Council Approve GM’s Development In Main Street

THE Upper Hunter Shire Council approved the development application for 19 Main Street, Scone by the Council’s general manager last night. (Related story: Council to Consider General Manager’s Development.)

Cr Sue Abbott said she thought the decision should be given to a neighbouring Shire to remove any potential conflict of interest.

However, Council’s own approval policy stated Council could consider the application, without deferring it to another Shire for assessment.

Cr Watts, said she had concerns in relation to the footprint of the development and had spoke to a resident who opposed the application, but had learned a development application in 2015 which was approved had the same footprint as the one put forward by the general manager.

Cr Watts questioned what was the point of having policies for assessment, if Council was going to diverge from the policy.

“There’s been a lot of discussion that Council should not assess the application and I just wanted to raise this here, because Council itself adopted its own policy which gives Council the right to determine these applications

“And while Council needs to ensure we are always meeting the guidelines what I do want to say is, why adopt these policies when we are not going to look at them in the future?

“We just turn around and then we are seeking legal (advice) and we are going against our own policy, I just think in that regard it’s a bit silly and we’re paying out money for legal costs,

Cr Abbott said while she understood there was a policy that supported Council approving a development by a senior staff member she felt uncomfortable with the process.

Not withstanding what Councillor Watts has just said and the Council policy I do believe that this is our most senior staff member and I think there is an issue of us deciding this particular application and given that we can send these sorts of things to neighbouring Councils I would have recommended that we do that

Because I think there could be a perception that we are conflicted here and I am concerned about making a decision on this development application

Cr Ron Campbell said he believed it should be approved and seeking legal opinion on the policy and approval was a waste of time and money.

Cr Abbott noted that the legal advice was Council could send it for independent review.

“In the legal opinion that we did receive it does give examples of different Councils and there is a mixture of sending things for independent review and for doing it onsite,” Cr Abbott said.

“I think my issue here is this is a very very senior staff member and there was an objection in the community, so I would err on caution here myself,” said Cr Sue Abbott.

The Mayor said while he accepted the comments and discussion of Councillors on the policy, the matter was not about the policy, it was about the development application and said Council would have the opportunity next year to re-evaluate the policy.

The Council voted to approve the application, with Cr Abbott voting against.