Council has adopted the revised Ourimbah Area Strategy and Centre Masterplan, but residents remain concerned the plan, which has undergone slight revisions since December 2021, fails to offer solid guidelines on building height limitations.
At a meeting held on March 22, Council finally adopted the masterplan after three years of revisions.
At the March 22 meeting, the Ourimbah Region Residents’ Association (ORRA) continued to oppose the latest plan, which was only issued on March 16.
Council said the plan presents a vision for Ourimbah that helps manage expected long-term growth and change in the area.
“(The plan) strengthens its broader economic future, provides housing choice, and enhances the local area’s identity as a place that is safe, attractive, busy and well-connected,” Council said.
The plan will see the creation of a new main street, by extending Jaques Street northwards, while the creation of different precincts will form a new Ourimbah centre.
A public square, and more pedestrian and cycle links have also been included.
ORRA member Brian Davies attended the meeting. He labelled the plan, with the small revisions, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
“It makes all the right noises about preserving Ourimbah’s character, heritage, history, natural beauty with a mix of housing types and densities. Yet the details of the plan do anything but, turning a village oasis into an urban desert, a heat island in a bushfire zone,” he said.
Davies said the most critical aspect of the approved plan was that it did not specify building height limits.
The plan has been set out in accordance with the Wyong Development Control Plan (DCP) 2013, which limits buildings in the area to two storeys.
Davies said the DCP could be worked around and the Plan requires concrete statements about building height limits.
“Critically, Council refuses to mention the motion of limiting building heights to two storeys. Every other plan mentioned three, four, six, eight storeys. Why the reluctance to mention two? They mention two storeys in discussions, the agenda and an attachment, but they refuse to put it in the Plan,” he said.
ORRA requested the plan be again deferred, and invited Council Administrator Rik Hart to visit Ourimbah to see the “challenges that make the plan unworkable”.
Despite the group’s request, the Masterplan was approved.
Hart said Council was committed to working with and responding to community feedback, and the adoption of this revised Masterplan was an example of this.
“Extensive community consultation was undertaken over a number of years to develop the Ourimbah Area Strategy and Centre Masterplan to ensure it reflects what the community want to see,” Mr Hart said.
“The specific challenges and opportunities that were raised by the community have helped to shape the detailed recommendations presented in the final Plan, which outlines a Low Growth Model for the Ourimbah area with no change to current two-storey building height controls, as identified in the Wyong Development Control Plan 2013, and that Ourimbah is termed as a ‘local’ centre to keep the village characteristics.
“Masterplanning is an important process for Councils to undertake. It allows Council and the community to work together to set the overall vision of a place and maintain the planning controls that assist in preserving the character of an area,” Mr Hart said.
Council said it would regularly monitor and review progress towards delivering the Plan in its annual business planning and reporting processes, while a comprehensive review of the Area Strategy and Centre Masterplan would be undertaken every 10 years.
ORRA said Zenith Tuggerah Pty Limited’s application for a DA for a three-storey boarding house would have repercussions for Ourimbah that could nullify the DCP two-storey limit.
Davis said the case, to be heard in the Land and Environment Court on March 28, would turn the matter into a legal issue of how building heights will be interpreted and imposed.