Public Forum trial is cancelled.
The standard public forum of having the residents speak immediately before the Council-under-administration meeting will return.
For the last two meetings, the public forum was held 24 hours early and only one person spoke each time.
The trial was supposed to last for three months but Administrator Rik Hart pulled the plug early.
Operational plan starts this Saturday
The operational plan includes the budget for the new financial year that starts on Saturday.
That means rates have gone up 3.8 per cent and water rates by about 13 per cent and late rates attract 10 per cent interest.
Fees and charges have gone up by varying amounts.
The operational plan says we will see an Airport Masterplan by the end of the year.
Read the Op plan: https://centralcoast.infocouncil.biz/Open/2023/06/OC_27062023_AGN_files/OC_27062023_AGN_Attachment_27659_1.PDF
Regional Library tender accepted
North Construction, a local firm, has won the tender to build the new regional library and the budget has increased by $5M, which is not a cost blow out but a recognition of increases in costs, according to Administrator Rik Hart.
Food Hub coming
First steps taken to lease out 2-4 Brownlee St, Ourimbah for a new Central Coast Food Manufacturing Innovation Hub Site.
It is expected to be up and running by 2026 and has been promised $17m in federal funding.
Central Coast Industry Connect (CCIC), a not-for-profit umbrella body for the manufacturing sector on the Central Coast has received the commitments and
Council plans to provide a suitable site via a long-term lease.
The site is close to the Central Coast campus of the University of Newcastle, a research and training partner of the Hub, and to existing food manufacturing businesses, which are concentrated in the Ourimbah-Berkeley Vale area, Council said.
Central Coast’s Economic Development Strategy identifies that by 2040 the Coast will welcome nearly 88,000 additional residents and is targeting the creation of 72,000 new jobs.
Woy Woy flooding
The Woy Woy Floodplain RIsk Management Plan was adopted but the Administrator admitted that Council will need to win grant money to be able to implement the management options. Nine broad actions to reduce flooding in the area will now be added into council’s long term plans but grants are needed for changes to take place, Mr Hart says.
“Extremely costly and certainly something that Council can not do on its own,” he said.
Heritage committee makes a comeback
A new Heritage and Culture Advisory Committee will replace the old committee of the same name
Earlier this year, Council-under-administration decided to turn it into a reference group.
Since then, it has decided that, actually, it’s best to have an advisory committee and has rewritten the terms of reference and so now it’s back.
And it will have work to do advising council on a whole host of heritage related issues that need to be brought up to date including adding heritage items to the Central Coast Local Environmental Plan 2022; and development controls to appropriately manage and protect heritage across the Central Coast.
Those were the highlights of the June 27, 2023 meeting and was not the entire agenda.
