Affordability, inclusiveness, sustainability are all part of better planning, yet nothing that is proposed could be further from the truth.
The Central Coast Regional Plan 2041 and the Greater Lake Munmorah Structure Plan has earmarked some 52,000 new homes for a region which is lucky to have a bus service each hour of the day.
Our roads are showing stress and peak hour congestion.
Our schools are at bursting point and let’s not expose waiting times to see a local doctor or at the Wyong Hospital Emergency Department.
Having the third largest ageing population in NSW, the Central Coast will surely also take on the responsibility of a large chunk of the proposed 1.5 million increase in migration, therefore needing massive infrastructure improvements such as schools, hospitals, doctors and nurses which have not been considered and at what cost to our coastal bushlands and beaches?
We’ve seen what developers have done to places like Catherine Hill Bay; Crangan Bay (Gwandalan) with a further 623 dwellings; Tall Timbers Rd at Chain Valley Bay with about 300 dwellings and the planned Doyalson RSL estate with more than 360 dwellings and commercial enterprises sitting between two toxic ash dams.
Now a deal has been done between the Darkinjung Land Council and Landcom to destroy a further site at 405-415 Pacific Hwy consisting of some 380 dwellings and potential for a further 300 which takes no account of the cumulative impacts.
The Darkinjung spruik about the protection of culture and heritage, about their totems which mean so much to them, such as scrub opossums, native bees, kangaroos, diamond and black snakes, wombats and wallaby.
A site big enough to fit 680 homes would devastate the habitats of all these and many more totems, even with tokenistic offsets.
This proposal is nothing more than a land grab which disrespects the lands that their ancestors defended, walked and managed leaving a legacy of strong culture, wisdom and knowledge embedded in these lands today, not 680 home sites embedded and what comes with them.
This proposal sets a very dangerous precedent – it is one of many more developments to come such as 285-335 Pacific Hwy where Council Administrator Rik Hart conceded that these types of development would be good for Council because of the developer contributions for further costs of local infrastructure needed, simply putting the cart before the horse.
There’s absolutely nothing about culture and heritage, respect of elders, the biodiversity and simply nothing about what the existing ratepayers think or want.
It is all about what Council and the Darkinjung Land Council can financially get out of a deal done behind closed doors with the NSW Government.
I personally acknowledge and recognise all Aboriginal people who were forcibly removed from family and community and the negative impacts this had on generations.
To ignore the culture and heritage of this region for gain or profit at the demise of critically endangered native bushland is not the way to go about it.
Email, Jun 14
Gary Blaschke, Lake Munmorah
Couldn’t agree more.