Warning over bush sale plan
By Sean Plambeck
Fairfield Advance, Wed 12 December 2007

Stephen Swannell (from left), Bill Cashman and Thang Ngo meet with Katinka St residents to discuss their objections to residential development on a tract of Cumberland Plain Woodland.

FAIRFIELD councillors have been urged to distance themselves from determining a proposal to sell council-owned bushland for a 42-house development.

The council's planning staff and its Independent Hearing Assessment Panel support the sale of 419-425 Elizabeth Drive, Bonnyrigg, despite protests from residents in neighbouring Katinka St.

But in a report to last night's ordinary council meeting, council environmental standards executive manager Diane Cuthbert said the council should remain at arm's length in determining the application.

``While accepting the staff and panel's views on the proposal, as council is still the owner of the land and there is a community concern in relation to it, it is suggested that council should seek an external town planner to assess the
application,'' Ms Cuthbert wrote in her report.

Katinka St resident Stephen Swannell said residents opposed the development because it would compromise the value of their homes and street safety, and reduce the amount of open space in the suburb.

Mr Swannell said more than doubling the number of houses in the street would increase traffic and place more than 30 children living in the street at greater risk of being hit by a car.

He said the street would not be able to cope with the increased traffic and asked the council to look at building a bridge to link the proposed development to Humphries Rd.

``I told the council if there were any accidents caused by an increase in traffic they would be held accountable,'' Mr Swannell said.

He said residents would see the value of their homes, which were on blocks of at least 600sq m, drop if the developers were allowed to have the majority of lots between 450-485sq m as proposed.

Cr Thang Ngo and Greens representative Bill Cashman met concerned residents at the site on Saturday.

Cr Ngo's parents live in Katinka St but he said his conflict of interest paled when set against that of the council's.

"Clearly the council wants to maximise its income from the sale of this land and the more houses that are built the more rates income we get,'' he said.

"There is a clear conflict of interest and an independent town planner should have been used from the start.''

Cr Ngo said the council purchased the land about 20 years ago for the purpose of building a theme park.

"The council is set to make a lot of money from this sale and we owe it to the community to do the right thing now,'' he said.