this information, and we therefore don't end up with a situation where survivor groups particularly, or other people who can see the other side of the person that we're holding up as exemplary and worthy of having something named after them as potentially problematic

Down the track. I know that we avoid naming after people for that very reason, but when we do, we have to get it right, and we don't get that right by consulting in a silo. That's the end of my rant. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. If we adopt that, none of us will ever get a road named after us.

I don't think that's a bad thing, Mr Mayor.

Any further debate, Councillors?

Councillor Wheeler. Right of reply? No, not necessarily Thank you, Councillor Wheeler. The matter before us is 10.4.3, the naming of roads and place policy. Those in favour?

Against? That's carried unanimously, Councillors. Then Brogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion's carried, Councillors.

The next item, Councillors, is 10.4.4. Councillor Lyons-Buckett. I'll

Move that, Mr Mayor.

Seconder. Councillor Reardon.

And I just wanted to speak briefly to that, Mr Mayor. I really welcome this. I think I like how it's set out, how it's explaining and how it's sort of tidying up and explaining whether something is redundant because legislation or procedure or alternate policy has taken over it, so we have a full understanding of it. I really agree with getting rid of things that have no practical use. And I do particularly appreciate the risk explanation, which, of course, is exactly what happens out in the community where we have people draw on an outdated policy, perhaps, and they use that to try and justify something because, of course, they don't have the knowledge that something may have superseded it.

And it's very timely and very good that we have this in place. I did just have two questions about two things in there, and one was about the caravan parks. I know, is that all that is covered under a SEP now, or can someone tell me that? Thank you

Yeah, the caravan park policy.

I'll take that on notice. Okay. Yeah, I just wonder, I mean, I can understand. It says about following the 2028 local government election, Council will inquire into the need for a new local policy. I know we had various changes around caravan parks post-flooding, etc., and various things like that. The other one was around the smoke-free workplace policy, which I'm assuming that the workplace is smoke-free. We had a—there was an initiative, you would have been on Council, I think then, Mr Mayor, a policy which was quite groundbreaking at the time about any smoking at sporting fixtures.

Yep.

Is that still a thing?

It's on posters on every sporting ground. I don't know what our policy

Is. I know it is, but is it ever enforced or anything? I'm just interested. I know it was quite a thing. I remember when they stopped it at netball and it was a much cleaner air for people to play netball in. But I know it's governed now by the Act, etc., but—

I'll ask the GM, but it also says that he's going to get a fine if he gets smoked and then he catches you.

Okay, well fair enough. I'm not at a lot

Of... I'll ask you to respond to his financial income through— Through you,

Mr Mayor. We'll have to take that on notice, Councillor.

Well, I think you probably, you know, it's a long time ago. You may not have heard of it. But thank you for that. Thank you for whoever has done this wonderful report. It's definitely something that I'm pleased to see. Thank you.

Councillor Creed. Thanks, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to ask a question through you to probably the general manager. How often do we do these reviews? Is it once 12 months, once every five years? They vary. I'll refer that to the Director Corporate Services. I thought it might have gone to him.

So look, I think probably the last review of this was probably about five or six years ago. Okay. But there's now a program being developed where they'll be reviewed on a more regular basis, and you'll see similar reports come up to Council on a more regular basis around rescinding certain policies that are no longer relevant.

No, that's good. Thank you. It's really good. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Councillor. Just to make a comment, I spoke to the planners the other day about it. Every decision we make here adds pages to documents. We never take them out. And to write drafts on things, or the comment that Councillor Lyons-Buckett made about having old documents is really bad. If we don't use them, get rid of them if they're not appropriate. Then we change them. And so to review policies and chuck out the ones that aren't required or aren't needed or out of date or whatever the case is, is good business practice, and everyone's up to speed with the ones that are, as they should be. So it's the first time that I've seen it. It may have happened some years ago, but governments, including ours, is not ones that throw away stuff. So, but to see stuff like this, I think it's good value. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Look, I think it's— some of these did give me a bit of a laugh, I have to say. The smoke-free workplace policy. I mean, look, the general manager may not remember what it was like to walk into a workplace, because he's too young to walk into a workplace where the smoke hung from the ceiling to your knees and you sort of swum in. And it just— I can remember my CO when I was a young corporal refusing to implement the smoke-free workplace policy from the state government and saying that our regimental officers would remain smoke-filled. And it was a joyous workplace indeed. But there are some things here that we haven't followed, and we need to acknowledge that. Our city, our future is the rural rezoning policy.

The policy has no practical use. It doesn't have any practical use anymore because it's been superseded. But I wonder if we ever followed it to start with. You know, the fragmentation of land is to be minimised. Tree coverage is to be retained or enhanced. Consolidation within and on land contiguous with existing towns and villages is preferred. Community title used to conserve environmental features and maintain agricultural land. I'm not sure when we used this policy, but I can't recall subdivision that actually has followed that in the LGA. So I think this is a nice con-marring of the policy suite. I'm a bit of a policy wonk. I like to have a look at other councils' policies. I have a couple of pet— Councils that I go to, if I want to adapt a policy, or I think we could adapt a policy, ours has been a bit cluttered.

Some of these policies don't serve a purpose. They certainly don't bring us joy, and I think it's good that we're getting rid of some of them.

There's one that may have been superseded by the last Council in the past, and it was Women of the Night policy, I think it was, from memory. I don't know whether that's been used to develop a planning policy these days, but it's probably one that needs reviewing. Councillor Collins.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. I'm a bit of a sucker for policy myself, and I was looking at— The one that said the Windsor Mall policy, and that's dated 10th of November 2020, and I was just wondering whether, because of the Liveability Project, is that something that's on our radar to look at? I mean, it's not on our list.

I just, I mean, I'm just interested in how you chose that

Yeah, the Windsor Mall policy covers a lot of things, Council. I'll get the General Manager to cover those things.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, the Windsor Mall policy is currently being reviewed by staff, and we expect that that will come up before Council in the coming months.

Oh, great. Okay. So there's no use me going through all these quirky ones like emergency helicopter landing on Council land policy, you know?

That's

Nice of us to—

No

No, it's just because it's 10th of May 1998, and I'm thinking, geez, I wonder if we've got more. I don't know. It's, I just find that really, you know.

We had trouble with helicopters in 1998, Councillor, I'd go. Right, okay. Similar with balloons and other—

Yes, that's the other one, but I won't go on. Thank you. That's great. Thank you.

Any further discussion, Councillors? Councillor Lyons-Bucket.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. What a great opportunity. So I can tell you that also we could have a men of the night policy as well, but I do hope that sex workers are adequately covered by appropriate regulations and legislation, and we don't need such a policy. But thank you for that. There's no need to say much more, although Councillor Wheeler did touch on really, you know, what good's a policy if we don't really follow it? And also I would think if in the future we have interim policies, they should probably have a time frame on them or a defined ending anyway. But thank you again for that work.

I think that that's the intent of what this is all about, Councillor.

Councillors, the motion before you is 10.4.4. Those in favour?

Those against? The motion is carried. The motion is supported by Councillor Zampogna, Will, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigl, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion is carried. The next item we've got

Is 11.1.1, the transport forum. Councillor, you've got— Mr Mayor,

I have a pecuniary interest in this matter in that I am a financial member of a group seeking approval on a matter in this item, and I'll be leaving the room. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor.

Do I have a mover for motion 11.1.1? I'll move it. Councillor Reardon and Councillor Creed .

Is there any discussion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. The last meeting really only had the staff there. Does that satisfy our statutory requirements? I know this is a statutory committee. Is it okay for us to just be talking amongst ourselves?

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, that's correct. There's no quorum or minimum representation required to constitute a meeting of the Local Traffic Forum.

Okay, thanks. But it does highlight another issue that I think we've got with our councillor representation, is that we've got a couple of committees that only have a single councillor on them. The audit committee is the other, and it means that that councillor can't have time off and still meet that requirement, or that Council can't meet the requirement for having representation on that. That's a lack of redundancy in our system that I don't think is acceptable. And it's not acceptable for the councillor involved, that they feel that they have to attend every meeting if it's not possible for them. It's also not acceptable for us as a chamber that we sometimes don't have a representative in that space.

And I think that's been exacerbated further by the lack of capacity to have briefings on something that's come from the staff that's coming to the chamber, which may put an additional responsibility on council representatives to brief other councillors around committee-based matters. Could we check what committees we have that don't have a backup councillor and perhaps have that come back to the chamber and ask to appoint an additional person? I know on heritage we have a surplus, Sister Cities we have a number, there's two or three on the floodplain committee, but we do have a couple of committees where we've only got one councillor, and that's, I don't think that's fair and reasonable. Thanks.

Councillors, just on that, if there are any of those committees as such that the Mayor would probably make himself available, irrespective of who that is, if there's a necessity or that person can't make it, in the interim of that being sorted.

Just in response to that, Mr Mayor, the mayor can't be on the audit committee by law. And secondly, the mayor often has a packed diary. So having someone who can step in to take the pressure off the other councillor, I think is reasonable. I remember being dragged to a WestROC meeting because we were down a person after just having Root Canal and, you know, and Councillor Calvert elbowing me at the time when I had to raise my hand because I was, you know, just drudged to the hilt, frankly. But, you know, they're the things you do.

Yeah, thank you, Mr Mayor. I'll refer to the Director Corporate Services, who can clarify that matter.

Through you, Mr Mayor, we would be putting back our report to Council in September around the council representations on committees. So that would be an opportunity to look those there.

Councillor Green. Thank you, Mr Mayor. Funnily enough, the two committees that Councillor Wheeler just mentioned are the two committees that I'm on. There aren't any other councillors. I can't ask for a substitute because they have to be appointed by the Chamber. In previous terms, many years ago, on the local traffic— it's now the local traffic forum, because another change from the State Government, we used to have two representatives from Council, and usually it was the mayor. And I think the mayor was automatically on the local traffic committee. I think the Director of Corporate Services might be able to— this is going back over a decade— and then it was a councillor rep. So if one wasn't able to attend, there was at least one councillor representative there.

I'm not sure what it used to be for the— because the mayor used to chair the local traffic. A while ago. And then the audit committee, there's only the one councillor representative, even though we actually don't have any votes or we just literally sit there. Yeah, but it would be good to have a backup or just have two people that, you know, it'd be nice.

Thank you.

Councillor. Just a question through you, Mr Mayor. You can take this on notice. Just, could somebody on the staff later, if it's possible, to let me know whether Winterfest had a traffic plan, please? Because the reason being is because there was congestion on the Richmond Road, the Blacktown Road, and a considerable people got stuck on that road on Saturday, so Sunday. So I'm not aware of it. The benchmark is, of course, the show, and we've got a caravan show coming up this weekend, I believe. I'll be interested to see how the traffic copes. But it clearly can't cope on those roads because they're making a right-hand turn into George and also making another right-hand turn into Railway, and it screws the whole area. So is that okay? Can I just put that to staff?

Yeah, Councillor. I'll get it clarified to what triggers traffic management.

And I suggest if you don't and you haven't, maybe they should put a plan in. Yep. Thank you. Appreciate it

Take that on board. I'd just like to echo what Councillor Veigel said. I thoroughly agree, and the idea that I had, faced with the same situation, is that for any event above a certain size at the showground, there should be not only a traffic management plan, but also consideration of the costs and staffing of opening the rear road, the extra gate on Blacktown Richmond Road, the gate that's near the TAFE. Getting that opened and, weather permitting, because it can be a bog, allowing additional points of entry to the large car park. And I know that that's an additional impost on potential hirers of that space, but we're rapidly getting to the point where— We have multiple events through the year that meet that threshold, and the chief gripe that people have is access and congestion. So I very much endorse what Councillor Veigel says, and I'd like that to be taken on notice. Yep.

Isn't it good we've got to talk about too much traffic on weekends to such events to take on board.

Well, you're right, Mr Mayor, but it just proves that the infrastructure has been saturated because a lot of people now live in the area, but also visiting the area, especially on special events such as these. Thank you.

Thank you. Any further discussion? Councillor Reeden, right of reply.

Not needed, Mr Mayor.

Thank you. The item before us is 11.1.1. Those in favour?

Against? It's carried. Councillor Djuric is absent. Those in favour was Councillors Zed Brogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, Cottle, Veigel, Reardon, Creed and Sheather. The motion's carried. Councillor Veigel, would you mind grabbing Councillor Djuric for us, please?

Thank you, Councillors. The next item before us is 11.1.2. Councillor, we'll put you on a string, I think. In this item, I have a less than significant non-pecuniary interest in that I'm a client of a business that operates out of

A mentioned building. And the reason I'm going to stay is that I'm far enough removed from the owner that I don't know who that is. Thanks. Thank you, Councillor.

The motion before us is 11.1.2, Heritage Advisory Committee. Councillor Wheeler.

I'll move the recommendation in the business papers. Second, Mr Mayor.

Everybody can second it.

Councillor Buckett. Lyons-Buckett. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. I'll just, I'll speak to two matters here. Specifically, the New South Wales Heritage Strategy, which the Heritage Committee attempted to have some input to when it was first released by the State Government for comment. There were some changes made to it, but most of our recommendations didn't get a guernsey. No one was terribly surprised. The real concern around the strategy is that it does little to promote the heritage of areas like the Hawkesbury that have very rich, diverse heritage offerings that span from First Nations heritage through First Contact to colonial and subsequent eras of heritage. And the responsibility for maintaining those falls onto the owner of those heritage items. They're usually in private ownership or, in the case of publicly owned, predominantly onto local councils.

There's a real lacking, a lack of recognition of the importance of this heritage, of the funding required to maintain it, and that results in a lack of value and therefore a lack of protection. The funding that's on offer from the state government isn't adequate enough to incentivise owners and/or councils, frankly. What the Heritage Committee would like to do is invite the minister out for a bit of a drive around the Hawkesbury with available members of the Heritage Committee to see what the heritage really looks like in context and to appeal for better and more equitable funding and protection. And as an example, you see the Heritage Assistance Program that this and the previous council have significantly bolstered the funding for.

So $95,000 of funding comes from council and $5,000 worth of funding comes from the state government. Now, that $5,000 is the same for the Hawkesbury as it is for a council with virtually, you know, with a handful of heritage items. And so you can see that the comparison is, it's chalk and cheese. It's been fixed at that $5,000 limit for as long as I can, as I've been involved in the Heritage Committee, which is about 20 years. So it's not adequate. It really needs the level of government with the far better coffers to cough up some money. The other thing that we want to showcase things like the slab barns. At Hawkesbury, what is effectively a Hawkesbury vernacular building, the impacts of our heritage assistance scheme and how we would do so much better should the state government choose to kick the can as well.

The excellent Aboriginal cultural heritage study and the implementation that's now coming out of that, and the greater understanding of the Hawkesbury landscape and the context of the evolution of the Hawkesbury that's come out of that. So a bit of an exercise in heritage in place, I suppose. The other thing that came out of the committee was the excellent work done under the heritage assistance scheme. So Council's senior heritage officer presented the work that's been carried out for the round of the heritage assistance scheme that was paid to slab barn owners. The amount of work that's been done for a very small pool of money is quite amazing. Probably the best example that you can drive past and have an easy look at is on Wilberforce Road, just as you come around the bend past Freeman's Reach Road.

That's a very large barn that's effectively a corn rick. It's a corn drying barn, and that's been stabilised and had significant bits of it either replaced or conserved and restored. Still a lot of work to do, but that building will now reliably stand up for another 50 years at least. So people are really using this money well. It also gives people, recipients of the grants, really appreciate the work. Some of them, we had a lovely letter and a series of photos from one of those recipients in Richmond, where we assisted with the cost of a roof replacement that they simply wouldn't have been able to achieve before. It's that sort of work that will keep that building going. There was also a lengthy musing on the efforts of Sydney Water to destroy our— And a request that the cost of fixing that be pointed out to them, and should they—could they choose not to fill it with bitumen next time, because it's a bit bloody hard to pick out.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor, for that.

Any further discussion?

I just want to say that the Heritage Committee are working towards an education program for the slab barns. Yeah Yeah

Thank you. Any further discussion? Mr Mayor.

I'd just like to take a moment to say that a lot of good work's being done through the Heritage Committee at the moment, particularly through the efforts of our staff. And last month our senior heritage officer, Christopher Reeves, was recognised by Windsor Rotary Club for his dedication to preserving history and was awarded the Pride of Workmanship Award. And it's nice to see staff being recognised out in the community, and I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Christopher for his efforts and congratulating on being recognised, if I could.

Thank

You for that

Councillor. Very

Good.

Any further discussion?

Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. Yes, I too would like to second Councillor Djuric's praise of Christopher Reeves. He's not known as Heritage Superman locally for nothing. He really has an extraordinary talent for engaging with the owners of heritage items, where once the heritage officer was looked upon with fear and loathing, and people would, you know, people would—if the heritage officer took a photo of your house, people would be seen drawing the curtains and running away. Mr Reeves has really managed to impress upon the community that council is here to help and that you can get a really fine service from Council's senior heritage officer and heritage advisor. Christopher is highly skilled and really, really knowledgeable, but also has a lovely manner that seems to be able to get past that barrier with owners who often feel that council is going to interfere in the management of their property until they want to paint their bathroom.

You know, we really provide a much better service than that. He's been such an asset to council, and he's also been remarkably effective at keeping the heritage committee on target with their demands, which has also—I'm not quite sure how he manages that, but he's done it well. I'll just also raise that the revised format of us meeting in the committee room is a definite improvement. People feel that the discussion is more free-flowing. We do have a bit of a problem with acoustics in that space for people who come in online, so if we could consider shifting to the Windsor boardroom, I think that would be appreciated for people who can't come in in person. Thanks. Madam Councillor,

Thank you. That was well replied, councillors. 11.1.2, those in favour?

Against? It's carried unanimously. Councillors, then. Willa Lyons-Buckett, Ryan McMahon, Cottlace, Feigl, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather. The motion's carried.

The next item, councillors, is notice of motion 12.1.1. Councillors, then Brogden.

Councillor Creed

You move the motion as it is,

Councillor. Sorry, I'll move the motion and following the staff's advice, which is on the following page, I would like to remove point three, so it'll just be point one and two.

Thank you for that, Councillor.

Any further discussion?

Councillor Creed. Just quickly, I realise what time it is, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to bring this to Council and the Chamber and hopefully have it as a Council resolution. It's something that I've been on about for about close to 14 months, so not far since the previous election. The reason why I've brought this forward is with everything sort of going up, I wanted to be able to bring in better flexibility for ratepayers to be able to pay their rates. I had a, the reason why it was in my head, I had a lady come up to me during the council election, and she was a lady of mature years, had just gone through a divorce, had to remortgage to essentially buy her ex-husband, so she had a house over her head.

And she was almost in tears because she was struggling to pay the bills and, you know, one of the biggest things for her was the quarterly, you get the bill every quarter, about the same time as you also get your electricity bill and all this sort of stuff, and she was struggling. And I The previous CFO, actually the two previous CFOs, Vanessa and James , we were, I was talking to them about it and I said, do we not have, do we not have like an easy way for them just to be able to go straight up and, you know, plan it and pay it weekly? There's an app, We Have an App, or anything like that. And they said, not really. The only way to do it is they pay it quarterly or you have to apply for financial hardship.

You know, I know a lot of people that would struggle to ask for that sort of help, whether it's pride, whether it's embarrassment. And so I started asking around to other council areas and trying to find out what they do. And I know quite a few across New South Wales now are starting to implement this more flexible payment arrangements and allowing their residents to be able to take control of how they plan their finances so they're able to pay it weekly. If it's, you know, they get paid weekly, they can put a little bit and that just automatically comes out. Same with fortnightly, monthly, rather than have it as a big whack at their, you know, each quarter. So, and the reason why I ended up doing the notice of motion was because we have had staff changes and I just, we've been working, I know the staff had been working towards looking into it.

I just didn't want it to fall by the wayside or, you know, have to start the process over again. At least this way, I just thought if it's a council resolution, no matter who comes in, it's there, they continue on with it and that sort of stuff. It wasn't meant to be a, you know, controversial notice of motion. It was just like, let's just keep looking into this and all that sort of stuff. That's why I appreciated the staff's notes and that's why I took out point three. And I do thank the staff, both former and current, that are still looking into it because I do think it's important that we try and make it easy with everything going up at the moment. I just, I just want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to make it easier.

So thank you. And I hope the chamber supports it. Yeah,

Thank you, Councillor. Yeah, it's a project the staff have been working on, and the removal of the part three that you're talking about might have frustrated the plan that the staff's got. And appreciate that. Thank you very much. Any further debate? Councillor Semprogna.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. As the co-sponsor of this motion, I commend Councillor Creed for bringing this and simply observe that this increasingly appears to be like a best practice kind of thing. We're aware that there are cost of living pressures. Certainly recent changes to rating structures haven't helped with that. And this is one thing we can do to try and balance that ledger, a small thing admittedly, but I became aware of this a year ago when colleague Councillor Hugo Robinson brought this at Canada Bay Council and worded it as simply as we're proposing to word it here, simply to say, look, this is something that Council should work at. I do recognise through the advice that Council staff have provided that it is an operational thing, but it's nice now to know that if this passes, you've got the cover and the endorsement of the Chamber to proceed with this and hopefully roll out with this and to provide ratepayers with an additional degree of flexibility in terms of the way that they manage their payments.

This happens in so many other domains, so in a certain sense we're playing catch-up. Thank you, Councillor.

Any further discussion? Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. I've got an amendment that I've sent through to the staff earlier today. I'll second it, Mr. Mayor.

Councillor Kotlash.

So the purpose of the amendment is really to agree with the original motion, but to go a step further and to add a timeline. I've consulted with the staff about whether that timeline is feasible and been assured that it is. And then also to add an additional point around Council's hardship policy. One of the Council's hardship policy, sorry, one of the requirements of the IPART SRV determination was that Council review its hardship policy. And one of the things that I'd like to see included in that policy is that we examine whether it's feasible to reduce interest rates for ratepayers who meet hardship provisions and who commit to a payment plan. They're the very people who are least likely able to pay the interest rate that Council charges.

If they are required to meet the hardship provisions, then people who don't want to pay their rates are going to take advantage of a lower interest rate. But people who can't pay their rates aren't going to be impacted by a higher than bank interest rate, which is what Council currently charges. So. I think payment plans are an excellent idea. I'm pleased that Councillor Creed and Councillor Zamponio have brought that to the Chamber. We know that the staff have been working on it; it's been discussed in the Chamber previously. I'd like to see a timeline on that so that we can assure people that that will be in place as rates notices are sent out. I think we need a public information campaign so that people do know how to access it without having to ring us up and ask about it.

Councillor Creed is right in that people who are experiencing hardship don't want to have to come begging council where they can possibly avoid it. So that if they can find easily that payment plans are available, either through a council information campaign, a note within the rates notice, or something on council's website, then they're more likely to pay up front without having to be chased and without falling into arrears out of embarrassment or a need to maintain their own dignity. And that's what we should afford to everybody, that ability to deal with council whilst maintaining their own dignity and peace of mind. Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor...

Just a question, Mr Mayor. Is there any idea of what sort of cost, what sort of figure for the software , the investigation and the procurement of the software? What sort of area is that in?

Councillor, can the staff take that on notice? The reason that Councillor... Could drop the further report, as there's businesses associated with council perhaps in the implementation of this, that if matters are discussed, it prohibits some of the opportunity the staff have to move forward on this for the best outcome.

Okay. That's fine. I just meant, are we talking $200, are we talking $40,000? I mean, we're making a decision on something. I just was wondering.

General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor, procuring this type of software will come at a cost, and it'll come at an annual cost to Council. I've got some rough figures around what that would be, but I probably shouldn't go into those at the moment. But there's no budget for that, so we would have to put something up at a quarterly review around that. Thank you.

Councillor Creed. Sorry, can I just ask a question just based on your answer and the timeline and the budget? Because normally I wouldn't have thought this would, unless it was for a confidential session . That's why I didn't want to get too much into the weeds, and that's why I was more than happy to withdraw. The December 2026 timeline, is that going to be an issue when it comes to the budget stuff? Like, are you going to be— I just, I'm, yeah . I'm more than happy to put a timeline on it. But, yeah, given Councillor Lyons-Buckets' question, just then, I was expecting if we were to do anything, it'd end up coming back potentially in the next operational plan and budget that you would have. That's all I'm just wondering about the quick turnaround.

Through you, Mr Mayor, the figure, to give you an idea of the quantum of the figure, even over a kind of a three-year term, we'd still expect it to be under the threshold for tendering. So that, without betraying confidences, that gives you an idea of the scale. The timeline that we've got is reasonable . For what we anticipate the costs are going to be and that we would be able to address that through the first, I believe, the first QBR. If that doesn't prove to be the case, then we would change course effectively and report that back to Council.

Mr Mayor, may I interrupt to get a motion moved to go past 11, please?

You can, Councillor. And we need to defer this matter and deal with the time. Sorry?

I thought we had to deal with it before 11 o'clock ended,

So

Hence it's on the dot. Yeah. So,

And we'll deal with it right now. You might want to move that way, Deputy Mayor. Councillor Creed, second. That we extend the time to deal with the matters before us tonight. Those in favour? Against? It's

Carried. Councillor Creed . Mr Mayor, based on that answer, I'm more than happy to absorb Councillor Wheeler's amendment and have that as the notice of motion, if she's happy with that, if we just take it on.

That was — Councillor Wheeler, that was your amendment. Are you happy to have that incorporated in the motion? Thanks very much.

Sorry, can I just ask a question of clarification? ‘ Absorbed into the motion’ means it's tacked on or it replaces? No, I meant

That— I'll just ask the staff to clarify, General Manager.

Through you, Mr Mayor, I think it's the other way around. I think we need clarity on what's — whether the original movers and seconders of the motion are happy to withdraw and/or to incorporate. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah

That becomes the new wording .

That's a little bit back to front. Are you happy to withdraw? Are you happy to withdraw that this becomes Councillor Crease's motion?

Yeah, yeah, yes would be a good thing, but—

I'm very confused.

We're happy to yield and withdraw our form of words and have your words become the motion. So there's no need for an

Amendment. Then you're withdrawing them— you're withdrawing the original motion, not withdrawing the amendment. The amendment becomes the original motion.

In whose name are you proposing? The

Original move. That's what it does.

If you're withdrawing Councillor Crease, the motion would become Councillor Wheeler's.

Can we just— why don't we just do it as an amendment like we've already got, and we just vote on the amendment?

Well, we can do that too, but—

Do we have an amendment and a motion before us? Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. We're dealing with an amendment, which is Councillor Wheeler's. We don't need to go down this track. And

Lyons-Buckett. Okay. Is there any further debate? Okay, the members before us, which is the not the one on the screen. It's on the screen now, councillors. That's the amendment. Those in favour of the amendment?

It's unanimous. Those against? It's carried. It's Councillor Zembrogno, Councillor Wheeler, Councillor Lyons-Buckett. Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigl, Reardon, Creed, Durick and Sheather. The motion's carried. The amendment's carried. The amendment now becomes the motion.

Is there any discussion on the motion before us tonight? Councillor Wheeler.

No.

Sorry, it is too. I'll get it right. Councillor agreed. Are you happy to speak on the motion? I'll just say

Thank you for people putting this and Councillor Wheeler putting up different wording. I didn't know there was an amendment, but I'm more than happy. I just want to see

Stuff happening, so thank you. Thank you very much. The motion is on the screen before you. Those in favour?

Against the motion's carried. The motion was supported by Councillors Zembrogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigl, Reardon, Creed, Durick and Sheather. Those against? The motion's carried. The next item before us is questions with notice. Excuse me. Councillor Wheeler.

Thanks, Mr Mayor. So I note in response that we anticipate— Gifting the state government $4.8 million to put our own waste on our own land using our own staff, our own vehicles and our own fuel. That is an outstanding deal. Can I

Charge our own people because they're the only ones that use it?

Yeah, exactly. Can I ask, and I'm happy for you to take this on notice, what did we pay in the year 25-26, and what did we get back in return?

Through you, Mr Mayor, I will take that on notice.

Thank you. I thought you might. Could I also take this wonderful opportunity, whilst we're discussing waste, to ask what percentage of rate payers use their hard rubbish collection in the last financial year?

I'd have to take that one on notice, Councillor.

Thank you.

Hello

Councillor Lyons.

Sorry, Mr Mayor. I just wanted to point out as well, with that extremely excessive waste levy payment, at some point and in some format, can we have that figure go to the public so they get some sort of an understanding around that? I'm sure — I know it's in documents and things, but it's quite horrific, really. And if we want to do an advocacy piece around trying to reduce that and pay the same as Blue Mountains, for example, rather than this astronomical amount, it'd be good if our public understood it. Thank you.

We're looking at how we might do that, Councillor, along with some other stuff. Thanks very much.

Good.

Councillor Wheeler, do you have a question? Could I

Ask another tip-related question? Do we have a decontamination point for vehicles as they leave the tip? So a place to hose down, for example.

Through you, Mr Mayor, yes, there's a wheel wash, an activated wheel wash for vehicles to get sprayed underbody and wheels as they leave.

Thank you. That sounds very exciting. I've clearly never had a contaminated vehicle coming out of the tip, but I did attend the remondis tip at Seven Hills, and the smell did indeed follow me all the way home for a couple of days. Thank you.

Okay, councillors, the next item is 14.1.1, questions taken on notice. Questions with notice it was.

Right, so that matter's been dealt with too. Would someone like to move that

14.1.1? We need a decision on it. We need to move it. Councillor Veigel. And— We don't need any questions. No, we don't need anything. No questions. We'll take it on notice. It's got a decision here. Councillor decision. It's always been there. Okay.

We don't need a resolution

On that, councillors. We'll get that changed. There's three items we've got in confidential, councillors. We need a motion to move into confidential. Councillor Veigel. Councillor Reardon. Those in favour?

Those against? The motion is carried unanimously. Councillors Mbrogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan. McBain, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed, and Sheather. Those against? The motion is carried.

General Manager.

All right. Sorry .

And for me to finish my notes. Yeah, right.

Thank you, Councillors. There was three items discussed in confidential, and the General Manager will report on those.

Thank you, Mr Mayor. Whilst in closed session, the Council resolved with respect to item 15.3.1 on the motion of Councillor Reardon, seconded by Councillor Veigel, that Council undertake the compulsory acquisition under sections 186 and 187 of the Local Government Act 1993 of the following areas of land shown within Attachment 3 to this report, being part A, 9.529 square metres within part of 46 Ogden Road, Oakville, part of Lot 252 in Deposited Plan 752050, being proposed Lot 1 in Deposited Plan 1325873, for the purposes of road widening, for the amount detailed in this report under a Section 30 agreement, Land Acquisition Just Terms Compensation Act 1991. Part B, 12.34 square metres within part of 174 Oakville Road, Oakville, being part of Lot 1 in Deposited Plan 318198, being proposed Lot 2 in Deposited Plan 1325873 for the purposes of road widening at no cost to Council.

2. Council approve the making of applications to the Minister for Local Government for the issue of proposed acquisition notices, PANS, under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 with respect to the acquisition of land. 3. Council approve the making of applications to the Governor for the publication of acquisition notices in the New South Wales Government Gazette under the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991 with respect to the acquisition of land. 4. Council bear all costs in association with the process of acquiring the parcels of land. 5. Authority be given for the section 30 agreement, Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act 1991, for the acquisition of part 46 Ogden Road, Oakville and any documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council.

6. 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. 7. The Office of Local Government be provided with a copy of the Council report and Council resolution. And 8. Details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the affected landowner together with the advice that it is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate documentation to put such a resolution into effect has been executed. For the resolution were Councillors Zamprogno, Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett, Ryan, McMahon, Kotlash, Veigel, Reardon, Creed, Djuric and Sheather, and it was moved unanimously.

With respect to Item 15

3.2, whilst in closed session, Council resolved on the motion of Councillor Reardon, seconded by Councillor Kotlash. That one, Council agree to enter into a lease with McGraths Hill Children's Centre Incorporated, incorporated number Y0904529, for the property known as 69 Andrew Thompson Drive, 23 Books Crescent and 25 Books Crescent, McGraths Hill, being lots 733, 734 and 735 in Deposited Plan 260105

As outlined in this report. Two, authority be given for the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties. For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigel, Reardon, Creed, Duric and Sheather. Against the motion were Councillors Wheeler, Lyons-Buckett and Ryan. And the motion was carried. With respect to item 15.3.3, it was resolved whilst in closed session that, and moved on the motion of Councillor Kotlash and seconded by Councillor Reardon, that Council agree to enter into a lease with Wilberforce Early Learning Centre Incorporated, incorporated number Y0482724, for part of the property known as 15 King Road, Wilberforce, being part of lot 7 in section 1 in Deposited Plan 759090, as outlined in this report.

Two, authority be given for the lease and any other documentation in association with this matter to be executed under the seal of Council. Three, details of Council's resolution be conveyed to the proposed lessee together with the advice that Council is not and will not be bound by the terms of its resolution until such time as appropriate legal documentation to put such a resolution into effect has been agreed to and executed by all parties. For the motion were Councillors Zamprogno, McMahon, Kotlash, Feigel, Reed and Creed, Durick and Sheather. Against the motion were Councillors Wheeler, Lyons, Bucket and Ryan. The motion was carried.

Thank you, General Manager. That concludes the meeting tonight. Thanks to the staff and the Council's participation tonight. Good night.