SO WHAT DID GO WRONG WITH THE MONA VALE PLACE PLAN? Here's 5 questions and the responses What do you believe the major opinion is throughout the community surrounding the planned proposal? The major opinion is non acceptance of the Plan by the community. The proposed 23 metre height limit will permit 7 storey buildings where current height limit is 13 metre 4 storey. Angled car parking on the northern side of Pittwater Road between Bungan Street and Barrenjoey Road will be removed and replaced with parallel to kerb parking taking away about 2/3rds of existing car spaces. Pittwater Road in this same location will be reduced from 2 lanes each way to one lane each way. Traffic will be excluded from Park Street west of Barrenjoey Road and forced to use Darley St which is the industrial area of Mona Vale which will be a disaster. Bungan Street will loose all the car parking on one side to make way for a wider footpath. The idea of the Plan is to discourage cars driving into the village centre yet no car parking is available on the outskirts either. Council has not adequately considered how people will get to Mona Vale and where they will park their cars. In terms of the community and local environment, what do you believe the major issues of the plan include? The major issues are loss of on street car parking, overdevelopment of the commercial area with residential influx in excess of 600 new dwellings, height limits increased from four to seven storey, loss of our Village Park with the B-Line bus stop which Council worked in conjunction with Transport for NSW to have the Mona Vale main bus stop moved from near the intersection of Waratah Street and Pittwater Road to Village Park, 4 storey apartment buildings built in Village Park on the Pittwater Road and Park Street frontages and inappropriate 2 floors of residential apartments added over existing industrial estate units in Darley and surrounding streets. Do you believe the council has been open to alterations as a result of community concerns? If not, what do you wish for them to have done. At no stage in the consultation period was the Council open to alterations. The Council focused on selling the Plan to the people, not listening to what the people said they wanted. The Council had already made up their minds what they wanted. The Plan was pulled from public exhibition because of its total unpopular nature and negative feedback going directly to the Council administrator Dick Persson who likes to be popular in his position in Council. He didn't like the unpopularity and the Plan was pulled from public exhibition and has been moth balled for a short time until the new Council is formed in September this year. The Plan will then come back in some form. The Plan was developer driven not community driven and developers obviously worked in with the General Manager and the Mayor to arrive at what was ultimately presented to the public. What clear adjustments have the council made as a result of listening to the community (if they have made any) As explained above no adjustments are evident yet as the plan has not resurfaced. What can be said though is the Council had workshops and public meetings on the Plan, took notes, feedback etc and went against what most residents said. They had their own agenda in mind for what the Council wanted for the Mona Vale Place Plan. They then said the statement "The Plan was developed with community input". But this is not true, they twisted and ignored what the community said. For instance not one resident said they wanted building heights to increase, so what does the council come up with, an increase of height limit of 10 metres from 13 meters to 23 metres. Residents intend to make the Mona Vale Place Plan the focus of the up coming Council Elections in September 2017. Each prospective candidate will be quizzed on where they stand in relation to the Plan and how they would vote on issues. If elected and they do a back flip on what they said prior to being elected then they will be exposed as hypocrites. What benefits that the council imposes through their snapshot do you believe actually have a positive impact on the local community and environment?
Little benefits. What you must understand is the Mona Vale "Place Plan" was designed on an American format of urban design. Place Planning is not Australian and does not suit our way of life, terminology or ideas. The Councils General Manger, Mayor and Planning Staff travelled overseas to San Francisco to meet Ed Blakely and others for seminars on "Place Planning". They came back with heads full of Americanised ideas that are not suitable for our villages. The Council didn't listen to the people and didn't return a Plan that reflected what the people said they wanted. This is why the Mona Vale Place Plan failed miserably.
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