By: Robert Pickett

Robert Pickett — Tue, 06 Aug 2024 05:14:00 +0000

What another great editorial from CCN. The reporting of the coming election has been excellent, the performance of our council has been explained fairly without bias both from the journalists and the managing editor.
They have certainly tried to get the people of the Central Coast to engage in this very important time of selecting new councillors and to vote on the referendum.
On the Deferred Lands debacle, Paul Scully has no chance of getting it right as too much damage har been done, not to the land but from Council planning, they have got caught up in their own web.
This once rural community has changed from when nearly all land was rural , it was a very rural community, we even had a Rural Bank.
Dividing the land into different zonings should have worked as we know all land is different. Council introduced different zonings like 7a, 7c2, 7c3 etc. with different constraints on each zoning.
Then along came COSS that was a great initiative from very special people, Beryl & Alan Strom who had a vision to prevent the overdevelopment of our lovely rural land. They were ahead of their time.
Unfortunately some developers found ways to get around zoning constraints and we soon had protected land being developed with bonus provisions, land dedications to council and possible other methods that soon broke down the zoning restrictions.
Some rural land that became 7c3, in the early 80’s earmarked for future tourism development and then changed to E4 and now to C4 is a perfect example of this mess with 14 houses approved on a 5 acre block, councils refusal of 12 houses on 60 acres after approval of 9 bungalows on a couple of acres all nearby in the same area with the same zoning,
These 3 blocks of land have been the same for decades. What a mess.
In fairness to Dick Persson & Rik Hart who have tried to resolve this Deferred land debacle may not have received all accurate information as I don’t believe there are many of the 3,400+ blocks of land that are part of the COSS system.
A simple fix would be for Council to purchase any land they want to include in the COSS system as they have done with Katandra Reserve, Rumbalara Reserve and Kincumber Mountain Reserve, keeping in mind that all of this land has to be cared for and maintained. This may be the root of the problem – who pays.
Can our local community afford this as times are pretty tough at present for a big majority of the locals.

Comments on: Restoring oversight to Central Coast Council

By: Robert Pickett