Mayor of The Hills Shire Council, Michelle Byrne says the NSW Government’s scaled back proposal for the Bella Vista and Kellyville Transport Oriented Development (TOD) precinct is “half-baked” and fails to address longstanding infrastructure concerns.
Dr Byrne has called for the exhibition period for the precinct to be re-opened to allow residents to have their say.
“While I’m glad the NSW Government’s absurd original proposal has been scaled down, we need to know why all housing growth on the Blacktown side has disappeared and the additional growth has actually doubled on the Hills side,” Mayor Byrne said.
“Instead of having an additional 18,200 homes on the Blacktown side as originally exhibited, Blacktown will now have no new homes while the Hills has an additional 4,600 on our side, in addition to the 18,600 homes we already have capacity for.
“This is a fundamentally different proposal in terms of the yield and built form outcomes on several key sites.”
Residents, businesses and Council should be afforded the opportunity to have their say, says the Mayor.
“If Council or a developer submitted plans this light on detail, the NSW Government wouldn’t even let us put it on exhibition. Meanwhile, the NSW Government is completely reshaping the face of The Hills Shire with the stroke of a pen,” she says.
“This is a major uplift and will require a significant investment from the NSW Government in infrastructure like local roads, schools, parks, playing fields and community facilities.
“The Government keeps talking about the $520 million they have to spend across eight TOD precincts, but still have released no plans on how they will use it.
“These will still be city-shaping precincts yet there’s no funding for new schools, no funding for new playing fields, no funding for new community floor space and no flood study to back up how these buildings can actually be constructed.”
Mayor Byrne said that despite repeated requests for a meeting with Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, the rezoning announcements were made without any discussion between the Government and Council.
“It’s disappointing that the Minister has steamrolled Council with this announcement. There are a lot of issues with this half-baked proposal that need to be addressed and now these rezonings will be made without us having a chance to voice our concerns,” she said.
“The first we heard of this announcement was when we read it in the papers this morning, before the Department had even finalised and released the extremely scant details which were published on their website this afternoon.
“The Hills Shire already has the most overcrowded schools in NSW and the Government’s only commitment as part of this process is to undertake further investigations to increase school capacity.
“This simply isn’t good enough and they need to act fast before quality of life for Hills residents is significantly eroded.”
