Inappropriate development leads to slums

I write because I am deeply concerned that the Peninsula faces it greatest threat in the last 50 years: the newly-elected Gosford Council.

The new Council is now effectively led by the Central Coast First's Councillors Maher and Hale who, at the May 11 Council meeting, seemed hell-bent on demolishing any and all development restrictions.

That night residents got a chilling taste of the "new Gosford Council" where the development application (DA) and objection process, established over many years, was entirely swept away.

Labor's Cr Macfadyen supported every move as Cr Hale was able to declare "that the waste of ratepayer's money" dealing with resident's objections, environmental issues, and due Council process, was "over".

Subsequently several contentious DAs were approved, some of which have been in process since 2000 due to serious concerns of locals.

In some cases, applicants had not even felt it worthwhile to comply with normal DA requirements, so sure were they of approval.

Central Coast First were elected on a platform of "jobs", "fast tracking" development applications and to "strike a balance between growth and green issues".

Six figure sums spent by local developers on the Central Coast First campaign with ads, posters, T-shirts, and a preferences deal with Labor, earned Maher nearly 17,000 first preference votes (Hale only 190).

Translated in Council this means "development first, residents and community last".

The coastal overdevelopment in so many areas of our State has already destroyed much of the natural peace and beauty that made these communities attractive.

Do we really want that destruction here, while communities that can appropriately manage development, from Pearl Beach to Byron Bay, become scarce - and therefore more desirable and valuable?

Residents are only now seeing that this kind of inappropriate development in the long term leads to overdeveloped and undervalued "slums" of the future in Gosford and on the Peninsula.

While our lifestyle burns, Council fiddles, and every day as more trees fall, and huge faceless developments rise, our lifestyle and children's future are squandered, and Sydney moves ever closer.

I urge residents to attend a Council meeting and see for themselves, or wait to see the effects in your street and in your community.

Jeffrey Cook, Woy Woy Bay Jeffrey Cook (thebays@media.com.au) spoke against one of the approved DAs at the May 11 Gosford Council meeting.