Vineyard NSW
A big win for Oakville residents
After nearly five years of banging on about the shocking state of our local roads, I was very pleased at Councils meeting of 30/3 to be able to negotiate additional funding to FINALLY SEAL Old Stock Route Road and Brennans Dam Road at Vineyard.
Most of this is new money, and was absolutely not on the table before.
Some additional commentary:
• Unfortunately this does not yet seal the Commercial Road approach.
• The culvert will have some drainage and scour works done, but will remain a single-lane crossing for now.
• I couldn't get the whole package of works through tonight, both because of our inability to complete the whole project within the deadline of the Commonwealth grant (31 Dec 2021), but also because I could not get more than this through the Chamber (for now).
• Further stages to fix Commercial + widen the culvert have been costed (~$450K) and I pledge to return to these ASAP.
• Yes, this road floods. Regularly. However, when natural disasters strike we get 100% coverage from the State Government to restore these roads but only on the basis of a 'no betterment clause', meaning we can't use disaster relief funds to improve a road beyond it's previous state. If however we improve it now, future damage will be covered to this new better standard. Some of the drainage works will help prevent road erosion against future flooding.
THANK YOU to my Hawkesbury Liberal Team Council colleagues and other Councillors who voted for this, especially those who reversed their previous opposition. Not everyone did...
Hawkesbury's Local Housing Strategy and the pressure for development
On Tuesday, Hawkesbury City Council adopted our long-awaited Local Housing Strategy.
This document sets out how we will meet our housing targets over a timeframe of several decades.
Although this has implications for our whole city, the Liberal Councillors felt it was important to address a gap in the document.
The south eastern part of our City – the suburbs of Vineyard, Oakville and Maraylya, sit adjacent to some very aggressive urban growth. The ‘North Western Growth Sector’ is breathing down our neck across the county line in the Hills District, and has spilled into our own patch as the release areas named ‘Vineyard Stage 1 and Stage 2’
This pressure is tearing our community apart. Some are in favour of development, many against.
The one thing we can’t do is… nothing. I was disappointed that the Housing Strategy document said little about either the necessity, desirability, inevitability or show-stopping constraints of future development, other than remarking that the not-yet-finally-gazetted Outer Sydney Orbital corridor will continue to hang over us until that matter is definitely resolved.
I have strong opinions about this, but they matter less than seeking to understand what the majority view in those suburbs truly is. Some individuals or groups might claim to represent a clear majority, but I don’t think they do. I have a responsibility to represent all those views, and I take that seriously.
So, we moved a form of words that sought to survey and consult with the residents of Oakville and Maraylya to ask them what they wanted. Nothing more. Certainly not a decision to develop or not.
Your Liberal Councillors voted for that consultation. All the others, including Labor and the Greens, voted against it.
This video only contains my remarks, but I encourage you to listen to the whole meeting podcast (item 247, 8th December meeting) when it comes out to hear from my Liberal colleagues and the others.