Councillors make embarassing bungle

The Community Environment Network (CEN) has called for an urgent intervention from Minister for the Central Coast, Hon David Harris MP, to correct an embarrassing bungle made by eight of the newly elected Central Coast councillors at their November meeting.

“Deputy Mayor Doug Eaton put forward a motion to double the number of submissions objecting to a development application needed for the DA to be referred to the Central Coast Local Planning Panel (CCLPP),” said CEN Chair, Mr Gary Chestnut.

“Eight councillors supported the motion, so it became a resolution of the council – but it was a sloppy mistake that needs to be fixed,” Mr Chestnut said. “The council business papers show that councillors were briefed by the director before voting, but they went ahead and did it anyway.

“That’s why we have written directly to the Minister for the Central Coast – we don’t see the point in asking for council’s CEO or Mayor to clean this up when they made the decision.”

According to CEN, the operation of the CCLPP is determined by NSW Government Regulation. In May 2024, Minister for Planning, the Hon Paul Scully MP, signed off on a Local Planning Panels Direction (attached) – Development Applications and Applications to Modify Development Consents.

“The Ministerial Direction said council must either follow its existing Submissions Policy to decide what to refer to the CCLPP, or refer applications being “the subject of 10 or more unique submissions by way of objection”.

CEN has reviewed council’s policies and there doesn’t appear to be an existing Submissions Policy.

“We did find an Assessment of Development Applications Policy (Policy No. CCC108), which said it was prepared according to the NSW Government’s Development Assessment Best Practice Guide 2017 (DABPG 2017) which says a DA with more than 10 objections “by way of individual submissions from different households…” must go to the Local Planning Panel.

“Central Coast Council is not empowered to amend or override a Ministerial Direction to suit its own preferences. If Council wants to change how it deals with contentious development applications, it must:

1. Formulate and publicly exhibit an amendment to Policy No. CCC108 to explicitly address how such applications will be managed; or
2. Formulate and publicly exhibit a specific Submissions Policy; or
3. Adhere to the Ministerial Direction and the definition of contentious applications as set out in the DABPG 2017 which requires applications that receive 10 or more unique objections to be referred to the Local Planning Panel (LPP).

“Central Coast Council cannot resolve to increase the threshold of submissions required for referral to the CCLPP without following proper procedural requirements.

“The November resolution said the proposed change would be sent to Minister Scully for approval. CEN wonders what happened to the legal requirement to put new or amended policies on public exhibition.

“Perhaps we can put this bungle down to a sudden rush of blood by the Mayor and Deputy Mayor at having taken hold of the reins of power for the first time since their former councils ceased to exist in May 2016, but we do expect our elected leaders, even if they may be a little rusty, to be cognisant of the rules.

“We have referred this matter to the Minister for the Central Coast and his parliamentary colleagues, and we look forward to their swift response. Big promises were made during the September election campaign. It’s not even Christmas – what happened to working to restore confidence in our local government?”