The first of the Extraordinary Council Meetings to be held to discuss the long awaited Local Environment Plan for Palerang was held last Thursday.
While Council is required to produce a new LEP every five years, it will be the first for Braidwood since the 1991 Tallaganda LEP and while Bungendore has been operating under a 2001 plan.
Various speakers from around the shire were given three minutes to address the meeting.
Several criticised the quality of the 'working draft', and director of Planning Louise Menday responded that much of the document and it's formatting was from the State template, including the maps and their colour coding which are mandated by the department.
Others addressed the issue of minimum rural lot sizes, which is one of the key issues of contention.
Mr Brett Falkiner spoke on behalf of the NSW Farmers Association, saying that having been through the formation of three LEPs, he considered they "were all State theft of farmers property rights."
Mr Duncan Osmond from Bungendore quoted statistics of projected population growth and said that the working draft "shows no growth. Water sceptics have come to the fore, but what if they're wrong" he asked. "Palerang will be left with an outdate LEP before it has even been proclaimed."
Mr David Watson expressed the view that "There are two ways of looking at land. One is to look at the natural qualities of the land. It's the way to go, working with nature," he said. "It seems to me that this new LEP has some of that in it."
"The old way of looking at the land was to say 'How can I make money from this land.' Its an old way, it's a 19th century way, you start imposing on the land what you personally want and that's what has got us into trouble with all sort of issues" said Mr Watson.
When Councillors started to debate the text of the working draft Cr Terry Bransdon noted that "It is six years exactly today since Palerang was formed and we negotiated an agreement for the $170,000 to help fund the making of a combined LEP for the new shire six weeks after that. We have heard today it will be at least 12 months before the LEP could be completed and this is very disappointing."
It is not clear how much the new LEP has cost the ratepayers so far.
After three hours of debate the Council had proceeded through half a page of the 136 page document. The whole meeting was devoted to the first five points - the 'Aims of the Plan' - which were agreed as follows:
a. to protect and improve the economic, environmental, social and cultural resources and prospects for the Palerang community.
b. to encourage development that supports the long-term economic sustainability of the local community, by ensuring that development does not unreasonably increase the demand for public services or public facilities.
c. to retain, protect and encourage sustainable primary industry and commerce.
d. to ensure the orderly, innovative and appropriate use of resources in Palerang through the effective application of the principles of ecologically sustainable development.
e. to retain and protect wetlands, water courses and water quality and enhance biodiversity and wildlife corridors by encouraging the linking of fragmented core habitat areas within Palerang.
Council will meet on the second and fourth Thursday each month until the draft is ready for submission to the Department of Planning.
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