Two major community issues dominate the agenda of the April 23 council meeting.
First off, it’s the draft operational plan and budget for the next financial year.
It shows that Council plans to remove the remaining subsidy for the Juniors sports usage fees.
Other fees go up by about six per cent.
The administrator resolved in April 2021 to approve the development of – yet another – masterplan for the airport.
That draft report says the final masterplan should be ready to be adopted by the June meeting.
The council will be in caretaker mode by the August meeting.
But even if the administrator adopts the final masterplan, a business plan still needs to be done and that won’t be ready until after we have councillors.
So, the new councillors will – essentially – be in the position to adopt a plan for work on the airport or to reject it as the last councillors did.
At only their second meeting, on October 23, 2017, the councillors requested:
# the CEO release information on the future development of the Wyong Employment Zone including the Warnervale Airport;
# to stop any work at the airport and
# bring forward the draft masterplan at the November meeting.
At their third meeting, on November 27, the councillors agreed to:
# immediately suspend all works, land acquisitions and expenditure on the airport (see screenshots for details) and
# reallocate the budget for the airport of $6 million to employment generating projects across the former Wyong Shire.
# maintain the current site zoning, unaltered and not approve rezoning to SP2 (see screenshots for details).
At the councillor’s fifth meeting, the councillors voted on whether or not to rescind the previous motion.
That rescission motion was lost but the arguments about the airport continued with that rescission motion surfacing numerous times in subsequent meetings.
It was never adopted but it added to the issues which kept the airport a simmering hot topic.
Other issues included trees needing cutting for better vision and concerns about the surrounding Porters Creek wetlands, environmentally sensitive land and the coast’s largest wetlands.
In 2021, the State Government repealed The Warnervale Airport (Restrictions) Act of 1996 which had limited the flights in and out of the airport.
By then, Central Coast Council was under administration.
The agenda also shows Council’s proposed funding agreement with surf life saving on the Coast.
It doesn’t go up.
And leases for surf clubs are up for adoption but are confidential.
