On Monday, MidCoast Council passed the motion to exclude 7 of the 12 paper subdivisions within the Council area from the State Environmental Planning Policy for Exempt and Complying Development. What this means is that a DA will now be required in the nominated nonurban areas before anything can be built. Hopefully this will mean that all future developments in the nonurban areas will be subject to good planning and environmental laws and that Council has more tools to stop the shanty towns that are now developing around the villages of North Arm Cove, Carrington and Pindimar.
Out of the 163 submissions, 74 supported the proposed changes, 79 objected and 10 did not express an opinion on the proposed change. Included were 3 submissions from Bundabah wanting the Bundabah nonurban area to be included (currently one of the 5 paper subdivisions where the rules will not change).
As would be expected with 3500 nonurban blocks, the majority of the submissions were in relation to North Arm Cove/Carrington- 67 submissions in favour of the proposed changes, 50 objections and 7 did not express an opinion. (There were a further 16 that I could not work out which subdivision they were talking about.) Of the objectors, only 2 were from the village and one of them stated that they also own nonurban land. Of particular interest was that 24 stated that they also wanted Council to carry out more enforcement of the existing and future rules.
Council acknowledged that they do not generally get submissions supporting planning proposals. Most people only make submissions if they object. The high level of supporting submissions means that the majority of villagers are very unhappy about what is currently happening in the nonurban area. We learnt the lesson about supporting good planning policies two years ago when lobbying from the nonurban area resulted in a change to the future zoning of the nonurban area from C3 to C4, a massive loss of environmental and planning protection for the nonurban area. So thankyou to all those people who made the effort to put in a submission this time. Every individual (unique) submission counts!!
- Note: If you are counting, the extra submission for North Arm Cove was from Hunter Quarries, supporting the changes and reminding Council that the Karuah East Quarry is a State Significant development and any assessments regarding developments near the northwest part of the nonurban area should take this into account.
