Category: Blog

Brrr it’s cold in Canberra. I’m here for the Australian Local Government Association’s annual conference, where we meet Councillors from across Australia, hear updates on matters that affect the local government sector, and also agree on matters to collectively advocate at a federal level.

Last year I pondered the limited options for youth participation in policy setting and the democratic process, and at the council meeting of March 2024 we unanimously voted to learn from the practices of youth advisory committees / councils across the Sydney Metro region before setting up our own.

This year it’s been encouraging to see our Youth Advisory Committee get off to a start, in conjunction with youth forums for wider reach. Councillors had the opportunity to visit one of the committee meetings where the youth shared their vision for Ku-ring-gai and a chair was elected.

There isn’t a recording of the committee meeting, but for a glimpse of our recent youth forum visit

Not too much to report this month. Council adopted its Community Strategic Plan and other strategic planning documents, supported a notion to explore better utilising our facilities for arts and culture, created a more diverse composition for the Sydney North Planning Panel, and supported the notion of adding induction cooktops to its energy efficiency rebates program from 1 July 2025.

On a personal note, I’ve got a few things going on last week / this week so haven’t been as active on social media. I’ll reply to most of the resident queries this coming weekend.

Last night council voted unanimously to adopt alternate TOD plans which had been developed then fine-tuned with resident feedback over the last 12 months. Some details have been published today on the council website, and I hope a more user-friendly version of the final map will become available soon.

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Extraordinary-Council-Meeting-TOD-preferred-scenario

I want to make a few comments before copy and pasting my short speech below.

1. The role of a councillor is to represent the collective interests of (current and future) residents, ratepayers and the local community. Councillors are required to make considered and well informed decisions, and to do so they need to incorporate a wide variety of datapoints including resident feedback, much of which conflict with each other.

2. No matter what was proposed last night, there was always going to be opposition from hundreds or thousands. Look at the proposal for any one street block and there will be some residents who say it should be taller whilst others will say it should be shorter.

3. Some residents appear to have unrealistic expectations of what councillors can and cannot do. Speaking for myself, I received resident feedback through various channels (email, phone, in person, social media). I summarised these issues and advocated to staff on our residents’ behalf. But not all the issues that I highlighted were addressed, which goes to show that councillors don’t have the power to compel independent staff to make specific recommendations. The other way of getting change is to discuss with the independent councillors and see if there can be agreement to deviate from the staff recommendation, but more often than not the collective support is not there. As such, I know there are issues with the adopted plan but on the whole it is better than the default TOD that is in place today.

4. When viewing council’s proposal, it’s important to compare it with the right baseline. The baseline isn’t council’s plans adopted last decade. The baseline is the State Government’s Transport Oriented Development which is in place today, and which allows buildings to be built with minimal setbacks, almost no tree canopy, and no provision for access to additional shops, amenities, and parks. The baseline also includes the State Government’s Low- and Mid-Rise Housing provisions which allow apartment blocks up to 4-storeys to be built on R2 land within 800m walking distance. It’s very easy for residents to ignore what the State has already put in place last year, and instead to draw comparisons with last decade.

5. The council proposal identifies new parklands and involves rezoning land to support retail and other amenities, making it easier for residents to access what they need without having to drive. The council proposal also involves significant uplift along the highway so that when residents are required to drive, they can do so with less congestion on local roads. Further from the highway, when you pick any specific area and do the numbers you’ll find that the overall density has reduced, allowing for more tree canopy and protection of most HCAs. And with lower density comes less traffic and parking issues.

6. Some councillors or their family members reside in the TOD boundary, and have made appropriate disclosures as such. In these special circumstances, the Office of Local Government actually encourages councillors to remain in the room (so long as they have made their declarations) and vote because if we had to exclude councillors from all planning matters then there wouldn’t be quorum to even run the council meeting. But some residents out there are making inferences that something improper has happened because councillors who have made declarations have followed Office of Local Government guidance and stayed in the room. It’s such a misleading notion. If all the affected councillors had to leave, then we would only have had 4 out of 10 councillors left in the room and there wouldn’t have been enough people to hold a meeting. Plus each councillor or relative affected by the TOD see their property values go down (not up) under this proposal because they live away from the highway, so there’s no reason to believe anything improper has happened. Imagine telling our State MPs that anyone who resides in NSW cannot vote on changes to the hospital system, or Federal MPs that anyone who receives superannuation cannot vote on superannuation changes.

7. We do not yet know how long the State Government will take to assess the proposal before bringing it in law, so we’ll keep you up to date when it happens. And up until 13 June, developers may lodge development applications under the current TOD rules.

8. I know there are some landowners who are not happy with the specific outcome that is proposed for their land. To these landowners, I need to remind them that I have limited influence over the outcome (as per point 3) and they should instead consider lodging a planning proposal.

https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2023-03/lep-making-guideline.pdf

9. I’ve had residents threaten to throw me out at the next election, and if they wish to participate in the democratic process then they’re more than welcome to do so. Having said that, everything that I’ve done to date is consistent with the objectives and values that I promoted in my electoral material, and it is on that basis that I will continue to act. If there are specific grievances such as not getting the specific outcome that you want, then I refer to point 3 along with the fact that each councillor only has 24 hours in their day, are paid less than the minimum wage, and do not have the ability to provide every single resident with their undivided attention. They don’t have staffers supporting them in responding to the 100+ emails each day, they have families to care for, often with day jobs to supplement the 27k pa, and they cannot be everywhere at once. They carry out their roles at great personal sacrifice and I don’t think it’s appropriate to disrespect them as such.

My speech from last night below

—

Over 12 months of planning and community consultation has gone into what we see today, which is a scenario that vastly improves upon the default TOD and Low- and Mid-Rise Housing controls that were imposed on us last year.

When compared to the default TOD and LMRH in force today, this new scenario does a better job of delivering the required 22,500 additional dwellings while also providing better outcomes for the future residents of Ku-ring-gai. Properties affected by fenceline height transitions greater than 2:1 are reduced by 93%, and the 50% deepsoil requirement in most of our R4 results in a 78% reduction in tree canopy impacts. Around 80% of our HCAs are protected, access to shops is increased from 7 to 43 hectares, and we have identified space for more parks.

This scenario was never going to be perfect. Since 2023 we have argued that serious infrastructure investment is required to support population uplift, but the State has not played ball. The constraints are partially mitigated through this new plan. We have also seen incremental improvements though issues that I’ve flagged such as the feasibility of low shop FSRs, impacts at Shirley Road, and our approach to protecting HCAs aren’t fully address and the resolution remains for another day. I have advocated behind the scenes but also need to respect our consultation and democratic process, and I believe that the motion tonight is the best possible outcome given the constraints. We need to act now, lest we risk further impacts by SSDs.

No matter how we configured it, some resident groups were always going to be dissatisfied. A closer look at outstanding concerns reveals that not all the facts were accurately presented when many signed petitions, with comparisons drawn to Ku-ring-gai’s planning instruments a few years ago rather than the State’s baseline TOD and LMRH in place today.

A regular misconception is that Lindfield and Roseville West have been sacrificed to protect Roseville East but this is simplistic and misleading. In reality the TOD has been expanded beyond 400m with greater deepsoil requirements to protect the future lungs of Sydney while providing a streetscape that reflects Ku-ring-gai’s current R4 and HCA character. Development in Roseville East was also problematic because of the underlying metro tunnel protection zone.

The expanded TOD areas and their tree canopy come with density that is ¾, ½ or even ⅓ of the default TOD, and the dwelling target is made up for with highrise next to the Pacific Highway and train stations – thus minimising traffic on local streets. And this can be seen in the stats.

For the residents of Roseville West such as Shirley, Bromborough and Ontario, this scenario provides a 13% or 150 dwelling reduction as compared to today’s default TOD and LMRH, thus reducing the burden on Shirley x Pacific.

For the residents of Roseville South such as Larkin, Maclaurin and Pockley, this scenario provides a 34% or 700 dwelling reduction. In conjunction with a future roadway, it reduces the burden on Maclaurin x Pacific when compared to the State’s default TOD.

For the residents of the Blenheim HCA and surrounds, this scenario provides a 60% or 600 dwelling reduction. The dwelling target is made up for by providing greater density at Pacific Highway and Wolseley, as well as the FSRs of 5:1 further south on the highway. The R4 backing onto HCA fenceline is also consistent with council’s approach of Moree backing onto St Johns, Victoria backing onto Bancroft, and Lindel backing onto Frances. We have internally explored these at length and the DCP mentioned in points E and F will provide further transition safeguards.

Heritage item status is explored in points C and D.

While some councillors or relatives reside in the proposed TOD, clauses 4.36, 4.37 and 5.20 of the OLG’s model code of conduct encourages participation in this vote. For each councillor the staff-recommended proposal is negative value compared to the default TOD, so by supporting our planning principles they are voting to destroy not line their pockets.

Ku-ring-gai has sought to move as quickly as possible while refining the plan through multiple rounds of consultation. I see our council staff and councillors being attacked for this proposal but I think it is poor form, akin to attacking emergency services who could only protect 7 out of 10 homes in a bushfire. The behaviour that I’ve seen in recent weeks is inappropriate and must stop. I move that we proceed with this revised TOD, then further review as the situation develops.

Tonight, the majority of Council voted to adjourn (i.e. pause then resume) the Extraordinary Meeting of Council to 5th June. While I personally had voted against it with the rationale of sending a clear signal and accelerating the process, this decision to pause and resume in two weeks does provide the benefit of fine-tuning the plan in light of new information and submitting it in one step.

I understand that residents may have strong feelings one way or another, but it’s important that we respect the majority councillor decision and make the most of circumstances.

Take care everyone and stay safe.

Over the weekend Council called for an Extraordinary Meeting this Thursday so that we can progress with an alternate TOD scenario that improves on the impacts of the default scenario currently in place.

Due to the timing of various commitments I haven’t yet had the chance to summarise the feedback and changes (as is my usual practice) but if you want to see a detailed map of what has changed, refer to

https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/05/OMC_22052025_AGN_AT_EXTRA_ExternalAttachments/OMC_22052025_AGN_AT_EXTRA_Attachment_16419_5.PDF

As for the rationale for each change, refer to

https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/05/OMC_22052025_AGN_AT_EXTRA_ExternalAttachments/OMC_22052025_AGN_AT_EXTRA_Attachment_16419_4.PDF

Please note that just because these are changes proposed by council staff, it doesn’t mean that I necessarily agree with each change. I’ve raised quite a few suggestions on behalf of residents that haven’t been incorporated, which goes to show that councillors don’t have influence over staff on operational matters. The staff are operationally independent and I think it’s strange when residents attack me for recommendations that I have no control over.

The weekend call for an Extraordinary Meeting has also thrown off a number of property developers who were expecting council to call the meeting at the end of the month. They have lobbied the state government for a time extension of the SSDs, and more detail is available in this paper released yesterday.

https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/05/OMC_22052025_AGN_AT_SUP_EXTRA.PDF

For residents who have sent me emails in the last few days, I’ll get time to respond to them tomorrow.

An Extraordinary Meeting of Council has been called for Thursday 22nd May with regard to revisions to Council’s alternate proposal for the TOD. The meeting papers are available here.

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Minutes-and-agendas

I haven’t had the time to read through the report yet (I’m visiting family right now), but a quick skim of the maps shows that some of the issues that residents have flagged with me before have now been addressed, while other issues have not.

Residents are welcome to attend a public forum on Wednesday 21st May to provide further feedback to councillors and council staff. To register to speak, please visit the link below.

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums

With the revised TOD scenario, submissions closed last week and Council is now reviewing the feedback to consider potential refinements.

Residents have also contacted councillors individually with their feedback, so I’ve done the best that I can to summarise the major issues for Roseville Ward. I am catching up with our staff later this week to confirm that they have understood these issues, but whether they take the feedback on board and make changes is something that’s out of my control. (Councillors cannot tell operational staff what to do.)

If there are any outstanding issues that make it through to the final staff recommendation (mid/late-May), I may consider whether it’s big enough of a deal to propose changes on the floor of council and ask councillors to conscience vote on each issue separately.

Council should be finished before the end of May. Then it’s up to the State Department of Planning to review and update our Local Environment Plan.

The State Government’s current penalties for illegal tree removal are woeful at best. $3,000 for individuals and $6,000 for corporations – it’s more of a fee than a fine.

Likewise illegal tree poisoning is difficult to prosecute because we don’t have photographic evidence catching the offender in the act.

In November 2023, Ku-ring-gai lobbied Local Government NSW to advocate for increases to these penalties as well as request a review of the requirements for prosecuting illegal tree removal.

Yesterday the State Government responded with a proposal for increased penalties. The base fine for individuals remains unchanged at $3,000 while for corporations it is increased to $9,000. There are also higher penalties for larger or more significant trees with individuals at $6,000 and corporations at $18,000, and these penalties also apply on a per tree (rather than per incident) basis.

Also proposed is a strengthening of measures for landowners to replace illegally cleared trees (which we already do in Ku-ring-gai), and a general discussion on what role technology has to play in monitoring illegal tree activity. The proposal does, however, not go so far as to say that we can prosecute landowners without sufficient evidence.

What are your thoughts on this? Do these changes go far enough? Check out the State proposal (linked below) and tell them your thoughts by 4th June.

https://pp.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/draftplans/under-consideration/protecting-our-trees-changes-deter-illegal-tree-and-vegetation-clearing

We are seeking your feedback on the revised TOD Housing Scenario, with 21 days exhibition through to Tuesday 22 April 2025.

�Detailed and zoomed in maps with street names, plus rationale for the proposal and feedback form are available at:

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Transport-Oriented-Development-preferred-scenario-between-Roseville-and-Gordon

For my personal commentary on the matter, refer to a previous FB post.

It’s been a strange few weeks because we have had seasoned campaigners who know the law knowingly put up illegal posters, spraying footpaths with illegal electoral material, and parking trucks to block peak hour clearway traffic.

Election signage is regulated by the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development) which applies across all of NSW. Relevant sections include:

𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲
𝟮.𝟴𝟯 𝗚𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀
(𝟭) 𝗧𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲, 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗗𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 –
(𝗮) 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗯𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 and, if the sign or part of the sign projects over adjoining land, the consent of the owner of the adjoining land, and
(𝗯) 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭𝟯𝟴 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗔𝗰𝘁 𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟯, 𝗶𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗮 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗱, 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗳𝗼𝗼𝘁𝘄𝗮𝘆, 𝗮𝗻𝗱
…
(𝗲) 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗯𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻,

𝗦𝘂𝗯𝗱𝗶𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭𝟯 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀
𝟮.𝟭𝟬𝟲 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
(𝟭) 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗰𝘁 𝟭𝟵𝟭𝟴 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵, the Electoral Act 2017 or the Local Government Act 1993 is development specified for the purposes of this code.
(2) In this clause—
electoral matter means—
(a) matter that is intended, calculated or likely to affect, or is capable of affecting, the result of an election or that is intended, calculated or likely to influence, or is capable of influencing, an elector in relation to the casting of the elector’s vote at an election, or
(b) the name of a candidate at an election, the name of the party of a candidate and a picture of a candidate, including a photograph of the candidate and a drawing or printed matter that purports to depict the candidate or to be a likeness or representation of the candidate.

sign includes a poster, banner, placard and other similar material.

𝟮.𝟭𝟬𝟳 𝗗𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁—
(𝗮) 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗮—
(i) for a sign on land in a rural zone—3.75m2,
(𝗶𝗶) 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗶𝘀𝗲—𝟬.𝟴𝗺𝟮, and
…
(𝗲) 𝗯𝗲 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗱𝘀—
(𝗶) 𝟴 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸𝘀 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗱,
(𝗶𝗶) 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗱,
(𝗶𝗶𝗶) 𝟭 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗹𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗵𝗶𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗱.

You can read the law for yourself here.

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/epi-2008-0572#pt.2-div.2-sdiv.1

And here

https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/epi-2008-0572#pt.2-div.2-sdiv.13

If you want to report an illegal sign, we are still formalising a process but I’ll provide more detail once it is available.

The public forum was highly charged with strong emotions in the air, some valid points expressed, as well as some inaccurate claims.

However the main challenge for me is that while some residents were unhappy about aspects of council’s alternate TOD scenario, nobody proposed a constructive alternative that could – in time for the May 2025 deadline and with greater merit – feasibly meet the requirements of what’s at hand. Council has been tasked with making the best of a bad situation.

As such, the revised TOD scenario is now off to 21 days of public exhibition. I encourage residents who remain dissatisfied to provide constructive input through this next round of the consultation process. Details of how to provide input will become available on Wednesday.

My speech for supporting the staff recommendation are provided in the transcript below, and as for other councillors’ rationale you can view it online.

—

I speak with conditional support for the officer’s recommendation covering three parts.

First, how we reached this preferred scenario.

Second, strengths and weaknesses of the scenario.

Third, next steps.

So how did we get to this preferred scenario?

Last year Council sought feedback on five scenarios designed to provide 22,500 additional dwellings around four train stations. Council made it clear that these scenarios were designed to meet seven planning principles, with feedback used to select and enhance a preferred scenario.

Our open survey received over 4,000 responses, which reduced to 2,946 after filtering out bots and duplicates. We also ran a representative survey to better align with local demographics.

In both surveys, the government’s default 400m circle only attracted a quarter of support while three-quarters preferred options that adopted council’s seven planning principles.

Scenario 3B (which preserves HCAs by spreading beyond the circle) was most popular with over a third in support, and Scenario 2A (which preserved 78% of HCAs by providing moderate height) also had a fifth of respondent support.

Combined, 3B and 2A represented over 50% in the surveys. And in separate workshops where residents had the opportunity to explore the implications and make an informed decision, 3B and 2A had over 80% support.

Tonight’s scenario is based on 3B, borrowing elements from 2A and resident feedback.

This new scenario addresses many concerns raised by residents.

The largest concern was transitions, where residents did not want 9 storeys overlooking their 2 storey home. The current state government TOD has 287 properties overshadowed by homes over twice the height, however the revised scenario reduces the impact by 93% to just 21 properties.

The second and third largest resident concerns were the impact on environmentally sensitive areas and urban tree canopy. And by shifting density and requiring 50% deep soil planting in most of the R4 sites, this preferred scenario reduces the impact on environmentally sensitive areas and tree canopy by 68% and 76% respectively.

Over half of respondents wanted to protect heritage conservation areas, and this scenario improves on the government default by 80%. Furthermore, where heritage items are surrounded by development, landowners gain development rights as part of a consolidated development if they negotiate sufficiently hard enough with developers, and I believe this is a much fairer outcome.

Residents were also concerned about town center revitalization, with the absence of zoning in the default TOD for shops and services to support future homes. This scenario increases the available land for commercial and retail from 6.6 to 43.4 hectares.

It also adds new parks in Gordon, Lindfield and Roseville, plus a road connection between Pockley and Shirley in Roseville. It’s a win for future residents, though I encourage council staff to work closely with affected residents to reduce the impacts and explore win-win solutions.

There are other elements in this preferred scenario which I’m not entirely comfortable with.

In order to speed up the delivery of the Lindfield Village Hub, certain provisions are proposed to be removed from the LEP.

I believe that there are pockets where further upzoning is appropriate, for example some of the Roseville Hill Street shops as well as the Lindfield shops East of Drovers Way could be bumped up one notch without compromising our planning principles.

Likewise, I think it’s unfair for TOD residents living in an HCA to only get FSR 0.3:1 while their non-TOD neighbours in the same HCA get FSR 0.8:1 under the Low- and Mid-Rise provisions. I would personally advocate giving these residents at least FSR 0.4:1 or 0.5:1 along with dual occupancy provisions.

Residents have also told me that their properties are not currently viable for development under new FSRs, however, I believe these will become viable in the 2030’s and 2040’s once supply tightens.

Starting this week, Council begins a second round of consultation on this revised scenario. I encourage all concerned residents to provide feedback for staff consideration.

I also encourage all councillors to support moving this scenario to public exhibition. It was never going to be possible to satisfy all residents under the State Government’s unreasonable terms, and this next step is the best we can do to manage the negative impacts of the default TOD.

Council staff have consolidated your feedback around preferred Transport Oriented Development (TOD) scenario for Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon and come up with a new draft, which will be considered by Council this coming Monday 31st 7pm.

Their method of reviewing the public consultation material, selecting a community reference (3b), and rationale for adjustments to the revised scenario are provided in the report linked below. This new TOD scenario means that some areas will be taller while other are shorter, but overall it matches or exceeds the state’s housing target while providing a better chance of preserving canopy and most of the heritage conservation areas.

https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/03/OMC_31032025_AGN_AT_EXTRA.PDF

The page most people are interested in (with the maps) is page 26. (Note, I haven’t had the chance to study this map in detail yet but upon first viewing it seems quite different / weird compared to the draft shown to councillors 7 weeks ago.)

There are also plans for new parks on pages 49-50 of the report.

As with anything that involves people’s homes, I understand that this will draw strong emotions with some who are for what is proposed and others who are strongly against. But as a councillor I need to consider what I believe is in the residents’ and ratepayers’ long term interests for the local area, rather than short term personal preferences.

If you feel strongly about what you see, you have the opportunity to present at the public forum this Monday 31st at 5pm. Details of how to register to speak are below.

https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums

As for the top three questions….

I understand that there are residents who are concerns about how the updated TOD interacts with various State Significant Developments. I share their concerns, and the Department of Planning is aware of these issues. More detail on where the SSDs are along with the council officers’ suggested approach is detailed on pages 18-21 of the report. Of these, I find #7 (Lord St and Roseville Ave) to be most concerning as it is clearly incompatible with the draft TOD scenario.

I also know some of you have questions about properties that are part of the State’s default TOD but not part of the Council’s alternate TOD. My personal understanding of this matter is that the Low- and Mid-Rise Housing provisions will apply, but this has yet to be confirmed in writing and there are others who don’t believe that I am correct in my interpretation. Pages 17-18 has some commentary on this topic but I don’t understand what has been written, and will need to follow-up with staff.

Finally, there are residents living in individually listed heritage items with concerns of being surrounded by development under the TOD alternative. From my understanding, a potential solution is for council to allow these sites to be incorporated with the home preserved while the FSR is distributed elsewhere in the consolidated site. This is on pages 14, 269 and 271 of the report.

I currently haven’t read through the entire report yet so I may have more observations in the coming days.

Bubs and I recently visited Homeworld Box Hill to get the vibe of their duplexes (attached dual occupancies).

At Ku-ring-gai, duplexes will be allowed within each ‘local housing area’ (800m walking distance of train stations and town centres, excluding Warrawee but including St ives Shopping Village) on a minimum lot size of 450sqm, or outside of those zones on minimum lot sizes of 1,015sqm (excluding bushfire prone land).

I know that some residents have expressed interest in supporting dual occupancies on lot sizes that are smaller than 1,015 sqm – and that is my preference also – however the problem that we have is that the State Government’s Housing SEPP takes a one-size-fits-all approach to dual occupancies and mandates a maximum floor space ratio of 0.65:1 which I do not believe is appropriate for smaller lots in general. (For reference, our neighbouring LGAs at Ryde, Hornsby and Northern Beaches previously went with more sensible controls at 0.5:1 and Willoughby 0.4:1). As such, my own position is to continue supporting Ku-ring-gai’s position of 1,015 sqm until such time that the State takes a more flexible approach to dual occupancy FSRs.

A transcript of my recent speech on dual occupancies is provided below.

And just to be clear, my own home is less than 1,015 sqm so I am ineligible to build any of these duplexes. The trip to Homeworld was purely to get a vibe of what other residents will be going through.

—

Cr Ngai – 18th March 2025

I speak tonight in support of the staff recommendation for a dual occupancy minimum lot size of 1,015 sqm. However, I know this will be a controversial decision so I want to qualify my support with three statements.

First of all, dual occupancies provide our residents with diverse housing options so that they can stay with their family and friends here in Ku-ring-gai. When I go out there and talk to residents whether they be at the local public school, park, shops, or even at church I often hear the same message that each hopes that when their life circumstances change, there will be an appropriate housing option available to them in the local area so that they can stay connected to the community. For some, it may be because their elderly parents are getting too old to care for themselves or maintain a large home, and the parents would like to now live in a respectably sized abode near their family for occasional care and social connection. For others it may be because their adult children are looking for somewhere to move out to and start a new family, and other options such as moving to a cheaper suburb an hour away or having the grandkids grow up in a 60 sqm granny flat are not ideal. With dual occupancies under the state government’s housing policy, it opens up the option for two moderate-to-large sized homes to be collocated in one place, allowing each family unit to remain connected while providing them with an appropriate level of privacy.

Secondly, I know there are residents who want dual occupancies in smaller lot sizes such as 680 sqm, as do I, however it simply isn’t appropriate under the development controls imposed by the state government under its housing policy. These residents point out to our neighbouring LGAs and say hey, how come they support dual occupancies on smaller lot sizes? And to that my response is that yes, it is true that our neighbours at Ryde, Hornsby, Northern Beaches and Willoughby support smaller lot sizes for dual occupancies, but did you know that they did so with different development controls in mind? At Ryde, Hornsby and Northern Beaches they had a maximum floor space ratio for dual occupancies of 0.5:1 and at Willoughby they set an even more conservative FSR of 0.4:1. These low FSRs allow the provision of sufficient urban canopy to keep our suburbs cool, give us fresh air and support local wildlife. However right now, dual occupancies are being considered statewide under much more aggressive planning controls of 0.65:1 through the state government’s housing SEPP, which will have an enormous impact on canopy. To keep the numbers simple, let’s take an example of a 1,000 sqm block. At FSR 0.65:1 it may support up to 350sqm of soft landscaping which isn’t great, but is respectable. But if you apply the same controls to a 700sqm block then you only have 245 sqm for landscaping which, after you factor in setbacks and driveways leaves very little room left for any canopy to develop. So it is the state government’s imposed FSR of 0.65:1 which makes it difficult to establish an appropriate level of tree canopy, and to work backwards for an appropriate minimum lot size we end up with 1,015 sqm at Ku-ring-gai.

Thirdly, I do hope that in the future a sensible state government will consider appropriate planning controls for dual occupancies on smaller lot sizes. If they were to adopt a formula and, for example, support an FSR of 0.5:1 on a 700 sqm lot, then that can provide for 2x moderate sized 4 bedroom homes, or alternately a larger 5 bedder and a smaller 3 bedder, while still supporting 350 sqm of landscaping and urban canopy. Such a move would allow for another 9,000 homes in Ku-ring-gai, but until the state government takes a more flexible and informed approach to its housing policy my view is that we should stick with 1,015 sqm in Ku-ring-gai as the first phase.

I encourage all councillors to support the staff recommendation.

Key decisions from the March 2025 council meeting include:

Dual Occupancies – Council resolved to put forward to DPHI the proposal for dual occupancies to be allowed in lot sizes of 1,015 sqm or greater. I was in support of this motion, and I will provide my speech transcript in a subsequent post this week.

TOD Scenarios – Council resolved to release an updated TOD scenario to the public on Tuesday 25th March, to be considered at a public forum and council meeting on Monday 31st March. A further update was provided by the Mayor in MM. 2. linked below.

https://kuringgai.infocouncil.biz/Open/2025/03/OMC_18032025_AGN_SUP.PDF

Norman Griffiths Oval – An update on the project status and costs was provided, refer to link above.

Vernon Street Dog Park Lighting – Council resolved to install lighting for this dog park in South Turramurra later this year.

345 Pacific Highway – Council resolved to continue our position of advocating for land on Pacific Highway to be dedicated for road widening, to support the future population uplift in Northern Sydney. Council also resolved to advocate for the affordable housing component to be in perpetuity rather than for 15 years only.

The State Government has announced today its Low- and Mid-Rise Housing Part 2 provisions.

What this means for Ku-ring-gai is that within 800m of Wahroonga, Turramurra, Pymble, Gordon, Killara, Lindfield and Roseville Station as well as St Ives Shopping Village, 3-storey townhouses and manor houses can be built in R2 zones, and 6-storey apartments can be built in R3 and R4 zones. This applies to Heritage Conservation Areas as well, but not Heritage Items.

The implication this has for residents near TOD zones is that it will probably add an additional level of transition from high to low [The details of this are being checked / confirmed with the Department of Planning in coming days.]. Previously there were fears from some residents that the council?s 5-storey TOD-alternative (with setbacks) would overshadow / overlook 1-2 storey homes. But with the formalisation of the State?s LMRH part 2 changes which we have known is coming (since November 2023), all of these ?impacted? residences (including those in HCAs, but with the exception of heritage items) may have the ability to become 3-storey themselves and I don?t believe that the future residents of these future 3-storey homes will be concerned about the 5-storeys next door. As for heritage items, I suspect that they can still be incorporated within larger developments in such a manner that the item is protected but the population increase and value still realised.

Another implication of this announcement is that Warrawee Station, as well as neighbourhood centres such as St Ives North, West Pymble, East Lindfield, Roseville Chase, Eastern Road and Princes Street are confirmed to not be impacted by these changes as originally implied by the State Government. (Residents in these areas may, however, potentially have access to dual-occupancy depending on where those changes land in the next 4 months).

Snippets of the State Government?s indicative mapping are provided, and a more detailed map is linked. Please note that these maps include the default TOD which may be superseded in coming months.

Please also note that the reasons why Council took the State Government to court over the TOD are not applicable to the LMRH provisions. Therefore I do not see any legal challenge arising from this.

Some residents may know that I was not personally satisfied with any of the four new TOD scenarios put forward by Council last year. Each scenario had significant flaws – a symptom of the incredibly short timeframe given for preparing them – but it was necessary for us to act quickly to prevent the costly impacts of the state government?s ill-thought default. If we hadn?t forced an outcome through our legal action (a few hundred k), we would have been stuck with the much more costly impacts of the default TOD (tens of millions plus detriment to quality of life) which didn?t consider infrastructure bottlenecks, local character, or community consultation as required by law.

I?d like to thank the thousands of residents who provided us with feedback on these scenarios. You told us which ones you liked, which ones you hated, and your specific reasons why.

Last week our staff extensively took the councillors through this feedback and then presented us with a revised scenario. I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw because it felt to me that the staff had genuinely considered all feedback AND they had applied additional thought to identifying and remedying some of the inherent flaws of each scenario. There were even some adjustments that I had never considered and made me really excited (on residents? behalf)!

The draft revised scenario I saw last week was not perfect and there is still some finetuning to do over the coming week(s). But when it is ready, the intention is that the public will be briefly consulted a second time before we implement the proposal in or before May 2025.

There will still be some unhappy residents about the revised scenario, and it was never going to be possible to please everyone. But it is still much better than anything we have seen before and from my perpsective, we have to come up with something that would work best for the future residents of Ku-ring-gai rather than purely focus on the short-term needs of some residents (e.g. residents who want to maximise their own short term land value).

Thanks everyone for your feedback yesterday on the Development Application Average Assessment Days chart. Some of it was constructive, while some of it was less so, but regardless I’ve made some adjustments to further the discussion.

The first chart shows both the average assessment days (in green), the number of applications received (in grey), and a 5 month rolling average of the applications received (in purple). The main takeout is that in 2024 there was an overall decline of 27% in the volume of development applications compared to 2023, and I suspect that uncertainty with the State Government’s incremental trickle-down planning changes (that have yet to be finalised by the way!!) along with the time it takes to follow-up with preparing a development application could be a major driver for the decline in average assessment days. The staff therefore have a smaller queue to deal with and could therefore pump the backlog faster, although my understanding is that part of the improvement has also been due to other operational adjustments. We should see further improvement once we have the findings of the DA service review.

The second chart gives a comparison of average assessment days for each Northern Sydney Council. At a very high level it’s safe to say that: – Hornsby, Lane Cove and Northern Beaches appear to be fastest; – North Sydney and Willoughby appear to be slowest; – Everyone else appears to be in between although Hunters Hill in particular is experiencing sustained improvement.

I wouldn’t necessarily draw conclusions out of the chart (such as one council doing a better job than another) because there are multiple factors in play, but for operational staff it may be worth exploring why some councils appear to do better than others… Is it due to factors outside of control (such as more complex mix of DAs) or is it due to process optimisations yet to come into play?

If you want to suggest improvements feel free to email me at sngai@krg.nsw.gov.au and I will send you the spreadsheet so that you can see the underlying data and directly make the changes yourself.

One of the top three priorities that I had set at the start of my 12 months as Mayor was to streamline the Development Assessment process so that homeowners could have greater certainty about when they can move back in. This was formalised as part of the General Manager’s performance agreement for FY25 (after resistance to suggestions under previous leadership). The Planning Minister’s Statement of Expectations also helped to add weight to the initiative.

Under our new General Manager, we commenced a service review of the Development Assessment process and from what I understand this review will finish in the next few months. Having said that, our staff have identified some quick wins and you can start to see the impact – and this is even before we have implemented the recommendations of the review.

There will be some constraints to how low we can go … Development compliance obligations in NSW have become increasingly complex over time, and with a limited budget we are regularly competing with the Private sector as well as the State for talented staff to do the work. But I am optimistic that we can get to a better future for our residents, and look forward to reading the findings and recommendations of the service review.

ONE SLEEP TO GO before feedback on future housing scenarios officially closes.

This is with regard to the NSW Government?s imposition of 22,500 new dwellings within 400m of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon Station. Please let us know whether you?d prefer to do it by demolishing the entire precinct with six storey homes, or by preserving canopy and local character by spreading out further and/or having it taller in the middle. (If so, how tall?)

In the last month we?ve heard from your concerns around traffic gridlock and inability to access the highway, transitions and isolation, impact on canopy and local character, bushfire safety, the sub-optimal timing and duration of consultation, and your preferences for or against specific scenarios. I hear you, agree that this situation imposed by the state is quite unreasonable, and know that there will be some tough decisions that have to be made. However the more feedback that we receive, the greater the chance that we?ll be able to optimise a new scenario next year.

If you have yet to make a submission, please visit the following link to view the material and fill out the survey. https://krg.engagementhub.com.au/housingscenarios (If the link does not work, try turning off wifi and switching to mobile.)

Also yet to be announced is the NSW Government?s other initiative to allow townhouses and apartments in R2 zones within 800m of ALL train stations? we expect this second announcement to come within a few weeks.

AI presents an enormous opportunity for us to work more quickly and create value. I’ve been using it on and off and find that while it is not always entirely accurate, it does help with giving us a good starting point.

On this particular occasion, I’ve been looking at GB11 of our December Council meeting and the staff recommendation to propose minimum lot sizes of 955 sqm for Dual Occupancies across the LGA (as compared to the State Government default of 400 sqm).

According to the AI output – which may not be entirely accurate – our Sydney metro councils offer minimum lot sizes per two homes ranging from 450 sqm (Waverley) to 600 sqm (Hornsby, Northern Beaches, Liverpool, Fairfield). So you can imagine how the Department of Planning will respond if Ku-ring-gai were to go ahead with the proposal in its current form.

In my view it’s helpful to see AI like a junior that you employ at your business. Their work may not necessarily be the most reliable or intuitive, but it gives you a good starting point to further interrogate and refine. You can see through my chat with Claude that I’ve been doing just that.

The benefit of AI over a junior, however, is the price and speed of output. If I had employed a junior to do this it may have taken hours or even days, plus hundreds of dollars. But my chat with Claude here only took a few minutes at a fraction of that cost. How reliable is the data? For someone who knows the topic really well there are likely flaws in the answer, but there will also be flaws when you employ a junior as well. That?s where some sensible scrutiny and subsequent fact checking comes in place before you place reliance on it for anything mission critical.

Council is seeking your input to two items, both of which have an enormous impact on the future of our LGA.

The first is our Community Strategic Plan (CSP) which sets the aspirations of Council from now through to 2034. It?s important that we get diverse input into the CSP because it is what council staff use to recommend project priorities and spend for the next four years. (And historically if you look at our 2014, 2018 and 2022 CSPs both their participants and the resultant reports change very little from term to term).

You can contribute to our CSP either online or via in-person sessions. For more information visit https://krg.engagementhub.com.au/krgcsp

The second is our alternate scenarios for delivering on the Transport Oriented Development Precincts of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon. As previously mentioned, this is being done because the State Government has mandated the delivery of 22,500 new dwellings within 400m of these four train stations, and imposed (poorly planned) interim default controls that will have adverse impacts to tree canopy and local character unless we implement a better configuration that meets the policy objectives.

Council staff have prepared four alternate scenarios for your consideration, and you can provide feedback either online or via in-person sessions (up til 11 December). For more information visit https://krg.engagementhub.com.au/housingscenarios

The expansion of St Ives Shopping Village on council owned land (GB12) is on the November 2024 council meeting agenda.

As is the selection of 15 youth for our Youth Advisory Committee (GB2), which is an election commitment.

And the Planning Proposal for 47 Highfield Road and 47a Highfield Lane (GB13).

More information can be found at https://eservices.kmc.nsw.gov.au/Infocouncil.Web/Open/2024/11/OMC_26112024_AGN_AT.PDF

If any of these matters are close to your heart, you have the opportunity to speak to the councillors at our upcoming public forum held Tuesday 12 November at 6pm. https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums

Last night council resolved to bring the TOD Scenarios out for public exhibition. Members of the public will have the opportunity to have their say about which scenarios they like, which scenarios they don’t like, and why.

The scenarios and the consultation material is being fine-tuned before the public exhibition formally starts in early/mid November. The exhibition period is four weeks, which is longer than the statutory requirement, and given the significance of this topic I suspect that any submissions made after the exhibition close might also be considered before the staff write up their report in February.

More information about the upcoming TOD scenarios is found in the following media release. https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/News-and-media/Latest-news/Council-to-ask-for-community-feedback-on-new-housing-scenarios

And for those interested in my opening speech from last night, refer to the below.

In November 2023, the NSW Government dissolved the Greater Cities Commission along with any long-term infrastructure and housing plan that Sydney had in place.

In November 2023, Ku-ring-gai also proactively wrote to the Planning Minister stating that we would like to meet and discuss the approach to housing and infrastructure. This meeting was eventually granted on 29 February 2024 where the minister said that based on his extensive modelling, the suburbs of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon must become Transport Oriented Development precincts and that no other train station within our LGA has the adequate infrastructure to support this scale of development. He also said that these four stations MUST become TOD precincts and that there was no option to opt or swap out.

We asked the Planning Minister whether we can have a 12-month deferred commencement to come up with alternate scenarios and consult the community and he said NO. But he did say that he was willing to lift the TOD maps if council came up with alternate plans that meet or exceed the original policy objectives.

After several more weeks of discussions and a second meeting on 02 May, it was apparent that the NSW Government had no interest in giving Ku-ring-gai residents the opportunity to properly plan housing and infrastructure, and the TOD SEPP provisions were imposed on Ku-ring-gai. At an extraordinary meeting on 08 May, Council resolved unanimously to commence legal action to invalidate the TOD, as well as to prepare alternate long-term scenarios for these four TOD precincts.

The preparation of these scenarios was not easy and took considerable time. Each of the scenarios before us tonight are designed to meet or exceed the State’s target of 22,500 while improving on heritage, urban canopy, and infrastructure outcomes.

These scenarios are by no means perfect. Each scenario has strengths and flaws. And my preference is that all scenarios are put to public exhibition so that members of the public can formally tell us which ones they like, which ones they don’t like, and their reasons why.

After the public exhibition, council staff will consider the feedback and finetune these scenarios. Council might then select a preferred scenario as the basis for updating our Local Environment Plan. The process of updating the LEP is quite lengthy – Department of Planning guidelines state 420 working days from end to end – but we hope that the NSW Government will expedite the process so that we can get on with delivering housing as per the timing of our requested 12-month deferred commencement.

I now want to make a brief comment about each of these scenarios.

Scenario 3a and 3b seek to protect all of our heritage conservation areas while at the cost of additional uplift in the town centre and/or expanding beyond the 400m. Many residents may find the heights too imposing, and they are welcome to provide that feedback as part of a public exhibition process. I suspect scenario 3a will not be supported by council next year, but it’s good to put it out to public so that they know what a ‘worse case scenario’ looks like. I like scenario 3b a lot, but I am not certain whether it will have the Planning Minister’s approval as he previously thought it would clash with low- and mid-rise changes yet to be finalised.

Scenario 2 seeks to protect 78% of our heritage conservation areas while providing milder uplift in the town centre. There are some benefits to this, although there are also peculiarities such as the destruction of HCA’s while non-HCA land is left at 2 storeys. We wait to receive public feedback on these matters.

Scenario 2b is one that we requested as the ‘minor amendment case’ back on 08 May, and we are proposing that this too goes out to public exhibition after some finetuning by our staff. It only saves a third of the HCAs and I personally do not think it is as good as the other scenarios. However, I think it’s very important for 2b to go out for public comment. I think back to September 2020 with Ku-ring-gai’s Draft Housing Strategy, where staff proposed 3 housing options and councillors were bombarded with over 1,200 emails – many residents criticising council for not making a 4^th option available. From this experience, I think it’s important to give residents all five scenarios representing the full spectrum of possibilities, silencing any complaints that council has withheld scenarios from the public feedback process.

Finally I’d say that as part of the public feedback process, I encourage all councillors to look at the quality, rationale, and motivations behind each submission rather than the number of residents offering support for or opposition against each scenario. There will be residents providing feedback that maximises their short-term land value, but as Councillors we are looking out for the best interest of our residents over the next 100 years.

Recently I have seen inaccurate comments on my Facebook page claiming that Council?s move to put Transport Oriented Development scenarios out for public exhibition was sudden, secretive and without explanation. These comments are highly disrespectful, defamatory, and far from the truth and I will address these claims below.

There has been no secret whatsoever that as an election candidate, I intended to arrange for the TOD scenarios to go out to public exhibition in early November. These plans featured prominently in our election campaign.

In our election brochure distributed to all Roseville Ward households, it said that “This year, the NSW Government’s non-consultative approach to housing policy has been contrary to everything that is taught about good planning and development… To reduce the impacts, council staff are currently preparing alternate scenarios for meeting the State’s housing objectives. You will be consulted about these options in early November.“

On our election day How-to-vote Flyer handed out to all voters who wanted one, it said that we will “Engage the community on alternate Transport Oriented Development options once they become available in early November 2024“.

In response to an election survey conducted by Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment, I said at the bottom of page 3 that “Council staff are looking into alternate scenarios to provide for housing while reducing the impacts on heritage and the environment. Members of the public will be consulted on this in early November with the view of having Council make changes to the LEP next year.“

I was also very open about these plans whenever asked during the election campaign.

Prior to the election campaign we have also been fully transparent that this process is underway, starting from our council resolution on 08 May 2024 and followed by various followup on council?s e-News, website, conversations with print and broadcast media, and at the parliamentary inquiry.

Admittedly, plans have shifted since the first half of the year because I was initially saying that the public consultation would commence in October 2024? It was only more recently that the message shifted to ?early November? because staff updated us and said that it would not be possible to complete the supporting work for informed scenarios by October. But other than this delay of one month, I have consistently stayed on point both with the path forward on legal action as well as the commitment to delivering TOD Scenarios for public consultation.

As far as I am concerned, the public has had sufficient notice that a public exhibition was going to take place in early November and the council remains on track to delivering this objective. All councillors both old and new were also briefed on these scenarios beforehand and told that we will be voting on this in the form of an extraordinary meeting so that we can save two months and protect our HCA?s.

My normal response to inaccurate comments is to click on reply and correct the individual’s claims. However this time I was spammed by eight comments and it was inefficient to reply to each one individually, only to end up in a never-ending war with a keyboard warrior. Hence I’ve chosen to hide the eight comments and address the core issue in this one post.

Several residents have enquired about tomorrow’s extraordinary meeting so I write to explain my position.

The urgency to act has been forced upon by the State Government, which imposed the default TOD policy onto our f our suburbs in May 2024. We already have developers preparing development applications that will permanently change the character of our heritage conservation areas, and the only way to protect these HCAs is to quickly introduce an alternate plan that meets the state?s policy objectives. The more than we fluff around and delay, the more extensive the destruction will be. We also have a duty to give all landowners and residents greater certainty about what will be happening next.

The reason why this comes in the form of an extraordinary meeting is that an ordinary meeting will delay the outcome by at least two months, thus exposing our HCAs to further dectruction. We couldn?t do it in time for the October meeting both because the scenarios were still being developed, and also because the agenda had been finalised before councillors were sworn in. We also can?t do it at the 26 November meeting because there would not be enough time to do a proper public exhibition before Christmas / New Year, resulting in a final decision that?s delayed from February to April. The two month delay results in more HCAs being destroyed, and the exhibition material becoming outdated very quickly. Plus it is the public exhibition, not the ordinary meeting, where public feedback is critical to future outcomes.

Tomorrow’s decision is merely to put scenarios out for public exhibition. It is the start of a process where a range of ideas are displayed for discussion. There are multiple scenarios, and having a scenario up does not mean that councillors, council, or council staff have endorsed its implementation. Each scenario has strengths and flaws, and they are merely there to inform residents on the range of what is possible so as to elicit an informed discussion and feedback process.

I expect the legal action to be ongoing with the next step being court-ordered mediation on 21 November 2024. Both the legal action and these scenarios are linked, with council unanimously voting for both on 08 May 2024. My own view is that the State Government has not followed the law in introducing its Housing SEPP changes, and the reason why the planning minister repeatedly calls for Ku-ring-gai to withdraw the legal action is because he does not want his non-compliance to be found by the court. But even if Ku-ring-gai does win the legal action, it does not permanently stop development. The State Government will still have two years before the next State Election to have a second crack at legally introducing TOD v2, and so it?s important for Ku-ring-gai to have alternate scenarios identified and ready to go.

All of this drama could have easily been avoided had the NSW Government respected Ku-ring-gai’s multiple requests for a deferred commencement. Our intent all along has been to publicly consult on scenarios and establish a plan within a 12 month timeframe, but the NSW Government has not been reasonable in its dealings to date.

I actually don?t know what council will resolve tomorrow night. Will the councillors support any of these scenarios going out to the public? I don?t know. Obviously I think it?s a good idea to have a range of scenarios for discussion, but it?s a democracy so we?ll wait to see what the council collectively decides.

Council staff have prepared alternate scenarios to provide the 20,000+ dwelling uplift in the TOD precincts of Roseville, Lindfield, Killara and Gordon.

These scenarios are designed to mitigate the negative impacts to environment, heritage, urban canopy and town centre vitalisation that the TOD in its original form unfairly forces upon Ku-ring-gai.

Next Wednesday Council will meet to consider which of these scenarios (if any) will go out for public consultation, as well as the manner in which the public consultation will take place. Given that this is probably one of the biggest changes to face Ku-ring-gai in recent history, it is important to get the comms right in the limited time available to us.

The current aim is to form a view on the preferred scenario by February 2025. If we delay the decision too long, we will just end up with the TOD and its impacts everywhere.

The legal challenge continues in parallel though the reality is that even if the Housing SEPP is invalidated in the current form, the State Government may have a second crack and it’s worthwhile to have superior options on standby. The legal challenge and this scenario analysis are both linked, both decided unanimously by council on 8 May 2024.

I have yet to read the meeting papers in full, but they do raise some interesting questions which I need to clarify with staff in the coming days. The meeting papers are linked here

https://eservices.kmc.nsw.gov.au/Infocouncil.Web/Open/2024/10/OMC_30102024_AGN_AT_EXTRA.PDF

We had our first Ordinary Meeting of Council last night. It was good to see our new councillors and new mayor settled in. Key decisions were:

? Support to display the Menorah and celebrate Chanukah festivities at council chambers, plus opening up the site to celebrate other religious and cultural occasions.

? Exploring funding opportunities to make 1192 Pacific Highway more safe and accessible to the public while simultaneously supporting more homes in Ku-ring-gai.

? Directive for staff to consider the means to preserve the Marian Street Theatre DA, with an intent to budget for activities in the FY25/26 year. Councillors will continue to discuss options behind the scenes.

On Tuesday I seem to have sparked some interest / controversy by sharing an example of how a heritage item can be incorporated as part of a larger development site, with the heritage item?s land used to provide uplift elsewhere on site.

My Tuesday post was not an endorsement of the TOD controls. In fact I think the TOD controls are ill-conceived and with no prior consultation with local councils. The Planning Minister?s lack of genuine good-faith collaboration is disappointing, and it is the reason why we are currently involved in legal action.

Multiple residents have also asked me whether the idea of site consolidation only applies to Willoughby Council, or whether there is any precedent within Ku-ring-gai for this to occur. So this time I?ll give you an example from Gordon.

25 Bushlands Avenue, otherwise known as ?Birralee?, is an example of a Federation Bungalow style house and garden built c. 1915 that was made possible by the provision of public infrastructure to support the growth of suburbs like Gordon as an alternative to living in the inner city. You can read more about it here.

https://www.hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/ViewItem?itemId=1882351

On 16 November 2017, as newly appointed members of the Sydney North Planning Panel, Councillor Spencer and I were asked to consider whether it was appropriate to develop a residential aged care facility on the amalgamated site of 25, 25A, and 27 Bushlands Avenue under the predecessor to the Housing SEPP. The developer had proposed to retain the heritage building and most of its garden in the existing form, and instead to use its land to establish additional uplift rights at 25A and 27.

Both Councillor Spencer and I disagreed with this concept and we argued that?

“The Proposal will have adverse impacts on the heritage item at No. 25 Bushlands Avenue (Birralee)“

and that

“For the reason of excessive encroachments into the curtilage of No. 25 Bushlands Avenue the proposal will have an unacceptable impact on the heritage significance of the heritage item.“

You can read more about it here.

https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/planning-panel/residential-care-facility-8

However the planning panel is comprised of 2 councillors and 3 state-appointed members so the state overrode the councillor opinion 3 vs 2 and said that it was fine to incorporate the heritage item into a larger development.

Ultimately the development was refused by the Sydney North Planning Panel on other grounds, however it then went to the Land and Environment Court on a Merits Appeal where it was approved.

But we do see here that both the regional planning panel and the Land and Environment Court are open to consolidated sites with uplift shifted around under the Housing SEPP. There are residents who disagree with my statement here, but I can only tell you what I have seen with my own eyes. I personally believe that many residents have been ill-advised by property developers seeking the lowest hanging fruit. Heritage items and heritage conservation areas are too messy to deal with when there are 45 TOD precincts to choose from across NSW, so they will not want to get involved with heritage unless they can offer prices that are substantially below the genuine underlying value.

Released today is the Report on the Parliamentary Inquiry into the Development of the Transport Oriented Program

In the chair?s forward it was noted that the TOD program and its planning rules were selected in an opaque process with inadequate consultation, and that its one-size-fits-all approach is not well enough designed to stimulate appropriate housing supply or address affordability issues.

10 recommendations were made regarding the TOD program and the NSW Government is called to take on a holistic, long-term view of options to address the inquiry. In summary these are:

1. Work in collaboration with local councils 2. Work with stakeholders to clarify how TOD operates with existing controls 3. Greater consideration of specific drivers of housing affordability 4. Deliver package of measures impacting constraints on residential construction 5. Deliver a framework for affordable housing under the TOD 6. Consider broad range of issues and solution to the housing crisis 7. Focus infrastructure funding to areas of growth including TOD locations 8. Maintain robust design and building standards through new housing reforms 9. Focus on family-friendly apartments 10. Continue the commitment to 40% urban tree canopy across Greater Sydney by 2036

My favourite personal quote from the report is

“4.92 Similar concerns were raised by Mr Sam Ngai, Mayor, Ku-ring-gai Council, who stressed the importance of ensuring open space is a short-term priority in planning and delivery of housing:

The one thing that cannot be left til next decade is public open space because our kids will no longer have a yard and our community needs public places to meet. In the Roseville precinct alone, we expect 5,000 new dwellings, but the only open space is a small war memorial garden next to the highway.”

For more information visit

https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=3035#tab-reportsandgovernmentresponses

Is development possible within a TOD precinct when there is a heritage item?

Last week while shopping at ALDI, I checked out the Chatswood Community Nursing Home and Hospital at 256 Victoria Avenue. It is listed as a heritage item and is known for its history as well as its representation of the Arts & Craft style. More information can be found on the State Heritage Register.

https://www.hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/ViewItem?itemId=2660256

The amazing thing (and this is what I have been telling residents) is that just because a heritage item exists, doesn’t mean that development cannot take place. In this specific example, the heritage item was amalgamated into a larger site and repurposed for different uses. Meanwhile, the development uplift (floor space) associated with the heritage item’s land is redistributed elsewhere on site so that the same number of homes can be delivered while heritage is respected.

At the moment there are a lot of anxious residents in the TOD precincts who are insisting that their homes get delisted for free. Having said that, it’s not how heritage works…. The mere existence of a multi-storey development next door does not in any way dilute the heritage significance of an individual heritage item and, if anything, it makes the heritage item more valuable. Delisting would involve commissioning heritage reports which say that the property no longer meet any of the seven heritage criteria (significance, association, aesthetic/creative/technical achievement, social/cultural/spiritual, research potential, rarity, representation). And unless the original report or basis on which the property was listed is flawed, the delisting is unlikely to happen.

However, heritage items can be incorporated into a larger site and the floor space / development rights distributed elsewhere on site. An honest and savvy developer, real estate agent or adviser will tell you this, but there aren’t many of them out there. A lazy developer on the other hand will see it as being in the too hard bucket and not touch it with a pole, which is understandable given that there are 45 TOD precincts to choose from and they are just going for the lowest hanging fruit first.

On the agenda for the October 2024 Council Meeting are:

261 Mona Vale Road (GB14) – Whether to reclassify this from community to operational land, a move that may lead to more flexible long term use of the site.

1192 Pacific Highway (GB15) – Whether to reclassify this from community to operational land, a move that may eventually lead to its sale.

Pymble Golf Planning Proposal at 2, 12 and 14 Cowan Road (GB16) – Whether to seek a 10% affordable housing contribution (either monetary or in kind in perpetuity) towards the 78 dwellings being built as part of this development.

Marian Street Theatre (GB17) – An update on the costs of extending the site vs. refurbishing the site.

More information can be found at https://eservices.kmc.nsw.gov.au/Infocouncil.Web/Open/2024/10/OMC_22102024_AGN_AT_WEB.htm

If any of these matters are close to your heart, you have the opportunity to speak to the councillors at our upcoming public forum held Tuesday 15 October at 6pm. https://www.krg.nsw.gov.au/Council/Council-meetings/Council-Meetings-and-Public-Forums

Congrats to Ku-ring-gai’s new Mayor Christine Kay and Deputy Mayor Kim Wheatley. I have worked closely with both of them these last few years and I can confidently say that Ku-ring-gai is in good hands.

My parting gift as Mayor – The General Manager’s Performance Agreement FY25

In my first six years as a Councillor, the General Manager?s performance management process was always a debacle.

The Mayor of the day would set the GM?s performance metrics at some undisclosed date, and then at the end of the 12 month period the Mayor would call all ten councillors together to rate the GM?s performance in each area (usually over 40+ items).

The scoring system is typically as such.

5 Outstanding – GM consistently achieves extremely high-performance standards.
4 Exceeds Expectations – High standards are set and achieved. At times performance exceeds requirements.
3 Meets Expectations – Satisfactory performance and meets expected requirements.
2 Improvement Required – Minor shortcomings in performance but major requirements are usually met.
1 Improvement Required – Major shortcomings and important requirements are not being met by the GM.
NA – Milestone is not yet due, and progress cannot be reported on.

In the corporate world (which is where I come from), most employees typically score a 3 on each measure. If they have done poorly, then they may get a 2 and it would be accompanied with constructive management feedback. But if they get a 4 or even a 5 on any measure, it needs to be supported with extensive commentary and evidence to prove that they earned the score that they deserve.

But at Council, this has never been observed to date. We have had councillors who, because they liked the former General Manager, gave him 5?s without any substantiation whatsoever. On the other side we have had councillors who, because they were not satisfied with the General Manager, gave him 1?s without any constructive feedback.

Meanwhile I would give a mix of 2, 3, and 4 with appropriate feedback if I ever deviated from the 3.

With Council?s composition and numbers, the scores from all ten get averaged out and it always ended up with a score that was above 3. The headline promoted by the Mayor of the day would then be that the General Manager scored above average in his performance metrics and therefore should keep his job.

But of course it?s easy to score above 3 if it?s heavily skewed with multiple unsubstantiated 5?s.

What?s worse, the councillors were not shown the GM?s performance metrics until the end of the 12 month period. As a councillor, I had no way of knowing whether the performance metics were agreed to at the start of the period, or whether it was done just a week before the performance review.

Also on multiple occasions when I would give constructive feedback on the GM?s performance, instead of deciding to address the issue and lift performance the following year, the Mayor of the day would just delete the area from the following year?s performance metrics. So rather than seeking to improve for the benefit of ratepayers, she deleted anything that was too hard.

I was incredibly frustrated by the multiple manipulations of the process and it led to one of my election objectives for December 2021.

Align General Manager Performance Reviews with Office of Local Government Guidelines, setting ambitious but realistic performance targets and holding the General Manager to account.

Fortunately as 2024 Mayor I have had the opportunity to start this process. Together with Deputy Mayor of Ku-ring-gai, Cr Christine Kay, Councillor Kim Wheatley and Councillor Alec Taylor we have cast a vision of what we would like the General Manager to achieve in the next four years and then built his 2024-25 performance objectives to align with achieving this vision. This was completed last month.

Furthermore, the scoring for each area will be more difficult to game as we have provided constructive guidelines as to how each should be scored. For example on the topic of community participation we have said the following.

Initiative 1.2 Improve community consultation and notification (frequency, reach, timeliness)

FY25 Activity: Community Participation Plan and Community Engagement Policy updated to reflect community expectations

FY25 Success Measures:
[For a 2] CPP and CEP are rolled over from prior terms
[For a 3] Genuine overhaul of documents to reflect  how we will engage the community in a range of different scenarios
[For a 4] Details of the overhaul are publicly accessible and well accepted by the community

Consultation and notification practices consistently implemented in line with policy

This makes it pretty clear what needs to be done to earn a 2, 3 and 4 and it makes it more difficult for a future council to just give 5?s and 1?s based on how they feel about the performance of the General Manager and our council staff. It also gives the General Manager and the staff a clear objective to stretch to if they want to be recognised for their performance.

I?d like to thank the residents of Ku-ring-gai and the councillors for the opportunity to reform this most-critical element of Council?s governance, and I hope that the next Council decides to continue this practice of shaping Council?s outcomes through proper professional performance management.

So how will we pay for that?

We’ve been talking to residents at Roseville and Lindfield train station and their top issues (apart from development) have been

1. Proactive management of council owned trees (dead branches, roots causing problems) 2. Footpaths and road bottlenecks 3. Provision of playgrounds and toilets in town centres

We know that all councillors and council staff are keen to deliver on these, however, the real challenge is council?s own ?cost of living crisis?.

In the last decade, our operational costs (eg delivery of services, infrastructure and maintenance) has gone up 40% while our rates, which are regulated by the state government, have gone up by 28%.

Obviously when our income (rates) are growing more slowly than our expenses, something has to be done to balance the books. These options include?. 1. Looking for cost efficiencies 2. Reduction of services 3. Selling off assets (noting that this is not an infinitely repeatable process) 4. Increasing rates

In August 2022, before my time as Mayor, I actually moved a motion proposing that we look for these cost efficiencies. However my cost efficiency motion was defeated by former Mayor Pettett using his casting vote. He didn?t offer any alternatives to the efficiency motion either. He didn?t believe that we needed to improve on Council?s spend. He believed that Council was cost efficient.

Fortunately after becoming the new Mayor in September 2023 and with a new General Manager in place, we have started to look more closely at each of our key areas, identifying whether there is potential to improve the quality or volume of service with the limited funds that we have. We?ve looked at our customer service and are now in various stages of progress on looking at development assessment, compliance, communications, sportsgrounds, and other areas tbc. We?ve also looked at the long term maintenance of our assets and have identified significant cost savings with the maintenance of our ageing pipes, offset by increased costs with maintaining our community buildings. The overall cost savings identified to date have been $100m over the life of the assets.

What we find really bizarre though is when there are experienced candidates (current/former councillors) who claim that they will freeze rates while simultaneously delivering more footpaths and other social goods. It?s not possible or sustainable. I do firmly believe that there is still some ?fat? left in Council to trim out, and as a hopeful councillor-to-be we are keen to continue supporting that drive if the majority of the new council is on board. But we will also soon come to a point where there?s nothing more that can be done and we will either have to consider reducing services (e.g. slow down delivery of footpaths, reduce library, youth and seniors services, stop mowing the sportsfields), or look towards other ways of funding activities.

One candidate has inferred that she will revisit the long term financial plan, which implies that she will sell off public assets. But from my perspective, this will only plug a gap in council?s own cost-of living crisis by one or two years. After that we?d have to sell something else. And we don?t have enough assets to keep council afloat like this forever. Asset sales are also not the best idea when we have a projected explosion in population growth and need to retain a sensible portfolio for public open space and/or community space.

Willoughby and Hornsby Council have dealt with the solution through increasing their rates by 15% and 31% respectively. They did so by extensively consulting the public to see what they wanted to do, and the public told them that they didn?t want to see a reduction in service delivery by maintaining the status quo of rates growing slower than cost inflation. The public told them that they wanted to see a drive for efficiencies, and that they were also willing to pay more so long as the council proved that it was delivering more.

For an example of the options that Willoughby provided, visit https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/ehq-production-australia/48dc3fb6900dda3aa80bc7064a3a026721b32213/original/1694751512/7d6aa9cd39fde884296f0699681668a8_A3_Options_Matrix_Chart.pdf

We personally think the most appropriate course of action for Ku-ring-gai is to continue its focus on efficiencies for the time being. Then if at a later point in time the majority of councillors want to explore the option of maintaining our current level of service, or perhaps even increasing services/infrastructure, then it would be appropriate to consult the public and give them the choice, much in the same way that other councils have. We are actually fine to respect whatever the public decides, and in each scenario I?m flexible enough to make it happen. But we?d only earn the right to go out cap in hand if we have first demonstrated that we?ve looked really carefully at internal spend first.

Going back to the original topic? Would you like to see Council take a more proactive approach to Council-owned trees? Would you like to have more footpaths and fix road bottlenecks such as Tryon x Archbold? Would you like to see faster planning and development? Would you like playgrounds to be upgraded? Or are you looking for something much bigger such as the upgrade of a theatre? When the new council is elected, please pass your feedback to the new councillors. It is our hope that the new councillors can put together a list, prioritise what needs to happen first, and have a serious discussion about how and when these initiatives can be funded (reducing another service, selling off assets, or revisiting rates).