Council should pause and question population targets

The Council is consistent in continuing to approve non-complying, oversized multi-unit residential developments on the Peninsula.

As to why this is occurring continues to puzzle and outrage some residents, even more so when their opinion is ignored.

The bigger the development, the more it benefits the developer but also the Council which depends on developers for contributions to their budget - as do all councils in NSW, a system that operates under the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, 1979.

This contribution helps to pay for infrastructure to support new homes and other Council essential services.

In Council's proposed 2019-20 capital works program $16.6M will be funded by developer contributions.

Council is developing a strategy and plans to deliver the capital works projects that developer contributions are being collected for.

It should be noted that developer contributions generally fund up to 20 per cent of the project cost and additional sources of funds need to be found to fund the balance of the project costs.

However, the Council is also under obligation to meet population targets imposed on them by the State Government and this I believe is their main driving factor in approving these excessive development applications.

In the light of the climate change connection to our bushfires, it would be wise for our Council to pause and question if the population target is an environmentally sustainable one.

This debate ought to be conducted with both the Federal and State Governments who are respectively driving population growth and responding to it.

The Council cannot continue to accept this population target without considering it in the greater context of environmental sustainability and climate change impact.

The Peninsula has the hottest suburbs on the Coast as per a consultant's report to Council in 2019, a report that must have informed their Greener Places strategy.

Email, 6 Jan 2020

Suraya Coorey, Woy Woy