DUAP to study the Peninsula

The Department of Urban Affairs and Planning (DUAP) has established a Living Centres team in Gosford to deal with development matters on the Central Coast.

The team appears to be concentrating on big ticket items such as planning the huge Warnervale/Wadalba redevelopment but they have also been instructed by the Minister of Planning to review medium density residential development on the Peninsula because of the continuing community opposition to such ad hoc development.

Until the Living Centres team came to town, all of that complaining fell on deaf ears.

Now it appears that that DUAP is scheduled to undertake a study of residential development on the Peninsula with a view hopefully, to reducing densities in some areas.

Because the State Government requires each council has to provide a certain number of housing units Gosford Council has passed a resolution that it is willing to look at higher residential densities in the Gosford CBD, including along Mann St, in exchange for lower densities on the Peninsula and other medium density areas.

This appears to have the support of all parties and I am hopeful that DUAP will agree to this strategy and will encourage council to submit a revised residential housing strategy incorporating this new proposal to the State Government for approval.

I strongly support an increase in residential densities in Gosford CBD and a lowering on the Peninsula.

Gosford has all the infrastructure in place and needs people living in the CBD to make it come alive at night and on weekends.

Parramatta has implemented such a scheme and is now being hailed as the new centre of Sydney as families eat out on the streets at the many little cafes and bistros which have sprung up over the last few years.

Parramatta used to be dead at night and on weekends now the place is jumping as residential development in the CBD has taken off.

Gosford could be like this too and it would mean more jobs as people start small businesses and bigger businesses are attracted to the ambience of the area.

On the other hand, the Peninsula is now suffering from too much traffic, unmade roads, a lack of kerb and gutter and all the other things associated with putting too many people in a area without infrastructure.

Incidently, I don't subscribe to the argument that all that is wrong with medium density development is that it should be better designed.

I agree that most of the designs are woeful but the issue is that we want decreased densities as well as significantly improved designs.

I have always found it extraordinary that in the 1980s the then Council and the State Government rezoned 60 per cent of the Peninsula for medium density without much consultation with the local community.

I have lived here since 1971 and have always been involved in community issues and do not remember any debate or discussion on such a massive rezoning.

It is heartening to see that at last the community's concerns are being heeded.

Both the Minister of Planning Andrew Refshauge and the local member of parliament Marie Andrews have said that the medium density policies on the Peninsula need to be reviewed in light of the community opposition to our suburbs being ravaged and our area rapidly losing the very characteristics which attracted us all here in the first place.

The review was announced around 12 months ago so I expect DUAP to start work early next year.

If they don't and the development continues, there will be nothing left to save.

Lynne Bockholt, November 28