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Planning department rejects Palmers Island rezoning criticises CVC’s failure to make a decision

Clarence Valley Council’s failure to make a recommendation regarding the proposed rezoning of land on Palmers Island, from RU1 Primary Production to IN4 Working Waterfront/W3 Working Waterway, has drawn criticism from the NSW Planning, Industry & Environment Department (PI&E].

Yamba Welding and Engineering has long been trying to establish a boat building facility at the site: CVC first considered the proposal in July 2014, when councillors unanimously supported the proposal.

Then after being rejected twice by the NSW government, the planning proposal was revived on August 14, 2018, by the Northern Joint Regional Planning Panel’s acting secretary, who signed an amendment to permit it to proceed.

Subsequently and following a public exhibition of the proposal from May 13 to July 12, 2019, CVC “forwarded the planning proposal to the Minister … for consideration and determination without making a recommendation supporting or opposing the plan,” the PI&E ‘plan finalisation’ report states.

While acknowledging that “there is no statutory obligation” for CVC to make a recommendation, PI&E’s preferred process is for councils to comply with the department’s A guide to preparing local environmental plans, which outlines “the process for councils to follow where they are not a local plan-making authority”.

The report states that CVC “has based its approach on … legal advice [it] obtained from Marsden Lawyers in September 2019”.
Apart from the legal advice, councillors also considered the following finding from a CVC-commissioned independent review of the submissions, which stated: “The support for the Planning Proposal is almost entirely and simply support of the business/boat building industry rather than supporting a change in zoning for this particular site.

“The submissions objecting to the Planning Proposal provide compelling evidence as to the adverse site impacts and comprehensively dispel the reasons put forward by the proponent [Yamba Welding and Engineering] for not locating the business on Harwood Island.

“Council has completed a proper strategic planning process that establishes Harwood Island as a suitable Marine Precinct.”

Councillors Williamson, Toms, Lysaught, Baker and Kingsley supported the decision made at the October 2019 CVC meeting; councillors Clancy, Novak and Ellem were opposed and against the planning proposal in its entirety; Cr Simmons declared a significant non-pecuniary interest and left the chambers.

However, initially, Cr Baker’s multi-point motion (seconded by Cr Lysaught) recommended supporting the planning proposal.

Subsequently, an amendment moved by Cr Kingsley (seconded by Cr Williamson) resulted in support for the planning proposal being removed from the motion upon which councillors finally voted.

Instead, the outcome tried to establish that CVC held a “neutral” position regarding the planning proposal’s approval.

Ironically, Cr Baker finished his argument – to continue CVC’s support for the planning proposal – against Cr Kingsley’s amendment by saying, “I don’t mind if the word [support] is in there or not because … the JRPP has relied on what we’ve [previously] said in support [of the planning proposal].

“So by not having it in there … firstly we haven’t been invited to make a decision by the Minister, we haven’t been invited to make comment on the legality or illegality of the decision, so in effect … I think I’ve talked myself into supporting your amendment Mr Chair, however, I did give careful consideration to the way it [the motion] was worded.”

Meanwhile, a “number of matters raised in the Government agency submissions were not resolved by Council,” the PI&E report states, “including the need for further flood modelling to demonstrate the impacts on nearby land would not be significant and loss of regionally significant farmland.”

Consequently, the planning department engaged planning consultants, City Plan, to undertake an independent review “of the Palmers Island marine-based industry planning proposal process and provided recommendations regarding the determination of the application”.

The report states: “The independent assessment concluded that the planning proposal has not adequately addressed the matters raised for consideration by the relevant public authorities and the community, noting several issues raised by relevant public authorities remain unresolved; … while community objections associated with flooding, noise, traffic, visual impacts and loss of agricultural land largely remain unresolved.”

The independent assessment cited the following issues in its recommendation to the Minister’s delegate, as reasons not to proceed with making the relevant amendments to the local environment plan (LEP):

✘ it is not consistent with the Marine-Based lndustry Policy – Far North Coast & Mid North Coast NSW;
✘ it is not consistent with North coast Regional Plan 2036;
✘ it is not consistent with the Clarence Valley Council’s Industrial Lands Strategy (2007);
✘ it has unresolved inconsistencies with several State Environmental Planning Policies and Ministerial Directions; and,
✘ the need to augment marine industry land supply in this location is not strategically justified.

However, the final recommendation left the door slightly ajar, stating: “There may be better ways to achieve the planning proposal objectives than the proposed amendment, which have not been considered.”

Planning department staff supported all of the independent assessment’s findings and reasoning.

“It is recommended that the Minister’s delegate as the local plan-making authority determine not to make the draft LEP under section 3.36(2Xb) of the Act as … the planning proposal has not adequately addressed the matters raised for consideration by the relevant planning authorities and the community,” the report states.