By Madeleine Achenza
Southern Highlands Express
Candidates for Wingecarribee Shire Council, Jane Crowley and Kaye Tompson, are offering their plans to ensure that the fate of the region’s development is in the hands of its residents.
Jane Crowley, lead candidate on the Let’s Get It Right ticket, suggests that a master plan for the region is a priority, one that will prevent the ‘ad-hoc approach’ taken by the suspended Council regarding development applications.
“Without a plan, developers are proposing anything they want, and Council have no grounds to knock them back,” Ms Crowley said.
“They sit on their hands when a development comes through that’s contentious, like Chelsea Coomungie. Inevitably, that leads to the developer going straight to the state government and we’re left out of the decision-making process.”
The Chelsea-Coomungie development, now known as Ashbourne, on Yarrawa Rd in Moss Vale, was rejected by Council four times during its two most recent terms. A local Planning Panel is now responsible for Development Applications and those that comply are now handled by council staff, as a result of the interim administrator’s procedural changes, approved by the Minister for Local Government.
Independent candidate Kaye Tompson said it was the Councils responsibility to entice and give incentives to developers to move forward.
“I do believe you have to speak up. I don’t believe sitting back and just letting things happen without any input,” Ms Tompson said.
Ms Tompson said that state planning instrument, SEPP 70 allowed councils to amend Local Environment Plans (LEP) to include an affordable rental housing contribution scheme which in turn offered developers an increase in their residential density per square metre.
“It’s very important to make sure that we are still able to provide affordable housing for our health services, childhood education, emergency services and public transport workers,” she said.
“The transfer of people from Sydney coming down to live here, is driving up prices and not just in the sales area, but most definitely for rentals.”
Ms Crowley agreed that addressing the affordability crisis in the Highlands was about advocating developments to provide a variety of housing that reflected the different price brackets for socio-economic groups.
“In Robertson, there is no zoning for town-houses or units,” Ms Crowley said. “So, if you’re a retiree and you live in a single dwelling, you can’t then scale down to a townhouse or a unit, you have to leave the area.”
Acting CEO of Argyle Housing, Justin Nyholm told the Southern Highlands Express that they received hundreds of email responses to affordable housing advertised on mainstream real estate channels like realestate.com.au – though few of these requests were eligible for the National Rental Affordability scheme.
While the wait time for social housing for two- and four-bedroom properties in the Wingecarribee region was from two to five years, the wait for one- and three-bedroom properties could be up to 10 years.
The NSW Government was conducting roundtables this week to address the increasing pressure on the supply and affordability of housing in regional NSW. To register for the South-East and Tablelands roundtable on Friday, August 20, go to www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/regional-housing.
The article in the Southern Highlands Express.