Member for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea has noted the issues of most overwhelming concern at this week’s Seniors Forum in St Ives were overdevelopment and the impact of poor planning, including inadequate infrastructure.
Over 120 people attended the forum, called by Mr O’Dea to give seniors in the St Ives area a voice on issues of concern and to provide feedback on Coalition initiatives and plans for the future.
“State Labor’s designation of St Ives as a Town Centre and therefore a growth centre, is without proper foundation,” Mr O’Dea said.
“The inclusion of St Ives is even contrary to the NSW Government’s own Metropolitan Strategy, as it is nowhere near a railway line.
“The only rationale I have received from the Government’s Planning Panel for creating a larger St Ives Town Centre is that St Ives provides flat ground!
“To me, this demonstrates ‘flat earth logic’ and how this government has sold out to the development industry at the cost of local residents,” Mr O’Dea said.
“To make matters worse, the Labor government is allowing high-rise development into a village environment without appropriately upgrading infrastructure.
The management of increased traffic and demand on public transport were two of the most prominent issues to be raised at the forum,” Mr O’Dea said.
“This week I received a response from Planning Minister, Tony Kelly to a recent petition against the draft Ku-ring-gai Town Centres Local Environmental Plan (LEP), signed by more than 2,500 local people.
“It is clear from his response that he does not fully appreciate the impact of Labor’s policy on the Ku-ring-gai area, nor the Government’s failure to meet its own planning strategy, particularly in St Ives.
“By contrast, the Coalition is committed to listening to residents (including through community forums) and will return local democracy to the area through scrapping Labor’s Ku-ring-gai Council Planning Panel,” Mr O’Dea concluded.
