Our News Blog

Stuart Street re-zoning - "I Got it wrong"

21/5/2014

Councillor Candy Bingham has admitted to making an error of judgement when voting for the rezoning of 38 Stuart Street Little Manly from Open Space to Residential at a Council meeting in December 2013.

"I don't know what I was thinking and now deeply regret supporting the rezoning", Clr Bingham said recently.

The Manly Mayor, Jean Hay and her Liberal Party colleagues (Steve Pickering, James Griffin, Alan Le Surf and Adele Heasman) and the Independent Councillor Candy Bingham, passed a resolution to spot rezone 38 Stuart St from Open Space to Residential (E4) at the Manly Council meeting of December 2013.
Photo shows: 34&36 Stuart St in red, 38 predominately grey

The Independent Councillors Hugh Burns and Barbara Aird and the Green Councillor Cathy Griffin, opposed the spot rezoning.

Since 1948, The County of Cumberland Planning Scheme, and each succeeding Manly Council has maintained the Open Space Zoning on all the properties behind Little Manly Beach.

At this time, Manly Council owns three of the four properties behind Little Manly beach, 34, 36 and 40 Stuart St. Only 38 Stuart St is privately owned and has recently had a major new residential dwelling built on it.

Tireless campaigners to maintain the Open Space Zoning, The Save Little Manly Foreshore Group, maintained the Open Space zoning on 38 was important, because it signals that at some future time Manly Council intends to purchase this property as well, but if the property is spot rezoned Residential E4, then the value of the property is substantially increased, making it less likely Council will be able to afford to do so.

There is another concerning aspect to the spot rezoning of 38 Stuart St from Open Space to Residential.

This rezoning was not formally requested by the owners of the property, and therefore could be a gift of a substantial rise in the value of the property to the owners of 38 Stuart Street.

The Manly ratepayers will also bear the costs of the spot rezoning, with NO benefit to the Manly ratepayers at all.

2 Comments

Anne pfeiffer

16/6/2014 03:37:42 am

You are mistaken ... This IS a benefit to those who actually use the beach... It retains the original feel of the Little Manly of my childhood instead of giving us even more grassed area which is never adequately maintained and
reduces the traffic congestion which has become impossible in the last 12 months. A great shame that all the greenies ruined a lovely spot by changing the status quo which held us in good stead since my great grandparents days when they lived in Stuart St

Dirk Nagel

16/6/2014 04:19:13 am

Some of the comments about this site are misleading.

As real estate valuer and local government property consultant I make the following comments.

If the property is listed in the current Manly Local Environmental plan for acquisition for future open space then it is irrelevant if it zoned open space or residential as the property would be valued based on its underlying zoning, in this case Residential R4.

By rezoning this parcel to R4 it does not add any additional value to the property.
The listing as a site required for future acquisition would then also fall under the the Land Acquisition (Just Terms) Legislation.
This allows council to compulsory acquire the site at any time but the costs will also now not only include the value of the land but disturbance cost ie stamp duty, legal, relocating and moving for a similar valued property.This can add up to 15% additional costs to the acquisition.

If the property is still listed for future acquisition then the owner can at any future time request council to purchase the land.

In summary:

1. If the site IS listed for future acquisition, irrelevant of the zoning Council could be forced to acquire at a price above the basic market value even if it was not ready to do so.

2. If the site is NOT listed and zoned open space it would have existing use rights to continue as residential property so there is no benefit to the owner to have it rezoned to R4.

The action of the Council to rezone to residential when both properties either side are zoned open space is, in my opinion an unusual action.

Another case of squandering ratepayers money on top of the unsuccessful challenge to the Land and Environment court of about $300,000 in legal fees.

A sad state of affairs.

Unfortunately the community will have to wait until the next Council election to rectify this mess.

Stuart Street re-zoning - "I Got it wrong"

Leave a Reply.

Author

Categories