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Collapse Issue 466 - 25 Mar 2019Issue 466 - 25 Mar 2019
Collapse  NEWS NEWS
Mabel turns 101
Vehicle-activated speed signs to be trialled in Hillview St
Ethan organises student strike for climate action
Shepard St flooding expected to improve in 18 months
Ettalong to get recycling bins
Responsible development group forms with 80 people
Strata subdivision is approved
Bouddi Foundation seeks grant applications
Law firm welcomes new partners as others retire
Action group founders step aside
Fishing club closes after 30 years
Channel needs State planning, says committee chair
Dredged sand to replenish Ocean and Umina beaches
Specific dredging plans still needed, says committee
First class in permaculture held at Killcare
Salvos at Bring Your Bills day
Euchre club donates to local schools
Community fair held at Phegans Bay
Church publicises Easter festival events
Easter fete at Patonga
School holiday activities announced
Another fire at community garden
Unit fire in Warwick St
Three grants from Council
Retirees help charities distribute food
Activities for St Patrick's Day
Parking fines to be reduced
New playground for Empire Bay
Preschool celebrates 30 years in August
CWA bakes vegan scones for festival
Woy Woy residents targeted for heritage walk
Collapse  FORUM FORUM
Planning controls were result of exhaustive consultation
Council decisions will destroy the Peninsula
Flood was 27th in five years
More thought needed for pre-polling venue
We didn't win
Put Peninsula ahead of political ambitions
Collapse  HEALTH HEALTH
Aged care organisation celebrates 30 years
Brothers celebrate 50 years in medicine
New book compiled as breast cancer resource
Ground-breaking ceremony for 114-bed extension
Suicide prevention briefing to be held in Woy Woy
Geriatrician writes book on medical care for older people
Collapse  ARTS ARTS
Opera in the Arboretum despite difficult five weeks
Troubadour president to speak at regional seminar
Rotary club pledges $40,000 for music program
Artist holds exhibition in Botanic Garden
Local pair produce TV program on men and their sheds
Children's film in Woy Woy
Meet the authors at library talks
Artists' collective moves to Ettalong
Collapse  EDUCATION EDUCATION
Principal stresses importance of reading program
Robotics to be taught at primary school
Assembly for day against violence and bullying
Year's first Interact meeting at Umina campus
Scholarship will help pay for university studies
Garden bed restored
Harmony Day held at Pretty Beach
Ettalong misses out
Swimmers qualify for zone carnival
Teddy Bears' Picnic at Woy Woy South
Students compete in zone swimming carnival
Collapse  SPORT SPORT
Umina was top-performing surf life saving club
Roosters have first loss of season
Premier League competition starts without Umina
Champions emerge in Handicap Pairs
Netball club seeks players
New oxygen kits for surf clubs
Retired international to develop SEU juniors
Southern Spirit wins champion player awards
Ettalong wins Seniors Triple title

Planning controls were result of exhaustive consultation

I write in response to your article "New group calls for compliant development" (Peninsula News edition 465) and the concerns Mr Gillis raises over what the group calls unsuitable and non-complying development in the Ettalong area.

It is timely to remind Mr Gillis that the current planning guidelines and development controls that give direction to residential and commercial development on the Peninsula came about from an exhaustive consultation process that started with the highly successful Peninsula Urban Direction Strategy in 2005.

PUDS, as it was commonly known, was a detailed assessment of the needs of the Peninsula which included extensive community consultation to which the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce and the wider community all contributed.

This strategy was adopted by the former Gosford City Council and informed the current Gosford Local Environmental Plan 2014 and the Gosford Development Control Plan 2013.

These planning controls, which appear to bear the criticism of this new group, set the out the uses, heights and floor space ratios for each of our Peninsula town centres including Ettalong.

I have no idea whether the members of this new group were around at that time, but I certainly was in my capacity as president of the Business Chamber.

It was a credit to the former Gosford Council at the time that the community consultation was so successful and set a fundamental platform for current urban development.

This group seems to infer that Council is somehow responsible for approving inappropriate development which couldn't be further from the truth.

Council's staff are highly professional and, from personal experience, rigorously assess all development applications to ensure that they comply with the objectives of Council's planning controls.

Contrary to this group view of the world, both the Gosford LEP and the Gosford DCP make provision for variations to controls so that urban development has a degree of flexibility.

Strict compliance doesn't always give a better design outcome which Council recognises on a regular basis just as it recognises the right for people to lodge objections to development.

But newcomers to our community should remember that the very planning controls that we have at our disposal came about as a result of the wide community consultation to which I and thousands of other locals at the time contributed.

That fact should be respected before criticism is levelled at the local Council.





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