Bronte community strong after development fight

Bronte community strong after development fight
Image: source: Facebook.com

By with Emily Contador-kelsall

 

The Bronte community has shown strength in their objection to developer Winston Langley Burlington’s planning proposal for the Bronte RSL site.

The public exhibition period for the proposal ended last Wednesday with over 1500 letters of objection submitted with a petition containing over 2500 signatures.

Dr Stephen Lightfoot, spokesperson for Save Bronte said the community is cautiously optimistic that they will get the right outcome.

“We’re confident in our democracy and we can’t see how the Department of Planning will ignore the overwhelming consensus at Bronte, which is for a complying development,” he said.

“Every time we’ve had consultation on this site, the answer from the community has been the same. That is we want a complying development.”

“We don’t want rules written for a developer so they can build what they want, we want a development that suits our community, suits our neighbourhood centre.”

A Waverley Council spokesperson said the community’s feedback would be considered in a report, which is being prepared for Council.

Dr Lightfoot said the decision and development is going to set a precedent, not only for Bronte but for Waverley and NSW.

“We are at a critical fork in the road that represents the future of Bronte,” he said.

“The path we want has a complying development that suits the neighbourhood centre, and is one where we get all the benefits from that: housing, jobs. Down the other path, there’s this over-developed, big bulky building imposed on our community against our will, with all the traffic and overshadowing.”

Dr Lightfoot said the whole process had fatigued the community and they were relieved the public consultation was over.

“For the moment we’ve completely lost faith in the system. We’ve lost faith in the Department of planning, and we’ve lost faith in the planning system that’s being implemented by this state government. They have a chance to make it right.”

 

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