Showing posts with label state significant farmland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label state significant farmland. Show all posts

Sunday, 5 May 2024

Property developers continue to come after State Significant Farmland in the Northern Rivers region

 

Historically three facts are clear about farmland in New South Wales.


1. Approximately half of the state's land mass can be considered to have moderately low to extremely low agricultural value [Adams VM & Engert JE, 2023]. Yet New South Wales produces about $15.1 billion of agricultural food and $38.1 billion of manufactured food & beverage products each year [NSW Govt, Investment NSW, 2024], with agriculture and primary production generally being an important industry on the North Coast as one of its largest employers and a significant contributor to the regional economy.


2. The state's 1,973km long coastal strip from the ocean to the Great Dividing Range has historically produced around 20 per cent of its primary production annually [Melville JM, 2012].


3. Agricultural and pastoral land is being removed from the state's coastal zone at an alarming rate. With up to 60% of agricultural land within the Greater Western Sydney 'food bowl' - which produces more than three-quarters of the total value of agricultural produce in the metropolitan region - being lost to property development in the last ten years. However, agricultural land loss to property development is not confined to major cities, but can be found all along the coastal zone. Wherever there are regional cities, towns & villages seen as highly desirable by those seeking a tree change or sea change lifestyle.


Such is the case here......



ECHO, 3 May 2034:


The contentiousCudgen Connection development proposed on State Significant Farmland (SSF) on the protected Cudgen Plateau next to the Tweed Valley Hospital (TVH) site was in front of Tweed Shire Councillors at yesterday’s planning meeting.


The council staff report had recommended that the application for gateway determination should be approved however, Kingscliff Ratepayers and Progress Association (KRAPA) were clear in their objections to the proposal and highly critical of the inaccurate statements and reports relating to the SSF site.


When the TVH was proposed on the SSF the issue split the local community and when the hospital was approved and the site re-zoned from SSF both sides of the political spectrum gave ‘iron clad’ promises that there would be no further development of or rezoning of SSF on the Cudgen plateau.




Six to one in favour of refusal


We are so grateful to the six councillors who voted to refuse this application,’ Peter Newton, President of KRPA told The Echo.


Particularly the community could not have had better representation than from Mayor Cherry, Deputy Mayor Dennis and Councillor Firth who forensically addressed every community concern in speaking to the item. It’s disappointing that it was left to Mayor Cherry and others to detail the clear shortcomings and inconsistencies within this proposal, which we would have expected to see in the Council report.’


Mayor Cherry spoke to the proposed refusal telling the meeting that, ‘In order to support a variation allowed for under the North Coast Regional Plan, we need to be satisfied that the variation is supported by a sound evidence base addressing agricultural capability and sustainability. Is the land capable, is this sustainable?


We’re required to form a view as to whether the proposal has to strategic and site specific merit. For the clarity strategic merit means that the proposal has alignment with the New South Wales Strategic Planning Framework and government priorities. It also needs to have alignment with our priorities, and those that have council that have been approved by the state government. Is it consistent with the North Coast Regional Plan? Is it consistent with the Tweed Local Strategic Planning Statement with our strategies with the Tweed Regional Economic Development Strategy.


These are the questions we’ve had to consider and this is the site suitable for the relevant development. This is one question that hasn’t really come out in this assessment at all. Where’s the strategic assessment and the demonstrated need for 120 bed private hospital in this location, where is consideration of the impacts that that might have on our Tweed Valley Hospital on the existing private hospital John Flyn, on our other day surgeries in Tweed Heads? Does the proposal give regard and assess the impacts of the natural environment, including the known resources and what is our SSF but a finite resource? We can’t make any more of it.’......


Developer won’t back down


Speaking to the meeting conservative Cr Warren Polglase told the meeting that the developer wouldn’t be walking away from the proposal.


Well I support the proposal as it is,’ Cr Polglase told the meeting.


I will be voting in favour of it and I realise that the applicant is definitely going to go to review and I guess a determination will be put forward to the Regional Planning Panel, which will finish up on the minister’s desk.’


Mr Newton told The Echo that, ‘This result was the outcome our community wanted and deserved. While this decision is a very clear endorsement for protecting our precious SSF and the unsuitability of the Cudgen Connection proposal, we do appreciate that this is one step in the process.’.


Read the full article at:

https://www.echo.net.au/2024/05/contentious-cudgen-connection-development-refused-but-developer-not-backing-down/


Friday, 24 November 2023

Multinational and interstate developers are devouring the Northern Rivers region one hectare at a time

 

Alan Edward Larkin
IMAGE: Linkedin
With 30 plus years experience in construction and property development, former managing director and principal of Aspect Property Group in Brisbane and current managing director of Digital Infratech Pty Ltd, Alan Edward Larkin of Coolangatta Qld, joins the conga line of multinational or interstate developers on the make in north-east New South Wales.


Mr. Larkin appears to be part of an alleged consortium involving IRBS1 Pty Ltd formerly trading as Aspect Property Group, Digital Infratech Pty Ltd solely owned by IRBS Holdings Pty Ltd & with Larkin as only listed director and, ASX-listed specialist funds manager Centuria Capital Group (currently $21 billion in assets under management with a $1.7 billion healthcare platform).


According to the Federal MP for Richmond Justine Elliot in February 2022: At the time of the land purchase [in 2019], it was widely publicly reported that Aspect had donated numerous times to the Liberal National Party in Queensland. Searches reveal that Aspect had donated more than $28,000 to the LNP in Queensland, including the infamous LNP Forward Brisbane Leadership Fund.


One has to wonder if the consortium was expecting its largesse in Queensland to translate into favourable treatment by a then Coalition state government in New South Wales.


Echo, 23 November 2023:


The rezoning of the State Significant Farmland (SSF) to build the Tweed Valley Hospital on the Cudgen Plateau near Kingscliff split the community and ultimately came with an ‘iron clad’ promise from local Nationals MP Geoff Provest that no more SSF would be rezoned.


However, the land next to the hospital site was bought by Allan Larkin, Director of Digital Infratech [Managing Director at Digital Infratech Pty Ltd, Brisbane, Queensland], just days before the announcement that the SSF would be rezoned for the Tweed Valley Hospital site. Since then Mr Larkin has proposed a mixed-use site called Cudgen Connection. Initially, they proposed that the site to be part of the stage 2 hospital development but this was rejected. Now they are imminently submitting a development application (DA) that provides private hospital and medical suites, essential worker housing, koala research centre, an education and community housing precinct and more at the 5.7 hectare site.


An artists impression of the new Cudgen Connection


Tweed Councillors write to the government


At the recent Tweed Shire Council (TSC) meeting (16 November, 2023) Councillors voted to write to Premier of NSW, Chris Minns, NSW Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully, NSW Leader of The Opposition, Mark Speakman, NSW Shadow Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Scott Farlow MLC, and Member for Tweed, Geoff Provest to request advice that ‘they will uphold the integrity of the Cudgen Plateau and support the existing retention of State Significant Farmland’.....


Full article can be read at:

https://www.echo.net.au/2023/11/call-to-protect-state-significant-farmland-next-to-tweed-valley-hospital-as-promised/