CEN SAYS REZONING PART OF A STATE SIGNIFICANT WETLAND UNACCEPTABLE

After analysing the business papers and attachments for the February 2025 Central Coast Council meeting, the Community Environment Network (CEN) has concluded that council staff are attempting to rezone 5.19 ha of a state significant wetland in favour of an airport.

“Our elected councillors are being asked to rescind years’ worth of resolutions made by the elected body that have been ignored by staff,” said CEN Chair, Gary Chestnut.

“The thing that really shocked me was all the resolutions that the staff want to rescind. When you look at those resolutions, they are actions the elected council asked staff to do that they have avoided for years.

“It feels like the culture at Central Coast Council has had a hidden agenda that meant it did not implement the lawful resolutions of the elected council.

“If those lawful resolutions had been actioned, we would not have this Airport Masterplan before the new councillors.”

Mr Chestnut said other resolutions on the books are not listed for rescission.

“There is still a live a resolution to rehabilitate the unlawfully cleared land they are now attempting to rezone from C2 Conservation to SP2 and that’s because a previous attempt at a rescission was bungled and the wrong resolution number was voted on by the Administrator.”

CEN was particularly critical of some of the resolved actions that staff considered unimportant or irrelevant.
“Seeing if the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) wished to have Porters Creek Wetland as part of the national park estate was voted on in 2018 but it looks like there has been no correspondence since 2018 that council staff actually actioned that part of the resolution.

“I was a council officer for 25 years and council passed resolutions that I did not agree with, but I implemented their resolutions because that is what the voters wanted.

“The maps included with the business papers indicate that the council proposes to rezone 5.19 ha of a coastal wetland of state significance for tree heights to be trimmed or mowed to ground level.

“The maps also tell us that a further 6.38 ha of Endangered Ecological Community is to have tree heights trimmed or mowed to ground level resulting in a total of approximately 11.53 ha of C2 zone land to be rezoned SP.

“Councillors are being asked to expand an airport at the expense of a state significant wetland and the Endangered Ecological Community in contradiction of resolutions passed over a number of years.

“I hope the Councillors act with clear insight into what has happened in the past. They must be accountable if they are going to resolve to contradict that history and the recognition that the staff have not implemented council resolutions.

“They will be asking the state government to agree to rezoning both an endangered ecological community and state significant wetland. It is not only a local vegetation community it is a vegetation community defined in the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 and it is not just a local wetland it is a state significant wetland recognised in a state government planning policy.

“I cannot see how local politicians can stand up and say they want to rezone an Endangered Ecological Community and a state significant wetland for an airport.

“It is the elected representatives that have to make that choice.

“It sounds nice to get a 900ha Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement, but you are impacting a wetland when you don’t have to rezone the wetland to keep the current activities at the airport which has existing use rights.

“The maps make the proposed rezoning look like a small postage stamp out of the total area, but the wetland is an ecosystem and as such it is like a total body.

“You can lose a hand, and it won’t have that much impact but what if you take away an eye? Some members of the community would not accept getting their hand cut off for the benefit of something else let alone losing their sight.”

According to CEN some of the species known to be in the wetland are protected by Commonwealth legislation but council staff have presented a case which is silent on the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC).

“Work was stopped on the nearby expansion of the Woolworths distribution centre because a rare orchid protected under the EPBC Act was found. This is basically the same landscape we are talking about.

“The culture of the Central Coast Council wants an airport and it is not giving the councillors full information. Why haven’t the documents mentioned the EPBC Act?

“The whole masterplan could be stopped by the rezoning. Is it practical to adopt this masterplan if the rezoning is going to halt it?

“CEN has never been opposed to the airport. We are proudly opposed to the rezoning of any part of an endangered ecological community or a state significant wetland to benefit an unnecessary airport development.”