The community has six weeks to comment on a draft Open Coast and Broken Bay Beaches Coastal Zone Management Plan that describes how Gosford Council, other responsible authorities and private enterprises will address ‘priority management issues’ in the coastal zone for the next 10 years.
The timeframe and process for completion of the coastal zone management plan has been altered. The original intention was for the Catchment Coast Committee, including the Technical sub-committee, to review the draft plan, which has been prepared by a consultant, before it was endorsed by Council and placed on public exhibition.
The public exhibition period was then to be for three weeks. Instead, Council was asked to endorse the draft plan at its ordinary meeting on Tuesday, July 28 before it was considered by the Catchment Coast Committee or the technical sub-committee.
Council’s department of governance and planning said this change to the process was: “due to a ministerial directive to have the plan completed by July and in order to continue demonstrating that Council is moving forward with the completion of the Coastal Zone Management Plan and move into an implementation phase of the plan”.
The process will now be that workshops will be held with the community and Committees during the six week public exhibition period to “enable Council staff to report back to Council via a strategic-policy workshop and Council meeting on the outcomes of the exhibition period and workshops prior to fi nalisation and approval of the plan”.
Preparation of the plan has been supported by funding under the NSW Coastal Management Program and has been done in accordance with relevant NSW Government guidelines. Priority management issues addressed in the plan include managing risks to public safety and built assets, pressures on coastal ecosystems, and community uses of the coastal zone.
In its executive summary, the plan’s primary objective is stated as: “To protect and preserve the beach environments, beach amenity, public access and social fabric of the Open Coast and Broken Bay beaches while managing coastal hazard risks to people and the environment”.
The beaches included in the plan extend from Patonga in the south to Forresters Beach in the north. Over recent decades signifi cant erosion has occurred on several occasions resulting in the loss of buildings and threats to beachfront development, public assets and beach amenity. According to the draft plan “Council is working on a range of planning activities which aim to provide a balanced long-term management framework for the ecologically sustainable use of our coast and estuaries.”
The Coastal Zone Management Plan is designed to complement the development of plans for the Lower Hawkesbury River Estuary (2009), Brisbane Water (2012), Pearl Beach Lagoon (2012) and Gosford’s Coastal Lagoons (2015).
Management actions have been recommended for individual beaches based on the specifi c coastal hazard risks identifi ed along each beach. For example, the draft plan includes an emergency action subplan for Wamberal Beach as an erosion hot spot.
The plan is based on earlier documented studies completed by Council which have also had periods of public exhibition and consultation prior to approval such as the Coastal Zone Management Study (2015).
Agenda item GOV.93,
28 July 2015
Gosford Council ordinary
meeting