If you’re a developer who plans to build a boarding house in Campbelltown, the council has a simple message for you: don’t bother.
And that’s what the council did on Tuesday night when it had to decide the fate of yet another application for a boarding house, this one in Parliament Road, Macquarie Fields.
Council voted overwhelmingly against the proposal in order to send a clear message to both developers and the State Government that the current policy on boarding houses needed changing.
Councillor Bob Thompson summed up the feeling in the council chamber when he said: “The only way to make sure the policy is changed is by us knocking this back.’’
He was backed by Cr Fred Borg who warned that if allowed to go ahead boarding houses could result in “ghettoes’’.
“Affordable housing is not boarding houses,’’ he said.
The new Labor Party leader on the council, Cr George Brticevic, said: “We need to send a message to the State Government.’’
Cr Brticevic said that the problem with the current regulations was that they allowed boarding houses so long as they were close to transport points such as bus stops.
“It means they can be built in the middle of nowhere, so long as there is a bus stop nearby,’’ he said.
Cr Brticevic told council there was a review under way of the policy on boarding houses following complaints by inner city councils which had been hit with a lot of boarding house applications.
Once Campbelltown Council rejected the application for a 14 room boarding house, it turned its attention to an application for a five storey, 40 flat residential tower in Norfolk Street, Ingleburn.
This was also given the red light after councillors expressed their opposition to a number of aspects, not least the roof of the proposed building being the open space provision for the families who would live in it.
“I am not impressed,’’ said Labor councillor Meg Oates, who also pointed that at five storeys it was one more level than the council policy allowed.
“So you will have parents in their flats while the kids are playing up on the roof of a five storey building,’’ added Cr Brticevic.
Cr Thompson said that as the Joint Regional Planning panels were soon going to be replaced by the Sydney West Panel of Greater Sydney Commission it would be better if a decision on the application was deferred.
