Baulkham Hills Shire Development

Mr RICHARDSON (The Hills) [5.53 p.m.]: Tonight I want to congratulate those people who were elected to Baulkham Hills Shire Council on 11 September. Five new councillors were elected, while seven sitting councillors were returned. The major issue in the election was the over-development of the shire. All candidates paid at least lip service to the issue in their campaign literature - which for some of them, given their support for the pro-development policies of the former mayor, was more than a little hypocritical. The attitude of residents - and it was residents councillors Larry Bolitho, John Griffiths, Sonya Phillips and Les Shore, all of whom I am pleased to say were re-elected, supported - is typified by this letter from Castle Hill resident Jean Tyler, published in the Hills News on 13 April:

What on earth is happening to the once beautiful Baulkham Hills Shire? Everywhere you turn you are confronted with dozens of townhouses being erected where once stood nice homes . . .

Page 1089

Castle Hill resembles a bomb site . . .

For council to advertise this as the Garden Shire is false advertising - Developer’s Paradise would be more appropriate.

I moved here about 12 years ago with my family and built a new home in a beautiful area which had lots of trees and pleasant homes . . .

We moved here at a not inconsiderable cost and with lots of dreams. These dreams have been shattered, thanks to the greed of the council and unscrupulous developers.

The attitude of the outgoing council, and its propensity to ride roughshod over the wishes of local residents, was exemplified in the vision outlined by former mayor Geoffrey Brooke-Cowden in his last interview before leaving office. Councillor Brooke-Cowden wanted a railway station in the centre of Castle Hill, with an adjacent parking station for 1,700 vehicles and a 16-level skyscraper above it. That is not the Castle Hill that my family moved to 28 years ago. And it is not the Castle Hill that most local residents want. That is shown by the election results of 11 September.

In an earlier column in the Hills News dated 11 May 1999, Councillor Brooke-Cowden argued that the ageing population and a reduction in the number of two-parent families in the shire created a need for medium and high-density development. It is not axiomatic that on reaching the age of 65 everyone will want to move to a townhouse or apartment. Plenty of senior citizens live quite happily in their four-bedroom homes, and the garden helps to keep them healthy. Which came first, the smaller proportion of two-parent families or the medium-density housing?

Councillor Sonya Phillips, who topped the poll in Central ward, said this week that the election result had sent a clear message that the community is sick and tired of pro-development councils, that urban consolidation is on the nose. Her sentiments were echoed by Save Our Garden Shire candidate Martin Tolar, who topped the poll in West ward. This Government has mandated that councils meet housing density targets or face losing their planning laws. However, Baulkham Hills shire is unique in that it has no government-run public transport apart from 200 metres of railway line at Carlingford.

My electorate has the greatest number of electors in New South Wales and is the fastest growing. Baulkham Hills council is settling 5,000 new residents a year, most of them in the Rouse Hill development area in the western part of the electorate. We cannot allow this rate of development without providing appropriate infrastructure. Yet the Government’s housing density edict has led to parts of Kellyville being zoned for densities of up to 45 dwellings per hectare. Kellyville is 10 kilometres from the nearest railway line, and, on even the most optimistic projections, I am unlikely to live long enough to see the Government’s proposed railway line to Mungerie Park opened.

Castle Hill is facing the prospect of eight-storey blocks of flats on the old Castle Hill public school site, while there are similar proposals for the Baulkham Hills shopping centre. Why should there not be some parts of Sydney where these sorts of buildings - or Geoffrey Brooke-Cowden’s 16-level monstrosity - are not erected? That is consistent with the Government’s own policy, outlined in its Action for Transport 2010 plan, to "promote urban development along new railway lines". Alternatively, if we are to accept apartment blocks, that should be on the proviso that the infrastructure is provided first. But the people should be allowed to choose between public transport or higher densities.

I have previously proposed that council should set up an architectural review committee to oversight contentious developments and to assist developers of townhouses and duplexes to integrate their developments into the existing streetscape. I would hope that the incoming council takes this suggestion seriously. It is not a matter of being against development; it is a matter of being against inappropriate development. As a first step towards securing the future of The Hills, I would propose a meeting between the new mayor and local councillors, as well as State and Federal members of Parliament, to discuss these and other issues. I would hope we would then be able to present a united position on development, infrastructure and urban consolidation to the Government.

Hornsby is the other council in my electorate, and I would like to congratulate councillors Berman, Brown, Horne, Pringle and Russell in particular on their election or re-election. Hornsby is different in that it boasts not one but two railway lines, and if the Parramatta to Chatswood link is built it will have three. There obviously are greater opportunities for increased densities than in the Baulkham Hills shire but, as my colleague the honourable member for Hornsby points out, there should be a study done on the social impact of building large numbers of unit blocks in Hornsby town centre. Ultimately, planning is all about quality of life. If the Government cannot provide what the people it purports to represent want, then it deserves to go.

[Private members' statements interrupted.]

Page 1090