Clr Larry Whipper again reinforced resident concerns about the saturation of SEPP5 and Senior Living Developments in the area. “It getting to the point” as Crosby Stills Nash and Young sang, “ I can’t take any more, I must cry out loud”! Clr Whipper said.
“This is not about good planning, this is not about strengthening community. This is about some developers taking advantage of State Legislation to get maximum bang from their investment buck”! Since I came to Council in 1999, I have continually raised concerns about this exploited legislation:
At almost every occasion when these came in, I asked, what about the infrastructure strain. How can our Hospitals and Medical Services cope”? The answer was, there is nothing we can do about it! “ I believe there is, I believe we can refuse the development approvals. In the last Council, there are even now Councillors who are reluctant to go to Court on these matters, saying it is a waste of money. Ironically, some of these same Councilors don’t seem to have a problem wasting money in other areas of Council finances”? Clr Whipper said.
I believe that there are currently around 600 SEPP5 and Seniors Living units, which have been approved in the Shire. This is without OLSH and Neerim. It is getting to out of hand. The reality is that these new units are largely catering for new people coming into the shire. This unfortunately continues to bring medical and other forms of local infrastructure to breaking point”!
Occasionally we get promises that these development will provide medical care for residents, but we never see these eventuate and residents are forced to increase the strain on the existing services which we know are also inadequate.
As an example Council recently received an application for Neerim for subdivision to allow I House per I acre on the site, after taking the application in good faith, we now have an application for a Seniors Living Development for 62 units.
This is all the more disappointing knowing that the Wollongong Diocese of the Catholic Church reneged on their undertaking to build a High Scholl on the OLSH site in return for a rezoning!
People have accused me of being anti development in the past. Wrong, I am opposed to inappropriate developments, which continue to stain the beauty of this shire, put our environment at risk and tears our infrastructure apart.
If we are going to have development, it is our responsibility to ensure that we get it right. That we can cope with it and that we as a community do not pick up the Social infrastructure costs for the developer.
Enough is enough! Lets rethink the way we are developing this shire. Lets try to start focus on families and young peoples needs. Lets seek at least a moratorium on Seniors Living Developments.
“This is not about good planning, this is not about strengthening community. This is about some developers taking advantage of State Legislation to get maximum bang from their investment buck”! Since I came to Council in 1999, I have continually raised concerns about this exploited legislation:
At almost every occasion when these came in, I asked, what about the infrastructure strain. How can our Hospitals and Medical Services cope”? The answer was, there is nothing we can do about it! “ I believe there is, I believe we can refuse the development approvals. In the last Council, there are even now Councillors who are reluctant to go to Court on these matters, saying it is a waste of money. Ironically, some of these same Councilors don’t seem to have a problem wasting money in other areas of Council finances”? Clr Whipper said.
I believe that there are currently around 600 SEPP5 and Seniors Living units, which have been approved in the Shire. This is without OLSH and Neerim. It is getting to out of hand. The reality is that these new units are largely catering for new people coming into the shire. This unfortunately continues to bring medical and other forms of local infrastructure to breaking point”!
Occasionally we get promises that these development will provide medical care for residents, but we never see these eventuate and residents are forced to increase the strain on the existing services which we know are also inadequate.
As an example Council recently received an application for Neerim for subdivision to allow I House per I acre on the site, after taking the application in good faith, we now have an application for a Seniors Living Development for 62 units.
This is all the more disappointing knowing that the Wollongong Diocese of the Catholic Church reneged on their undertaking to build a High Scholl on the OLSH site in return for a rezoning!
People have accused me of being anti development in the past. Wrong, I am opposed to inappropriate developments, which continue to stain the beauty of this shire, put our environment at risk and tears our infrastructure apart.
If we are going to have development, it is our responsibility to ensure that we get it right. That we can cope with it and that we as a community do not pick up the Social infrastructure costs for the developer.
Enough is enough! Lets rethink the way we are developing this shire. Lets try to start focus on families and young peoples needs. Lets seek at least a moratorium on Seniors Living Developments.
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