The Gosford Waterfront Alliance has enjoyed its first victory in the Land and Environment Court in relation to its challenge to the development of a building for the Australian Taxation Office on the Gosford waterfront.
According to Ms Claire Braund, President of the Gosford Waterfront Alliance (GWA), the action taken by the community group has effectively resulted in stopping work on both the ATO and the NSW Finance Department developments on the waterfront. Doma Group, the developer of the ATO building, had applied to the Land and Environment Court to make the Gosford Waterfront Alliance pay a $50,000 upfront bond to ensure its legal costs would be covered if GWA lost the case. “We saw this as an attempt to stymie the challenge,” said GWA founder, Ms Claire Braund.
“Doma itself pulled out just days prior to the motion being heard, as their legal team knew they were not going to succeed,” Mr Braund said. Ms Braund said the Doma application for the bond had forced the Alliance’s pro bono legal team to complete a large amount of unnecessary work. As a result, the Alliance decided to ask the Land and Environment Court to compensate for the costs incurred. “The court ruled in our favour, which we believe will cause other developers to think twice about lodging motions for security of costs that have no chance of success and are purely an attempt to scare community organisations,” she said.
In other words, the Gosford Waterfront Alliance may have set a precedent that will strengthen the position of other community organisations acting in the public interest to challenge development consents in the Land and Environment Court. “We are now able to focus on the main hearing on November 1 and 2 and, of course, one of our major grounds for challenge is the fact that the JRPP did not give proper reasons in approving the ATO development.” Ms Braund said the GWA had welcomed the Joint Regional Planning Panel’s deferral of its decision on the NSW Government application to build a second offi ce block, for the NSW Finance Department, in the middle of the former Gosford Public School site. “In this instance, the JRPP has deferred the decision which GWA has welcomed as being appropriate in terms of the size, scale and impact of the proposed development.
“Key issues raised by the JRPP are around design excellence (or lack thereof), heritage issues, car parking and access, which is also tied to the determination around the ATO development. “Work is effectively stopped on both sites, which presents a major opportunity for State and Federal Government representatives to get together with community groups, council, Doma and other developers,” Mr Braund said. She said the Gosford Waterfront Alliance is hopeful those representatives will review the hasty decisions made to put offi ce blocks on the waterfront and move them to one of the four blocks already owned by the NSW Government on the corner of Faunce and Mann St in Gosford. “These blocks were purchased in 2009 by the NSW Government on the recommendation of the local Gosford MP, Ms Marie Andrews, for the purposes of building another commuter car park. “They have since been paved and used as a car lot for 40-odd cars for years.
“The blocks have three street frontages, are very close to rail and bus terminals, have zoning that allows many storeys and would offer a perfect place for a high tech, high security fi nance hub.” Ms Braund said she believed a relocation of the proposed government offi ces was “not rocket science by any means and very achievable with goodwill and willingness to listen to the thousands of community members and business people who tell us on our Facebook page and via others means, that they simply cannot understand the decision. “The battle is not over yet, but the community now has some time to come together, work constructively with local and state planning authorities and fi nd good alternative sites for these buildings in the CBD. “To be part of the discussion as we move forward, and for a comprehensive update on both the ATO and State Finance Offi ce developments, the GWA is holding a community meeting on Wednesday, October 19 at the Anglican Church in Gosford. Although the meeting will be non-party political, Ms Braund said local members of parliaments were welcome to attend.
Email, Oct 4, 2016 Claire Braund, Gosford Waterfront Alliance Jackie Pearson, journalist