HEADLINE: TWEED COUNCIL REFUSE HASTINGS POINT SUBDIVISION DA

By Sarah Waters

TWEED

Shire

Council have halted a development application for a 13-lot subdivision, which includes 11 residential lots, at 40 Creek Street, Hastings Point.

Council voted six to one in favour of Tweed Shire Mayor Chris Cherry’s motion to ‘refuse’ the application at its August 3 Planning Committee Meeting.

The site has been the subject of extensive development assessment processes, site analysis, fooding studies and biodiversity investigations.

Developers have had a long history of unsuccessful subdivision applications.

About 40 per cent of the site is zoned R1 General Residential and the rest is zoned Environmental Wetlands.

The frst subdivision application in 2010 for 45 lots was refused and another application was withdrawn in 2017 for 17 lots.

An application was submitted again in 2019 with the proposal been amended numerous times to address council’s concerns about biodiversity impact minimisation, habitat restoration measures and fooding assessments.

The 2019 application was given in principle support.

Council offcers recommended the most recent development application be approved in an extensive report to councillors.

The report stated: ‘the proposal is supported by a detailed food assessment which concludes that the proposal will not result in a signifcant worsening of food impacts on residential properties in the area’.

While, the site contains areas of high biodiversity and ecologically sensitive land, the report said the development footprint is located in an area of the site that has previously been modifed and contains managed pastureland.

A detailed Habitat Restoration and Biodiversity Management Plan was submitted with the application.

Council was also dedicated ‘lot 13’ for conservation purposes.

During the planning meeting, Mayor Chris Cherry said she was against the application ‘with a very long history’ despite initially supporting it in 2019.

“I gave it conditional support based on the development application not increasing its development footprint,” Ms Cherry said.

“Of the proposal in 2019 only three of the lots were intercepting into the 75m ecological buffer zone, now I think seven of them are.

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“A lot of changes have been made, but the biggest thing that has happened since that interim in principal support that was given (in 2019) is the 2022 foods.

“That has been such a big wake-up call for all of us.

“We heard today from the fooding and planning experts just how much consideration should be given to the location (on Cudgera Creek estuary) to the impact of storm surge in a climate change future that we are most defnitely going to see.

“It is imperative that we take this seriously… we can’t keep saying ‘it’ll be ok.”

Ms Cherry said the food mitigation measures put forward in the proposal were ‘simply not good planning’.

She specifcally stated a safe evacuation route had not been properly considered in the event of a food.

Councillor Nola Firth echoed the mayor’s concerns about fooding and said the environmental impact could not be ignored.

“This is a very important piece of land environmentally,” Ms Firth said.

“It’s right beside the Cudgen Nature Reserve, which is managed by NSW National Parks, part of it is zoned environmentally protected wetlands and littoral rainforest.

“It’s got high conservation area on the biodiversity values map, it’s a site that has key fsh habitat, it has threatened fauna and bird species.

Ms Firth also raised concerns about the development footprint extending into the 75m and 50m ecological buffer zones of the coastal wetlands and removing 340m2 of koala habitat.

She said Hastings Points locals would also be impacted by the development and they’ve been fghting against it for years.

Councillor Warren Polglase, who was the only councillor to support the proposal, said the case may end up in court.

“I support this application,” Mr Polglase said.

“The council gave in principle support for this proposal to be able to proceed.

“Once upon a time a 40-lot subdivision was allowable on that site because of the zoning, it’s now been boiled down to 11 residential lots.

Mr Polglase said the slight ‘encroachments’ on ecological buffer zones was true, but not over the top and council had accepted these in the past.

He also said other points of view needed to be considered and was somewhat dismissive about ‘all the stories on climate change.”

Hastings Point residents have recently voiced their concerns about fooding in the area if the proposal were to go ahead.