The Old Farm at Mardi on the western side of the M1 has been approved for residential development by the Land and Environment Court (LEC).
In a decision handed down on May 30, the LEC approved the proposal to subdivide the 223 hectares to create 182 residential lots at 414 Old Maitland Road, Mardi.
The work will be
# done in five stages with
# about 56 ha used for residential development;
# about 140 ha to be reserved and managed under a Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement and;
# another 12 ha identified for native vegetation regeneration under a Biodiversity Management Plan.
The site has a frontage to Old Maitland Road of about 1.14km.
The land has been used for agricultural purposes, with evidence of land clearing from the 1940s and some native bushland.
Developer Stevens Holdings lodged a development application with Central Coast Council in July 2021 seeking consent for subdivision of 246 lots.
This was refused by the Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel in February 2022.
The Council summarised for the LEC some of the issues listed by the people who submitted comment on the proposal when it went on public exhibition.
See that summary in the comments.
The LEC hearing started with an onsite view at which the Court, in the company of legal representatives, the landowner and experts, heard an oral submission from a representative of the Central Coast Community Better Planning Group.
The attendees were then shown around five locations on the site.
The Court granted leave to Stevens to amend the development application on a number of occasions prior to, and during the hearing.
The work will include construction of roads internal to the site and a new primary intersection with Old Maitland Road about 200m north of Collies Lane and a secondary emergency service access south of McPherson Road.
Servicing will involve the construction of a new wastewater pump station.
Fill of up to 4.69m to meet the 1% AEP (annual exceedence probability) flood level and a 500mm freeboard (with an allowance for climate change), will mean 256,629m3 of material will be imported to the site.
The LEC Commissioner ruled in January that the parties come back to him in February with the conditions of consent that were in dispute.
The Court then ruled on nine issues which were in dispute and approved the amended plans.
Read the full judgement here https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/…/197103a83655e3818e79ed5a
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