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- organised by Hacking River Catchment Management Committee
(Cr Christian is Wollongong City Council's rep on the HRCMC)
"I am delighted to be here today as a member of the Hacking River Catchment Management Committee. I have to offer the apologies for our Lord Mayor David Campbell from Wollongong City Council and also our Town Planner Michael Tufty who comes every fourth Wednesday in the every month to the Hacking River Catchment Management Committee and I am delighted that Danna Vale the Federal MP and Mr Malcolm Kerr the State MP are able to be present.
Wollongong Council is with Sutherland Council participants in the Hacking River Catchment Management Committee and I would really like to say thank you to Peter Wells and Libby Rawlingson and also to Melissa Gibbs over there, the silent person today who has been running around with the microphone, but she was also a driving force in assisting Libby to get this show on the road today.
Listening as to what has been said already, I have been really impressed with what I have heard from Allan House, from Tim Tapsell and I also like the dose of reality from Peter Stevens rather than just being all happy and feel good comments. It is good to hear what the reality is and the challenges of what we all face.
Obviously the Hacking is a small part of our local government area unlike Sutherland where it is a substantial amount. We have done a number of planning initiatives, for example much of the land in Helensburgh that was contentious has been rezoned to 7D Hacking Environment Protection to provide some protection. We have also altered some of our planning controls. We had this situation where any area that was 2A Residential Development had to have dual occupancy on it according to former state legislation. We have modified that to a special 2A1 legislation that operates north of Headlands Hotel at Austinmer North, because of the lack of infrastructure in terms of adequate drainage and sewerage services. We have placed planning controls on those 2A areas. For instance Dual Occupancy is not permitted, but we still allow things like granny flats because we acknowledge that there is a social aspect.
In terms of the sort of things that we have done, the Health and Building Division has sediment control plans that have to be submitted as part of any application. Enforcing such plans is an issue. I presume that Sutherland has had the same challenge and part of the difficulty we've had is that we do have a few cowboys out there and a lot of fixing things up is very much based on complaints so that they can be followed up. We do in fact have, or have been issuing some penalty notices and I guess that is still an area of challenge and the Council has certainly recognised it.
Wollongong City Council is currently involved in the stormwater management plans. We are currently involved in the preparation of those as are all local government areas and as noted at the last Hacking River Catchment Management Committee, Wollongong City Council has three to participate in: the Hacking; the coastal creeks on the coastal plain and also the Lake Illawarra catchment management area. The issue for is that like Sutherland, we have a large geographic area and a large population. Most of our population is concentrated towards the south so we will have to spread our resources. So I would like to point out in terms of the stormwater management plans I believe it is very important to do it, but many of the key staff are already involved in doing our flood water management program. We already have a back-log of those already. I have in my Ward alone sub catchments that I have been pushing for six years to just have a flood study done and so whilst I am very supportive of the Stormwater Management Planning process I just worry as to how thin we are going to be spreading ourselves to achieve all these initiatives.
Now, in terms of Water Sensitive Urban Design, there are challenges here and opportunities. We have the situation where Wollongong Council is currently reviewing its Local Environment Plan and Development Control Plans for Industrial, Residential and Commercial Development and they will be providing us with the opportunity to look at implementing initiatives in terms of how we do hard surfaces. I guess I put my personal statement here, it seems to me rather interesting. I suppose some developers will eat me alive, but basically we have strong controls for medium density and dual occupancy in terms of urban runoff, but we don't supply the same controls to single houses. I know I can point to houses in my ward where it is almost spot the blade of grass, and there is so much concrete and so much paving.
I am very pleased and it has taken a few years, but finally our Planning and Design Divisions are recognising that it does not have to be concreted, it does not have to be boxed, there are alternative creek treatments. I recall when I was first elected it was very much a matter of creek improvements, hard engineering controls, and it is good to see that it is being modified. Obviously you are going to have to be stuck with gabion boxing or concreting but at least the Council is now being more environmental aware that there are other opportunities. I think also there are the sorts of things that are coming out of the review of our planning instruments and I think that an opportunity and a challenge for the environment groups in our local area to also have input into those controls, as it is far easier to get something in and work on it once it is in the strategic planning documents rather than trying to fight bushfires on a case by case basis.
We also have like Sutherland, Bushcare and Landcare initiatives. I don't think I need to dwell too much on that, I think that Allen House has done an excellent job in presenting the sort of work done, and I think that I can only pay tribute to his work in that area.
We have the Helensburgh Environmental Management Plan and we would like to do it but the problem is regarding funding. Some state agencies have provided the support and some have not. Wollongong Council has put in a huge resource into the Helensburgh issue over ten years, twenty years. We have had a commission of inquiry and we've had lots of approaches for rezoning. It has been a huge staff and financial resource and the position at this stage is that we are unwilling to go any further without the support of State Agencies. Out of the Commission of Inquiry into Helensburgh it was basically said that there should be no further development in that area beyond existing residential areas unless there had been a fair bit of additional study on water quality issues. It has reached the point that we would be happy to pursue it but with cooperation with agencies. Wollongong Council area are planning for another 50,000 people to live in our city. We have to do that, we are planning thirty to forty years out, but the majority of people will go to the south of the city not the north. So we also have to look at the planning resource of where we put people. I am probably doing a bit of a Peter Stevens charge of reality here and so there has been a huge amount of work go into that catchment. Just as there was a huge amount go into the Helensburgh issue leading up to the Commission of Inquiry. We do wish to pursue it with assistance from other agencies.
A lot of work has been done on the Helensburgh Tip and we are meeting our EPA licence requirements. There has been concerns from the community about how well we have been managing that particular facility and I have to say that some of the staff didn't realise the concern that was out there. I think that they now understand that there is a perception of problems and we have tried to bring the parties together through Peter Wells assistance, so we can try and deal with the problems that people perceive to be there.
Another issue for us is the equestrian establishments. Helensburgh has been a rural area and we have had contentious issues regarding one particular equestrian establishment and some of the findings out of the Commission of Inquiry into Helensburgh did indicate that equestrian issues were a problem. on Monday night we are actually having a Development Control Plan go to Council Planning Committee as a draft to go out for community consultation which would deal with controls on those establishments. It is not only in the Helensburgh area that we have had a problem, we've also had a problem down in the south in the Lake Illawarra Catchment and I am particularly pleased to see this, because when I raised the issue about five years ago it wasn't perceived to be important, but sometimes I think you have to be patient and progress does occur. Other issues coming out of the Pollution Source Inventory include the Symbio Gardens where we are working to try and improve things.
Another issue is the septic system leakage and overflows and there has been a strong effort from council to educate people that what gets leaked out of their system ends up in the beach and in the rivers and creeks. So if you want to have good quality water you have to make your own contribution. So I sort of see that as being another area that we have been able to contribute to. I guess, I am sorry if this has been a little bit negative. We have increased community expectations. There is a challenge for us to do the best with what we have given all the challenges we have. We have our Escarpment Planning Process, our Foreshore areas the challenge of managing Lake Illawarra, the challenge in managing 50,000 people going into the southern part of Wollongong in the future.
We have all of those and of course we have a very important one at our doorstep or at our front door which is the Royal National Park and it is a privilege to have it as part of your council area. I guess we do our best with the resources we have got. I think there is going to be a greater pressure to deliver, and the community and the stormwater management plans will try and focus on fixing up the problems of siltation at source. It is all very well to talk about dredging down stream, but I guess I am getting the message as a Wollongong Councillor about those problems downstream, but upstream in the catchment in Helensburgh is a bit of an issue.
I guess that this is a summation of what sort of things are happening in Wollongong, what sort of realities we face in terms of the broad environmental challenges we have and I guess that I can only endorse this Community Contract as means that the State Agencies, local government and the Community Groups can set down what things they are trying to achieve and get on and do it. Thank you"
Peter Wells-Chair "Thanks for that Kerrie, given the time I might ask people to hold questions over until the panel session at the end and I might hand directly over to Joe Woodward who is EPA Director of Sydney Region. Thank you Joe."
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