Non-complying approvals change planning controls

Council planning staff have been conducting business with the developer community for some time.

For each non-complying part of each approval that Council planners approve (Peninsula News edition 461 "Mayor criticizes non-complying development approvals"), a precedent has been set, thus changing the planning controls each time.

They only have to do it once and it is forever everywhere.

Any concerns that a resident (or group of residents have) can be addressed through the Land and Environment Court.

On each and every occasion when precedent is established, the law is certain in the favour of the developer as established by the Council.

As for the Mayor, is she drawing a line in the sand because it is now happening in her backyard at Terrigal?

I laugh.

Good luck with that line Mayor Smith because you haven't a leg to stand on at the Land and Environment Court and Council's planning staff will not help you.

Cr Kyle MacGregor asks, helpfully: "What is the point of having planning controls if people won't comply with them?"

Most residents are law-abiding and do the right thing both in their communities and in respecting guidelines laid down for them by our Council in the public interest, obviously.

It is Council, its planning staff and developers who won't comply.

Cr MacGregor has stated that he does not want these trivial planning matters brought to the elected Council because Council's highly trained staff are well able to bring misery to the residents without input from councillors.

The planners' decisions affect the neighbours in many ways, never for the better.

In my recent experience, a massive overdevelopment to the north of my place overshadows my neighbour's house completely in the mid-winter and blocks all winter sun from entering my kitchen.

We both have zero privacy in our yards my neighbour has now a development that looks into their lounge room and completely overlooks their garden.

All this has occurred with the blessing of Council planning staff.

The planner I had to deal with did not know how to calculate the correct setback the massive overdevelopment to the north was required to provide.

When I found out how and showed the planner how it is done, he thanked me and then went ahead and approved a non-complying setback anyway.

I seek the Planning Minister Anthony Roberts' help here in having this Central Council's planning staff removed from the building and fired.

Council should be then required to bring a report to the residents outlining what remains of the controls when all the approved precedents are overlaid on the existing planning controls.

I would ask all residents to write to Minister Roberts expressing their views and remind the Minister that our Central Coast councillors have now decided that they won't be meeting in Gosford anymore because a couple of extremely-abused residents with no other form or redress had the temerity to voice their disgust at such a denial of democracy, during a Council meeting in the recently refurbished (at great expense) Gosford Chamber.

Email, 23 Jan 2019

Bryan Ellis, Umina