Today’s gazettal of the Ku-ring-gai Town Centres Local Environment Plan (LEP) highlights the NSW Labor Government’s unwillingness to hear and reflect local community views on planning issues, according to Member for Davidson, Jonathan O’Dea.
“Selective hearing, eyesight and planning for a Labor driven agenda, has resulted in the views of locals, deeply concerned over their changing environment, literally being bulldozed into the ground,” Mr O’Dea said.
“Ironically, the belated gazettal of the Town Centres LEP comes more than three years after the State Government criticised Ku-ring-gai Council for its previous plans taking too long, despite the Council completing them by the deadline of Christmas 2006.
“The whole process has been very controversial. Even the recent and so-called ‘independent’ Treadstone report, commissioned to consider the true number of additional new dwellings planned for the Ku-ring-gai area, used selective methodology, ignoring input from the community and local MPs who had called for the review.
“In a further demonstration of contempt toward the community, the NSW Government balked at making the report public, prompting an application under the Freedom of Information Act for the report and supporting documentation,” Mr O’Dea said.
“This application involved less than a free-flow of information, with four separate payments required over four months before relevant documents were made available.
“I have now lodged a fresh FOI application following new concerns that the process of briefing the author of the Treadstone Report may have involved undue influence from the Department of Planning, based on an email revealed from the first FOI application.
“The NSW Liberals and Nationals have made it clear that, if returned to Government, we will return planning powers to local communities for them to have greater say on their future living environment,” Mr O’Dea concluded.
