Trees at 109 Copeland Road

Following the last blog about the JRPP Copeland Road development, people have asked about the 109 Copeland Road trees.

Since the auction of 109 Copeland Rd, the two trees at the north end of the block both have 1 inch holes bored into them with roundup added, and the leaves are already dying.  The Trust wrote to Council suggesting that any future DA should require the requisite area around the trees (10m or whatever) to be retained in perpetuity clear of development even after the trees have died and been removed, and that the owner should be responsible for planting new trees when that happens.

But that solution won't affect the DA1305 project because the development will have been completed and there will be no way to punish whoever poisons the trees in front of a multi-occupancy block of flats!

NWRL Submission Report

From NWRL Project:

The North West Rail Link has reached another planning milestone. The Submissions Report has been lodged with the Department of Planning and Infrastructure. The report addresses issues raised by the community, local businesses, government agencies and councils to the first Environmental Impact Statement. It is now available to view by visiting http://northwestrail.com.au/document/index/1#

One relevant item from the report is:

Cheltenham: The size of the construction site will be reduced by 2,250m2, cutting the amount of bushland that needs to be cleared. A previously proposed access road to the site from Castle Howard Rd will no longer be required, with access for light vehicles to the site to be from existing roads used to get to Cheltenham Oval;

 

The detail about the Cheltenham site is in Part 6, paras 6-43 to 6-46:

The plan still shows the construction of a concrete dual lane road out to Kirkham Street, with only the comment "Possible access from/egress to M2 Motorway" indicating what the Trust believes is the only sensible solution to this requirement. 
We do NOT want 1000 trucks transporting excavated soil through Beecroft, when they could go straight onto the motorway!  Nor would the NWRL be happy with just the Beecroft fire engine if there's a problem down under later on, with all the massed emergency service vehicles from the M2 and other regions queuing up to get onto Kirkham Street!

DA1305 Development Hannah / Copeland Road

There was another good attendance of opponents to the development at the final JRPP hearing into this development on 26 July.  We sat through a submission on another similar development in Castle Hill first, in which the developer described the extensive community consultation they had provided including holding two town hall meetings, a very different attitude to Uniting Care’s approach.

Then it was our turn.  As always at these meetings those against the proposal speak first, then the developer can respond and the panel retires to decide.  Most of those opposing the proposal submitted that the five storey buildings are totally out of character with the heritage area in which the Uniting Care intends to build.  “Rezoning by stealth” was one phrase that stuck in the mind.  The point was made that the changed drawings make no significant improvement, and the speaker asked why Hornsby Shire Council changed its recommendation from “refuse” to “approve” based on those minor changes.

The Chairman’s legal consultant explained that Affordable housing prevails over local government planning and each council must provide sufficient affordable housing.  The audience felt that zoning the Beecroft Shopping Village for five storey mixed development provided sufficient apple scope for this!

Then the Uniting Care developers spoke, mostly talking about the exposure of the buildings from Hannah Street, which of course is the high side.  Because of the sloping ground, it’s Copeland Road that these buildings will dominate.  Their response to that was basically that the buildings will be hidden behind tall trees.  One wonders how long the tenants in the upper levels of the buildings will put up with breathtaking views being screened by those trees.

Just down the road at 109 Copeland Road, two beautiful Blue Gums have recently been poisoned with roundup.  Can we really believe that the trees Uniting Care are proposing to use as screens will survive for long?  How will Uniting Care compensate the people of Beecroft once these screening trees have been poisoned and those bulky blocks of flats are exposed to view?

But protocol meant that those opposing the development couldn’t challenge what the developers said.  Felicity Finlay, the local representative on the panel, did well, asking how what the drawings showed was a seven storey building could be hidden by trees, and pointing out that one drawing shows the building is four storeys above the existing houses on Copeland Road.  The developer quoted tree and building heights.

So the Panel retired.  They took fifty minutes deliberating, which gave those present hope that the Panel would find against the development, but when they returned there was a split decision, Felicity Finlay and Stuart McDonald voted against, and the other two voted in favour.  The Chairman Bruce McDonald, cast a second, deciding, vote in favour of the development proceeding.

DA1305 Lost by a Whisker

After some excellent speeches, all against the proposal, the JRPP took 50 minutes to deliberate their verdict, finally voting two against (Felicity Finlay and Stuart McDonald) and two for.  The Chairman, Bruce McDonald used his position as Chairman to cast the deciding vote in favour of the UnitingCare development.
A fuller report of the meeting will be posted soon.

M2-F3 Tunnel Link

Transurban has offered to build a tunnel under Pennant Hills Road connecting the F3 at Wahroonga with the M2 at West Pennant Hills.  Roads Minister Duncan Gay says the cost of this has yet to be determined.  "The government would consider the community benefit of the tunnel over the next six months."

The BCCT is firmly of the view that the funding for this project and the Third Rail Northern Freight Rail Corridor project should be combined and put toward the only long term proposal that anyone has considered, "The Northern Solution" of a new road and rail link from Kariong across the Hawkesbury and down to the M7 at Dean Park.  This was Option C in the Federal Government's study in 2002.  In that study, Option A was selected, pretty much what is now proposed, because it was cheaper than Option C - estimated costs c$2B for Option A and $3.6B for Option C in 2003 dollars.

Of course that version of Option C didn't include the rail link, but doing the road and rail link together would enormously reduce the costs of land acquistion, bridge building, and so on, where the terrain allows the two to run together.

The one thing that seems clear is that Option A for trucks and the NRFC third (and possibly fourth) rail for freight trains remain frought with long term problems including pollution and noise, as well as concentrating all the inter-state traffic (that should be going around our city) in perpetuity.  After building Option A and the NRFC, it seems improbable that future politicians would ever build the proper solution to the state's traffic and rail freight problems.

You should be interested in this!

This excellent article is taken directly from the Pennant Hills District Civic Trust newsletter.

If you haven’t been interested up to now you should be from now on with the NSW Government proposing new planning laws that will limit community involvement to ‘broad area’ development

planning and deny them the opportunity to object to a development ‘next door’.

It so happens that Hornsby Council has a revised Hornsby Shire LEP and a new DCP on exhibition now with submissions closing on August 7. Driven by Government to have a common LEP format across all shires and a single ‘all purpose” Shire DCP (replacing in Hornsby’s case 32 subject specific DCP’s) the result is the 583 pages currently on exhibition.

It might have been easier to respond to if the new LEP and DCP were just a transposition from the old format to the new without introducing any changes, but this is not the case. For example:

- Pennant Hills and West Pennant Hills are predominantly zoned ‘Low Density Residential’ with the intensity and scale of development controlled under the existing LEP by the minimum lot size of 500 sqm (unchanged) and Floorspace Ratio (FSR) which is not in the new LEP.

- Council advises that this control is now covered in the new DCP but when the detail is examined the FSR has increased by 65% and the Site Coverage by 25%.

- The existing DCP restricts dwelling house height on battleaxe lots to single storey. The new DCP does not.

- Council advises that it was impractical to continue this restriction so a 2 storey/8.5m high building is now

permissible in a battleaxe lot.

- The 5 storey Residential Flat Development for the Fisher Avenue / Trebor Road block in central Pennant Hills was approved on the basis of its “relatively low” traffic generation and with no traffic improvement measures.

The new DCP differs.

- the new DCP includes a ‘median’ strip on Trebor Road from Pennant Hills Road to the corner with Fisher Avenue. Why ? Has Council’s estimate of “43 dwellings within this precinct” changed? And what is the new number?

Issues such as these must be addressed by Council, but the advent of Council’s elections in September is important

in this context. Any pre-election attempt to fast track the LEP and DCP approval needs watching.

The new Council must not be provided with the ‘out’ that the new LEP and DCP are a fait accompli.

Beecroft Forum August meet cancelled

Janet Hayes advises that they have had problems with the speakers organised for their August dinner so thye have cancelled the dinner.