THE TWEED SHIRE
National Recycling Week
Volume 1 #11 Thursday, November 6, 2008 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 Fax: (02) 6672 4933 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au www.tweedecho.com.au
November 10-16 See pages 12-13
LOCAL & INDEPENDENT
Hastings Point ‘under threat’ Ken Sapwell
Hastings Point residents have hit another hurdle in their long battle to secure a two-storey height limit and density controls to protect their small village from overdevelopment and avert what they see as an ecological disaster. In a surprise decision, councillors last week decided against adopting a development control plan (DCP) to limit building heights and densities in the village until they were briefed on the history of the long-running saga. Residents now fear the delay leaves the door open for a rush of applications for residential flat buildings, including a revised application for a seven-unit project in Young Street which they stopped after going to the Land and Environment Court three months ago. Council planners recommended that the DCP, which reduces densities and height limits from three storeys to two, be adopted while they work on a more detailed locality plan to finetune planning controls. It followed a report by independent urban design consultants who found that existing controls did not go far enough to protect the village’s unique character. The consultants, Ruker Urban Design, also urged the council to extend the controls to the northern part of the village which the former administrators had excluded from the DCP for reasons yet to be explained. The council’s new chief planner, Vince Connell, suggested the council adopt the DCP for the southern part of the village and prepare a draft DCP to extend the controls to the northern
part ‘ to provide more definable planning controls.’ But a bid by deputy mayor Barry Longland and Greens councillor Katie Milne to bring in the blanket controls was torpedoed by other councillors who called for a closed-door workshop to obtain more information. Cr Milne said the community had been through ‘hell and high-water’ over several years trying to stop overdevelopment and further delays in bringing in the DCP would open the door to more DA’s and subsequent court cases. But Cr Warren Polglase successfully moved to defer a decision, saying there were conflicting views about the proposed DCP and councillors needed a detailed briefing about the new controls which had the potential to spark a ‘civil war.’ Cr Kevin Skinner said that as a landowner he found it hard to understand why a majority of people in the village would want their land down-zoned. Cr Holdom said she did not feel ‘comfortable that we have sufficient information to make an informed decision.’ Earlier, in an address to the council, planning consultant Mike Allen urged councillors to rescind the DCP which he said amounted to a downzoning and controls which didn’t exist in villages elsewhere. ‘I believe the (Ruker) report to council has been unduly influenced by disproportionate weight being given by a vocal minority from without the area,’ he said. The report was commissioned by the former administrators before moving to end 12 years of controversial
Joe’s incredible journey takes off Madeleine Doherty
Murwillumbah High School HSC student Joe Miller has been on a journey – an artistic journey. Joe’s body of work for his HSC art major is made up of five paintings that he developed and worked on for months. This week the many hours of hard work paid off. His artwork was recommended by the NSW Department of Education marking team for transportation to the Exhibitions Selection Centre in Sydney to be part of the selection pool for the 2009 Art Express exhibitions. Aproximately 800 HSC bodies of work are set aside each year after marking to form a selection of highly ranked works from which a range of exhibitions can be developed Selections will not be finalised until continued on page 3 late November.
For Joe it was hard work but more importantly a labour of love. ‘I find art to be like therapy, and with many harsh issues going on within my reality art is always a constant, a method of escapism to calm the mind. I treat art as a love, a psychological healer and because of this my work becomes highly personal and conceptually sophisticated,’ Joe said. The artwork as a whole (five canvases) is a massive piece full of many different mediums and many contrasting and vibrant visual features. ‘The canvases work together to make one, and separately as a series. This has been done on purpose so that each canvas displays and can be seen to show uniquely different characteristics as one person never has one personality but rather many unique attributes that together make
@ AUTOBARN TWEED HEADS I7 KI7=; I?PPB ;
HARVEY NORMAN
BBQ GALORE
<7 9; F7?DJ?D=
TWEED HEADS HARVEY NORMAN CENTRE, GREENWAY DRIVE
BUNNINGS AMART FURNITURE
PH: 5523 2055 AUTOQLDNO2133
=H?: =?HB I ; 7 M7OI 7FF;7H?D= =?L
the full personality,’ he said. A lot of his work is preconceived but many things simply happened along the way such as the use of watercolours, map pins, nails, and patterning with stationer’s whiteout. The large blue dot portrait was the beginning from which the other works grew, so these pieces contained more attributes of spontaneity, Joe said. ‘Over time I became less the master of my work and a more passive creator as it began to take on its own form and indeed the work itself began to convey conceptual meanings to myself,’ he said. While Joe is excited about having his work chosen for Art Express he isn’t taking his eye off the main game – his HSC exams. And those, like a good a piece of art, require a lot of hard work.
20 STOREWIDE %
*
OFF
I7J .j^ # Ikd /j^ Del
*Excludes gift cards, Carryboy. Navigation & items already on sale. *% off regular ticketed price.