4.1. Society A community of opportunity. Land use planning decisions will help to create safe places and spaces where people have the opportunity to live a healthy lifestyle, with places for community interaction and connection. Our community will live in harmony with the natural and built environment, respecting natural hazards, and we will endeavour to create great housing choice and build resilient communities. The Clarence Valley’s rich tapestry of coastal and hinterland communities provides our residents with great urban, rural and natural places to call home and amazing places to visit. Grafton city, the towns of Maclean and Yamba, and all settlements across our diverse landscape provide places and spaces for us to enjoy an enviable lifestyle. Meeting the needs of a growing and changing community will require proactive planning to ensure we have great places to live, work and play in to the future. This will need to involve improving Grafton’s CBD and capitalising on its heritage assets, along with Maclean, Yamba, Iluka and all of our centres. There is scope to provide more multi-dwelling houses and smaller houses within existing settlements – where it does not compromise the heritage values of the place, disrupt the amenity for existing residents or expose more people to unacceptable risk from natural hazards. Maclean, Yamba and other villages and towns can also accommodate more people while maintaining the existing local character. Ensuring that new development in existing urban areas and in new urban release areas are planned to create great communities is important. Social infrastructure and places where we can interact, socialise, meet and gather for important functions, entertainment and many occasions are also important to create resilient communities. Ensuring that we plan for more housing, infrastructure and urban development in locations that are resilient to natural hazards and ensure efficient use of funding for infrastructure, social facilities and resource use are all things that we need to consider. The priorities and actions under the Society theme are focused on ensuring that land use planning decisions support our vision to create a community full of opportunity and align with other activities. We need to plan for a growing population and provide safe, resilient and sustainable places for communities to grow, with housing choice to meet community need. We also need to further encourage Aboriginal communities to contribute to future decision making and economic self determination, so that communities can be in charge of their own future prosperity and creating opportunities for the next generations.
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Clarence Valley Council
