New planning policy 'unfair', says residents' group

The Peninsula's beachfront property owners, along with all those whose homes are adjacent to estuaries and waterways, including Brisbane Water, will be unfairly impacted by the NSW Government's Coastal Management State Environmental Planning Policy, according to the Coastal Residents Central Coast group.

Secretary Mr Pat Aiken said 59,000 properties on the Central Coast had been encoded as affected by the draft policy including many on the Peninsula, both beachfront homes and those close to Brisbane Water and other estuaries.

"The almost immediate impact of these provisions will be to stifle development and business activity once the Coastal Management Act is proclaimed," Mr Aiken said.

Only one information session about the draft policy was held on the Central Coast, at Erina on December 9.

"At the information session, residents were advised that there had been no consideration given at all to economic or social consequences of the proposed policy," Mr Aiken claimed.

According to Mr Aiken, if the SEPP was finalised without amendment it would mean that Councils would be required to impose time-limited development consents, temporary buildings and temporary use of land when approving developments in the Coastal Zone.

"This is a first for NSW but no compensation will be provided to property owners," he said.

"Individuals are no longer allowed to protect their land; not just beachfront property owners but all of those whose homes are adjacent to areas redefined as beach in estuaries and waterways.

"A new legal concept, ambulatory boundaries, is being introduced for land with fixed line boundaries.

"As privately owned land is lost to the ambulatory beach, it will become public land such as beaches, wetlands and intertidal zones but with no just terms compensation and no right to protect.

"The owners of single lot private residential land with homes are losing their land as mapping of NSW wetlands is extended by stealth.

"This legislation supports the expropriation of private land," Mr Aiken said.

He said differences between the treatment of the Sydney metropolitan area and the Central Coast appeared to discriminate against land owners outside of the city.

"The Sydney Coastal Use area extends up to 200 metres from high water but on the Central Coast this management area extends at least one kilometre from high water," Mr Aiken said.

"Adaptation and protection for existing developed communities is not supported in any way.

"Beach nourishment is not facilitated by this legislative framework.

"The long-running moratorium on the use of low-cost offshore sand remains while the costly exercise of trucking sand in from land-based sources such as Newcastle remains as an unviable economic proposition, exactly as planned," he said.

Media release, 20 Dec 2016

Pat Aiken, Coastal Residents Central Coast