By BELINDA PARKES
PUBLIC pressure has resulted in a more environmentally-focused blueprint for the Tweed’s future.
After years of discussions with the State Government to resolve problems with its planning instruments – as well as months of community consultations and councillor workshops – a draft Local Environmental Plan (LEP) is finally ready to be submitted to the government.
In it, councillors have supported changes that will give better protection to koala habitats and reinstate environmental protection areas along the Tweed Coast, as well as retain environmental protection zones in the rural hinterland.
Benefits are also included for the vegetation areas along our waterways and for council-controlled environmental zones to be rationalised.
Although the changes still have to be reviewed and accepted by the government, the conclusion of the consultation process has meant the wheels are finally in motion to get an LEP that better reflects the community’s wishes.
Councillors Katie Milne, Gary Bagnall and Michael Armstrong tried to get the council to hold off making a decision for one more month, to give the community more time to go through the changes that had been proposed.
“This is a very big issue for the community and there are a lot of changes in there,” Cr Milne said, adding it was imperative the council got it right.
“It is going to be a good outcome but it needs a bit more time to make sure we do a thorough job.”
But Cr Warren Polglase said it had taken enough time already and urged the councillors to get the planning document off to Sydney.
He said it had undergone a thorough consultation process and staff had worked hard to assess the 1500 public submissions and bring the draft LEP together and there were people in the community anxiously waiting to hear how the LEP would affect their properties.
He said the government would come back with its comments on the draft so an opportunity would still be available for a final look at the amendments on the table.
“My experience with LEPs is there will always be winners and losers and we will never get unanimous agreement of everything,” Cr Polglase said.
He proposed an LEP that did not reinstate the environmental zones along the coast.
He had the support of Crs Phil Youngblutt and Carolyn Byrne but when it failed to get up they agreed, with Mayor Barry Longland, to submit to the State Government the more environmentally detailed recommendation of the council’s planning director Vince Connell.
Councillors Milne, Bagnall and Michael Armstrong voted against submission of the draft LEP proposal.
Cr Armstrong described the LEP as ‘the cornerstone of how our community and shire will look into the future’ and said the council owed it to everyone who had been on the draft LEP journey with them to keep them involved.
Giving them 10 days to look at the LEP being proposed was not enough, he said.
Crs Armstrong, Milne and Bagnall have since lodged a rescission motion against the vote, forcing the issue to be brought back to the next council meeting.
