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Home | ABOUT US | Nonsense | Land Studies | Background
Residents overwhelmingly demand reduced lot sizes |
At a series of community meetings held
in 2003, residents unequivocally showed that their
greatest concern is the present ban on subdivision of
large lots. When surveyed, they rated the
issue 4 times as important as any other affecting the
area.
Meetings demonstrate community concern
At the meetings, (Draft Rural Lands Strategy, p15) attendees were asked to rate their concerns by placing stickers against a list. The issue of subdivision scored 485, more than 4 times the score received by the next highest concern, infrastructure. There can be no clearer demonstration of what the community wants, yet incredibly, as detailed elsewhere on this website, this was written up in the 2001 Rural Lands Study as "a contradiction in the aspirations of the community”. Other meetings have been just as unequivocal. A recent impromptu meeting attracted around 40, with all but 1 supporting lifting the ban. It has become one of the hottest topics of discussion in the area. Summary of submissions confirms concernsTo make certain the council clearly understood the concerns of the community, many made submission to the draft Rural Strategy Report. Two-thirds of the submissions addressed the issue of subdivision; of these, all but 2 were strongly in support of reducing minimum lot sizes to 5 acres or less, with one accompanied by 146 signed letters from residents in support. The only opposition to the overwhelming and unequivocal wish of the community is among the handful of submissions from other government departments. Instead of providing constructive suggestions as to how a reasonable level of growth can be restored to the area, these merely repeat the mantra against it, and among all the submissions, are truly those that should be ignored. |
Who owns the policy? |
| The first problem we encountered in trying to
understand why the minimum block size in the outer
northwest is 25 acres, and not a more reasonable 5
acres, is pinning down exactly where the policy is
coming from. Since the Local Environment Plan is made by the Baulkham Hills council, is seems natural to assume that it originates with them. But after wasting countless hours in meetings, making submissions, and paying for an independent study, we finally realised that the council is merely the front line of defence for the state government. It's a pity that councillors and council officers didn't point this out earlier, before many hundreds of thousands of dollars were wasted on studies, where the outcome was always going to defer to a higher authority. |