Letters To The Editor
How's the serenity?
For more than two years now, petrol tankers have been operating out of a site in Exton Street, North Lismore, without development approval.
After the business had been operating for over 12 months without a Development Application (DA) being lodged, Council staff requested that a DA be submitted.
The DA was lodged in September 2004 and was considered by planning staff for four months. The application was withdrawn in February 2005 because there was an insufficient turning circle within the property and the application would have failed.
At the time of the September DA, six residents, including the North Lismore Progress Association, lodged written objections on a broad range of grounds. In spite of this, and even though the site is surrounded by housing and the area has been residential for more than 100 years (and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future), the senior engineer has decided to transfer Council land, next door to the site, over to the applicant. This would save the application from failure and thus favour decisively the applicant over the residents.
The business has been allowed to continue operating without approval to this day. A DA was finally lodged last Friday, conditional upon the transfer of land offered.
We can all think of reasons why a business so out of character and scale with the rest of the village, and surrounded by houses, should not be given approval. Some reasons are difficult to quantify, like change of character, loss of atmosphere, loss of views and loss of property values.
While these are valid concerns and real losses for residents, Council are restricted in their consideration of applications to a set of technical requirements. Consideration of desirability is irrelevant - the application must simply comply with a set of minimum standards.
If Council rejects an application that complies with these minimum requirements, the applicant can overturn Council's decision by appealing in the Land and Environment Court (LEC). Conditions imposed in the LEC on controversial applications are usually less stringent than those which Council would have imposed had it approved the original DA. These lesser standards then become the benchmark for future applications. Court costs are a further deterrent. Council usually prefers to avoid the LEC.
Note that the new DA in this case would be separate from and dependent upon the transfer of land. The decision to transfer or not is one for Council alone. There could be no appeal to the LEC.
If the land transfer is approved, the DA will probably succeed. Any conditions Council chooses to impose, such as restricting hours of operation, would be optional. As it stands, Council has allowed the business to continue to operate at all hours of the day and night for more than two years without DA approval.
Responsibility for policing any conditions attached would fall to nearby residents. This can only lead to disharmony in an issue that has already simmered too long.
Residents - please write to Council informing them that the people of North Lismore do not want Council staff to force a trucking station in our midst. Council's engineer, by taking sides so decisively to facilitate the application over the protests and best interests of the resident, appears arrogant and seems to lack empathy or concern for the quality of life of the citizens of North Lismore.
Councillors - the applicant is an experienced businessman. Ignorance cannot explain the non-lodgement of a DA for so long. During this time the business has prospered and become established. There has been an increase in truck numbers, tanker sizes and frequency of daily trips. Continued operation thumbs the nose at any notion of residents' rights. It shows other business hopefuls that complying with Council requirements is optional, and those business people who have done the right thing must feel like dills. The Council's own planning staff appear to be being treated with contempt.
Here is an opportunity to support the residents of North Lismore, restore the authority of Council, and be seen to refuse to reward recalcitrant behaviour, and all with no risk of an appeal to the LEC.
Please do not transfer the land. Allow it to become part of the new Slater's Creek Landcare Group's area of restoration, where it will remain a public asset and a place of serenity and beauty for us all.
Warwick and Lee Boyd
on behalf of
North Lismore Progress Association
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Water referendum
Whilst I understand Rous Water not wanting the Health Department to pass on to councils the cost of consulting the community about fluoridation of our water supply, I am bemused as to their request for them to run a public education and community consultation in each constituent council area rather than fund the councils to run their consultation with their communities. Given the Health Department's stated pro-fluoride position it is hard to believe that any education and consultation conducted by them would be objective and do more than confirm their own position. To me, this is not appropriate as, despite all the Health Department's and Dental Association's assertions to the contrary, there is a body of reputable scientific and medical research that does not support their position.
In the interests of ensuring that this community makes an informed decision and not a hasty one based on partial information, I support very strongly the view that the constituent councils should hold a referendum of their citizens in conjunction with the 2008 council elections, which would not add a financial burden to councils and would ensure that everyone's voices were heard. In the meantime, let the debate continue with full presentation of all the scientific and medical evidence about the impact of fluoride, not just on caries but on the long-term health of people, comparative data about the extent of the caries problem across all Area Health Services in NSW, and explanations of just how fluoridation will ensure that those with poor dental hygiene will actually drink water instead of the sugar-rich bottled drinks that contribute significantly to caries.
Ros Irwin
Lismore
Bad business
Does Lismore mean business? Travel towards Lismore along Bangalow Road and there is a sign stating 'Lismore Means Business'. Whose or what businesses are they talking about?
For about 50 years the country buses that transport not only school children but also those coming in to shop or visit medical centres have been kicked out of Crowther car park. Why? No one knows!
It's not because parking is a problem or that the space is needed because if you drive through any time, any day, you will see plenty of empty spaces. The following is a small example: Feb 21 at 11.54am 64; Feb 28 at 9.15am 63, March 1 at 1.15pm 63, March 2 at 2.09pm 83, March 3 at 10.09am 64, March 4 at 3.55pm 101 (yes, 101), March 8 at 9.50am 59 (down as a few of our councillors had to meet for a discussion on parking).
Now I must admit that during the Christmas period both Crowther and Fredericks car parks were fairly full, but this was due to car parks along the river bank being closed due to flood levee work, which are now open again. Drive through either car park now and count the available spaces.
We are encouraged to use public transport and if more people did we would have more parking and less traffic. There is a tourist bus bay in Molesworth Street but nowhere for our country shoppers and school buses to park.
Already, due to the inconvenience of parking for the country buses, some of the regular shoppers are now not shopping in Lismore. Come on Lismore City Council, put the buses back in Crowther car park and show you 'Mean Business' for Lismore businesses.
Michael Wawn
Lismore
Plateau plans
Why is the Lismore City Council killing this town? Whilst Ballina and Casino enjoy the growth of their towns Lismore, which has always been the hub of the North Coast, is shrivelling up. There is a 2 per cent drop in population. Work that one out! When Lismore has the Southern Cross University, Lismore Tech College, Lismore Base Hospital, St Vincent's Hospital and all the medical and dental specialists and a huge historical skill base in all the professional and trade areas. Yet the Council and it's planning staff have put in a mighty effort to stop the inclusion of the North Lismore Plateau in Lismore's Urban Strategy Plan. The North Lismore Plateau is less than 2km from the CBD on the western side of Dunoon Road. You can see the near level open plateau from just about anywhere around Lismore. Have a look one day and if you can work out why the Council have tried so hard to stop its development, please let me know.
Donna Purtle
North Lismore
4 cent nonsense
A banner on a house in Diadem Street, Lismore, proclaims "4 cents nonsense" in respect of a proposed discount petrol station.
On Sunday and Monday of this week a four cents per litre discount off the bowser price of diesel at a Dawson Street outlet seemed OK until one noted that the bowser price was already one cent dearer than surrounding outlets for diesel fuel.
The discount was in effect only three cents less than competitors.
Lismore City Council confirmed that in considering the application for an additional discount fuel outlet they were bound to only consider the application in respect of building and similar codes, any effect on similar established businesses, their profitability and employment opportunities are outside its jurisdiction.
One thing, whatever the price, we continue to pay massive Federal Excise on our purchases.
Gordon B Moody
Goonellabah
What a union
Thank god for student union/services. When I was a young mother and student at Macquarie Uni (1976), the student welfare officer Janet Burstall organised a child minding co-operative. Janet's position was funded by student union fees.
I didn't play football or belong to political clubs but the student union/services enabled a number of young mothers to finish their degrees at a time when there was not one scrap of alternative help.
Christine Russell
Dunoon
Banked up
I find it quite amazing that the US president nominates someone to be the world bank's new president. As if calling the CEO of the world's largest privately owned financial institution president will somehow brainwash the populus further into believing banks have legitimate political power.
As I'm continually told I live in a democracy. How can this be true? I believe and fear that all currency in circulation today was created as debt and therefore any interest accrued creates a shortfall. As I write this letter we are already in a situation where every dollar is nowhere near enough to pay every debt. The banks don't care. They foreclose, extinguish debt and acquire actual physical assets while creating more debt. It is a fundamental need of banks to forever increase the debt amongst our species. Their only moral ethic is to maximise returns to shareholders. I believe that the collective will of the people should enable its government to create its money through the creation of public infrastructure. After all, there is enough food and water.
Marcus Davis
Lismore
Something to crow about
It doesn't really matter how long this debate goes on for, the rating system that is being proposed, in any language, means that someone eventually loses out.
Ballina Council will not, in the end, forgo any of its revenue. Therefore, the Council will calculate its costs yearly, and divide that by the number of rate paying properties.
This will then become the "basic rating" charge. Then there will be a per cent, lets say in all 50 per cent of the ad valorem value of a property (as this seems to be the magic figure most council's seem to adopt who have gone this way) will be treated as rateable under the present system.
By any language (except perhaps yours) those with higher valued properties will pay less, overall, because now only 50 per cent of the value of their land will be based on ad valorem, plus a "basic rate".
Those with lower valued properties will pay more, overall, because the proportion of the "basic rate" to them will be much higher than if they had stayed on the ad valorem method.
In our world, those that have the most to gain, out of any change/s proposed, have the most to crow about.
K Andersen
Ballina
Wreaking havoc
At present in Ballina Shire some wealthy people are paying only the minimum rate of $383 a year, while pensioners are being billed thousands of dollars annually.
Wisely, Ballina Shire Council has acknowledged that it has a duty, under the Local Gvernment Act 1993, to strike its ordinary (general) residential rates fairly and equitably.
The Council's monthly meeting this Thursday (March 24) will provide further opportunity to demonstrate such fairness.
At the last Ballina Council Finance Committee meeting on March 3, councillors decided that staff would prepare a report modelling the effect of various rating systems for this week's meeting.
Under the present system, in 2004/05, Lennox Head property owners - 18 per cent of the shire's total - are paying 28 per cent of the entire ordinary rates bill.
(Therefore we are subsidising most of the shire.) Whereas Alstonville/Wollongbar property owners are paying only 15 per cent of the total ordinary rates and Ballina's 21 per cent are paying only 19 per cent. At Lennox the average yearly rates bill is $859, more than double Alstonville/Wollongbar's $416.
Another revealing figure is that 37 per cent of shire properties pay only $383 a year - the minimum rate. They include wealthy people in large expensive units on prime waterfront locations, as well as farmland and business owners.
As we are told that the cost of providing council services is $570 a year for each residential rates assessment, the rest of us must be subsiding some of those people.
Lennox Head and parts of Ballina are paying vastly inflated rates bills because of the last astronomical climb in land valuations, two years ago.
The present 100 per cent ad valorem rating system operates on land values. The cumulative effect of such rates rises would be worse in future.
Lennox Head Residents Association, after considerable research, appealed to Ballina Council to introduce a 50 per cent residential base rate, to be allied with 50 per cent ad valorem, which is the lowest ad valorem component allowed under the Local Government Act.
Base rates are to pay for council services, which are the same for each residential assessment throughout the shire. (That is user pays, known as the 'Benefit Principle'.)
The other precept under the Act upon which council's are supposed to strike rates is the 'Ability to Pay Principle'. Ad valorem rating assumes that because land suddenly has a $1 million dollar valuation, the owner is in the wealthy category, which often is far from correct.
Introducing 50 per cent base rating would only cushion the high land valuations effect, not eliminate it. Properties valued above about $173,000 would have rates lowered by $1 to thousands of dollars, whereas properties valued at $50,000 to $173,000 would have a comparatively small increase $1 to $100, at most $2 a week.
Ballina Council will also consider modelled effects of increasing the minimum rate, and differential ordinary rates. For such differential rating, a sub-category is created for centres like Lennox Head, which have a degree of homogeneity and congruity.
The Seachange phenomenon, and consequent rush to develop the coastal strip, is wreaking havoc on some ordinary people's ordinary rates bills.
Marelle Lee
Lennox Head
Pig in the city
Over the past year Bob Carr has proven that Country Labor is the con trick he intended it to be.
Despite the claims of local Labor politicians Justine Elliott and Jenny Dowell that they had a hotline to Bob Carr, they have been unable to convince him that rural and regional areas do deserve some services.
Their efforts to have the rail service re-opened, and while the Wollongbar Tropical Dairy Research Farm and the Campbell Hospital are not in their respective areas, one would have thought that through their efforts these important institutions would have been retained as important parts of our regional services.
There has been talk over the past few years of the Federal Government taking over health from the states.
I believe that time has come for the Federal Government to take a start on "Metropolitan Labor" and tell Bob Carr that the rail line, the dairy and Campbell Hospital will be taken over by Canberra as a commitment to regional NSW and the funding will be achieved by deducting the costs from the states' GST payments.
The Federal Government has a long term plan to continue the North Coast rail line to the Gold Coast. This line will then link Perth to North Queensland and would be a wonderful addition to the Darwin rail line.
I fail to see how moving a sub-tropical dairy research station which just happens to be in a safe National Party seat to an outer metropolitan marginal seat can be anything other than "pork barreling". The real swine here is Bob Carr.
Carr has shown nothing but contempt for regional NSW during his reign as Premier and his actions particularly since the last state election have become obnoxious and arrogant in the extreme.
There is no doubt that Bob Carr believes NSW stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Wollongong.
John Barnes
Lismore
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