Amazing community support for My Community Projects!

Coal Point Public School Naturespace and Community Hub - is celebrating!

Coal Point Public School would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of our local

community members through their participation in the NSW My Community Project grant program.

The community decided which projects would receive funding by casting their votes, and last week the results of the ballot were revealed. Coal Point Public School Naturespace and Community Hub is one of three successful projects in the Lake Macquarie electorate that will be funded.

The Coal Point Public School Naturespace and Community Hub is a large landscaping and public facility improvement project that will revitalise the school grounds bordering the bushland and create an attractive space that everyone can access, to; play, exercise, explore and relax.

If you would like to know more about the project our first community drop-in session at Coal Point Public School will coincide with the Lake Macquarie Garden Club's Open Garden and Art Trail, between 10am - 2pm on October 13th. Preliminary design concepts will be available for comment and we will be providing tours of the school gardens and a sausage sizzle. All community members are welcome. 

Toronto Community Kitchen

We are so excited to see the overwhelming support that the Toronto Community Kitchen received in the voting for the My Community Project grant.

Our project received the highest points in our electorate! Thank you to all our supporters!

It gives us great heart to know that our community has come together to help some of our neighbours who don't always have a voice, let alone a home or a meal.

We are busy making plans to open our Kitchen while we wait to receive the Grant money. If all goes well we hope to open before the end of 2019.

As this is a community-based Project, we'd love to hear from you if you’d like to help serve in our Kitchen to make some new friends and support others in need.

God bless you and your families from St Joseph's,Toronto

Contact: Bev McWilliam 0437 868888. Community Engagement Coordinator

To B or not to Air B & B… that is the question!

The popularity of short-term holiday letting (STHL), through on-line platforms such as Air B& B, has seen a rapid growth in this form of accommodation nationally, regionally and within our own local area.

Whilst this form of accommodation supports tourism it is important that this not be done to the detriment of people, families and communities that reside in residential neighbourhoods.

In recognising that there needs to be a balance, the State Government released an options paper on 20th July 2017 that details a proposed regulatory and planning framework to deal with Short Term Holiday Letting in NSW.

The report is comprehensive and provides details of the experiences of how cities overseas have dealt, through regulatory and planning framework, with this rapidly growing form of accommodation that at this point, is largely unregulated in this State.

In the context of Lake Macquarie, short-term holiday letting is a permissible use in a residential zone where the permanent residents live on site. This is essentially the traditional bed and breakfast model that has successfully operated around the lake for years.

Problems have occurred in some areas, with the more recent operations, where owners DO NOT reside on site. These problems generally stem from the owners not being on site and therefore rules on noise, parties etc aren’t enforced. In these situations, the adjoining owners bear the consequences of poor behaviour when guests aren’t respectful of the fact they are staying in a residential environment. These types of operations, where owners DO NOT live on site are currently prohibited in Lake Macquarie in a residential zone. Effected neighbours, in these circumstances, have described the experience as like living next door to an unregulated hotel in a quasi tourism zone, not a residential neighbourhood.

The options report is available for community comment until 31st October 2017. A copy of the report can be downloaded on the following link and submissions made on the webpage.

http://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/sthl

It is very important that the community engages in this process, if the policy settings aren’t carefully considered and understood, the impact on the amenity of people in the community could be dramatic. Some planners believe this is one of the most significant issues to impact on the liveability of communities we will experience in a long time.

If you have any questions or have had any issues relating to STHL, Greg Piper’s office would like to hear from you, contact details are:

Phone 4959-3200

Email address: lakemacquarie@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Letter to Council: Amended DA 1274/3013

I object to the amended application DA1274/2013 on the following grounds.

The amended plans for DA1274 do little to reduce the overall impacts of this large development on the local community.

It is acknowledged that there has been a reduction in the number of units to enable access to the site and address the inability of garbage collection to be undertaken which were problematic in the original application.

The bulk and scale of the development remains a problem. Any gains made in the amended application by the ‘reduction in size and footprint of the two storey terraces’ were negated by the addition of an extra 2-storey terrace.

The increase in the number of structures to accommodate the level changes across the site is sensible in that it will reduce the overall cut and fill requirements however this does little to address the overdevelopment of the site and removal of all existing vegetation.

The increase in size of the communal area is acknowledged however the location, surrounded by the access road may not be conducive to public enjoyment and its size to service the entire development which contains only small private spaces may still be inadequate. If the intent is to reduce the visual impact from Laycock Street it will achieve this.

The landscaping plant schedule does little to support the existing wildlife corridor. Native shrubs could be used to increase nectar sources and habitat potential within the development. Introducing more exotic species compromises the local bushland and landcaring efforts.

The proposed stormwater management plan states that 1.73ha of upstream catchment will be diverted around the site in a pipe network which will ‘connect into the existing stormwater pipe…maintaining the existing runoff regime. The capacity of the existing pipe to accommodate the runoff generated by the development is of concern. Within the past decade this pipe has reached capacity on several occasions and caused flooding of adjacent properties.

In addition the original concerns from previous correspondence still stand.

Yours Sincerely

Name:

Address:

Date:

Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Update

The Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood group has been quite busy in the past month.

The Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan (SNAP) is with Council getting feedback and having the production finalised. The community launch of the document is being organised for Spring and the local working groups have been developing their projects.

Below is the next instalment of The Toronto Area SNAP, the guiding document for the group which outlines the projects as well as the community vision and values as formulated at local workshops.

Toronto Area Community Vision

• To be proud of our neighbourhood
• To maintain and improve access to natural beauty and cultural heritage.
• To promote sustainable growth and tourism and
• To foster a community of environmentally aware and active residents

The Toronto Area Community Vision was developed following engagement with residents about community values and needs.  Formal engagement between Council and the Toronto community began in September 2010 with the objective of forming a Toronto Sustainable Neighbourhood Group and to develop a local Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Plan (SNAP).

Community engagement has included a Community Attitudes Survey (March 2011), two workshops, meetings and youth activities. Improvement of walking and cycling path infrastructure is seen as the single biggest environmental and social issue for Toronto Area residents.

Local sustainability issues of most concern to residents as highlighted in the survey were:

• Protecting and improving the natural environment
• Having access to parks, lake foreshore, bushland and other natural areas
• Improving streetscape and stormwater systems through environmental design
• Reducing waste and energy consumption
• Responses from the community workshops focussed around six key areas of action:
• Engaging in sustainable living activities such as community/backyard vegetable and native gardens, cycling and walking
• Protecting and enhancing natural environments including bushland, wildlife and the lake foreshore through initiatives such as Landcare and responsible pet ownership
• Fostering a safe neighbourhood
• Creating more opportunities for community interaction
• Reducing traffic noise, pollution and congestion and increasing sustainable transport accessibility such as public transport and electric vehicles
• Improving community facilities such as footpaths, cycleways, kerb and guttering, bushland tracks and access to public land.

Toronto Area Community Values
The residents of the Toronto Area value our:

• Peaceful village atmosphere
• Lake-side culture and healthy outdoor lifestyle
• Magnificent natural environment and rich cultural heritage
• Convenient and diverse range of local services
• Enterprising community people
• Community’s potential to keep the Toronto Area a special place
• Ability to make local decisions so that we can provide support for each other