Public Meeting on Sunday July 30th 2006 at 11am
Thomas Gibson Park, Wrexham Road Bridge corner of children’s soccer fields

The final Sandon Point subdivision is on exhibition. This may be the community’s last chance to save our open space for a coastal park. Please write your objection - and come to the Public Meeting.

Stockland’s monster houses were just the start. The Planning Minister threw out the Commission of Inquiry recommendations for open space and a regional coastal park. Minister Frank Sartor is considering a new huge proposal by Stockland and the Anglican Retirement Village. Aboriginal and natural heritage have been minimized in new pro-developer Planning legislation, and the minister has final approval and responsibility for his decision – on a coastal floodplain!

Do you want Stocklands to cut an access road across the corner of Thomas Gibson Park from Wrexham Road Bridge? Wollongong City Council is seeking YOUR approval for a road next to children’s soccer fields, endangering their lives. This is our public open space; and the kids need more playing fields – not less. Say no to a road through the park!

Stocklands wants to build a “superlot” block of 80 flats on the southern edge of Thomas Gibson Park? They would be 4-storeys high (13 metres) with basement carparks, and about 10 town houses in the corner. Do you want buildings overlooking children’s soccer fields, with residents complaining about park noise and lights! Say no to high-rise flats on COI- recommended open space.

The Anglican Retirement Village came along after the Commission of Inquiry, and wants to rezone Cooksons factory to build an aged care facility (120 beds) and 240 units (4 stories) on land recommended by the COI for Protection 7a zoning in the heritage Turpentine Forest. Aged Care facilities should not be built next to the Illawarra train line! 4-story units should not be built near floodplain creeks and overflow sewage pumping station. The ARV traffic study says there would be little increase in traffic over the Sturdee Street Bridge – but you do the numbers and tell them what you think.

This proposal is extreme over-development, nearly twice the footprint of COI recommendations, with about 535 medium-density dwellings plus an aged care facility, that’s more than two thousand people in this small community. But there is no extra infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, childcare, meeting halls, sporting fields, police station, and public transport. What about traffic congestion on local roads?

The developers plan four bridges approximately 20-metres wide, across floodplain creeks that expand to 100 metres wide in flood. Wollongong Council intends to engineer four floodplain creeks into drains; but engineering narrows the creeks, this will cause upstream flooding and downstream coastal pollution. Sandon Point floodplain should be left open to drain escarpment creeks. That is what it was made for.

The DA exhibition is in local libraries until 3rd August: Please write and tell the Minister and Planning Department to reject this proposal and why, and ask them to adopt the Sandon Point Commission of Inquiry recommendations for a Regional Coastal Park.

Please send your objections before 3 August to:
“Subdivision Proposal – DA Reference MP 06_0094.
Director, Strategic Assessment, Department of Planning,
GPO Box 39, Sydney 2001.”