Newcastle Council recently rejected a controversial residential development proposal for the last significant area of bushland between the Blue Gum Hills Regional Park and the Hexham Wetlands – but not without raising questions about the associated planning process.
For many years, a community-based organisation known as the Green Corridor Coalition (GCC) has been advocating conservation of the 26 hectare site with the uninspiring title of 505 Minmi Rd, Fletcher.
Since 2009, the landowner has been trying to have the site rezoned to allow a mix of residential and conservation land.
The council rejected the rezoning plan at its June meeting, after a decision it made on the plan in December last year resulted in confusion.
In their report to the December council meeting, council officers recommended endorsing the plan, and told councillors that if they wanted to reject it they would have to “request that the Minister for Planning and Environment allow Council to discontinue the proposed amendment”.
By a majority vote, the December council meeting decided to “not proceed with the planning proposal”, and, following the officers’ advice verbatim, to request “that the Minister for Planning and Environment allow Council to discontinue the proposed amendment”.
At the time, the impression was that the request to the Minister would be a simple rubber stamp process.
Months passed, and when the Green Corridor Coalition started asking questions of the NSW Department of Planning and Environment about what was happening in response to the council’s request, the Department indicated that the legal effect of the council’s request to the Minister was that it was now up to the Minister to make the decision on the matter, and that that decision might not correspond with the wishes expressed in the first part of the council’s December decision.
But the GCC also discovered that the advice from council officers on which the councillors had based their request to the Minister was incorrect, and that the council had the legal authority to determine the matter without the need for any request to the Minister.
This authority derived from documents discovered by the GCC but not mentioned in the officers’ report to the December council meeting.
The GCC immediately brought this to the attention of a number of councillors, who raised the matter at the June council meeting for a further decision that noted the intent of the council’s December decision, acknowledged the documents confirming the council’s legal authority to determine the matter without the need for any request to the Minister, and confirmed the council’s rejection of the rezoning plan.
The relationship between local and state governments on planning and development issues is often fraught and unpredictable, and how the Minister or the Department will respond to the latest council decision is yet to be confirmed.
However, as at least one councillor commented at the June meeting, why did the December planning report fail to provide councillors with all the relevant information? Why were councillors incorrectly advised that rejecting the plan required a request to the Minister?
This wasn’t the first time that questions had been raised about the way that council staff were handling this matter.
In October last year, the landowner’s consultant (a former council officer) was present at closed staff briefings to councillors on the proposal, while GCC representatives were permitted to address a council Public Voice session only after elected councillors intervened on their behalf.
It’s an excellent case study into why an elected council is such an essential part of local government. On at least two occasions, the intervention of councillors acting on behalf of the community helped to redress significant deficiencies in administrative action.
The rezoning proposal for 505 Minmi Rd may or may not be settled, but the questions hanging over the handling of this matter by the council administration are far from resolved.
