Present: Ronald Hu, Irene Matuszek Duckett, Cherry Andrews, Ross Irving, Brett Harrison and myself. There will be a 3rd of June open day at Cambria homestead. There will be Q and A in small group discussions with Ronald and his senior planner in which anyone can participate rather than a full blown town hall meeting where a few voices tend to dominate. Irene will be overseas at that time. The golf course designer will also be at the open day to field questions. The reason why there has been no Development Application so far is because they are still bedding down the details of the Specific Area Plan (SAP) in the current community consultation phase. Irene stressed that the SAP is where it's at, because the SAP will form the rules regulating any future development application. The concept plans are clearly not an accurate indication of what will happen but of what might happen. Further to this, Ronald explained that one of the central planks of their development approach was to not undermine local community values. To this end, Ronald and Irene have declared they are prepared to negotiate with community concerns by using either one or both of the following mechanisms (depending on which is the best fit to address the particular concern) to ensure those concerns are robustly addressed : 1/ - Insert into the SAP, controls that address those concerns; 2/ - Enter into Part 5 agreements (basically covenants) see section 71, 72 and 73 of the Tasmanian Land Use and Planning Act 1993; or, there may already be protections and regulations in place that need to be incorporated by law into the Development Application. We worked through a small list of primary concerns just to explore them as examples of how we would approach other issues that may come up after community discussion. There will obviously need to be much more comprehensive community discussion and negotiation with the proponent before the final agreements are settled - if this is what the community wants to do. However, the point demonstrated here is we have a workable mechanism for community/proponent collaboration going forward:
Pumping water from the aquifer. Ronald unequivocally ruled this out and is happy to enter into a Part 5 agreement regarding this;
12 meter building heights and 5 meter setbacks. Ronald is happy to rule out 12 meter buildings and minimum 5 meter setbacks along common boundaries with Cambria and Dolphin Sands properties. A solution of inserting a control into the SAP where there is a 20 meter setback per story of building height was briefly explored (Irene said that the SAP can override the Statewide planning scheme and doesn't have to be consistent with it);
Airstrip - Irene suggested they were willing to put other standards under the use standard in the SAP regulating noise and hours of use;
On other issues, Ronald reassured us that the Homestead precinct will not in any way seek to displace the business hub of Swansea. Irene pointed out the proposed SAP has a control regarding this; that any business (at Cambria) must not disturb the existing hierarchy of the Swansea business centre.
PS Can you tell it was a bit chilly in that room? brrr!
A successful meeting with Ronald Wu and Irene Matuszek Duckett, 16 May 2018
As DSRA President I informed Ronald and Irene of our consultation process of gathering the views of members via an online survey: reviews of the Specific Area Plan ( SAP) have been completed by a surveyor and an environmental scientist and we have invited input from ratepayers. These will inform our survey. I provided the associated timeline through to our report to the Council.
Issues discussed concerning DSRA Territory and boundaries included:
• Golf course and use and run off into the aquifer
• Airstrip
• 5-12 metre setbacks from boundaries and height of buildings
• Relatively large size of the Cambria Homestead Zone
• Villas and other buildings on the Concept Map
• “Residential villas” for purchase
Broader issues discussed as received from DSRA members:
• Social and economic impact on Swansea township and the threat of decentralisation
• Water: use of aquifer, Swan river, Meredith river, the lagoon, the Irrigation Scheme and recreational use
• Ethnic diversity of the resort: what encouragement/ marketing will be directed at Australia and other nationalities to come to the resort?