Eurobodalla Shire Mayor Matt Hatcher has been booed by a large crowd of Mossy Point residents during a public meeting about the future of local bushland known as “the forest”
An estimated 100 locals attended the gathering on the weekend at the entrance to the block on Annetts Parade, that was rezoned in 2018 to allow housing in despite loud opposition from residents at the time.
Organiser Linda Chapman reminded the crowd who had the casting vote for approving the subdivision.
“Last Tuesday with one councillor away and unable to vote it was a split decision. Four against and four for the development approval in its current state,” Ms Chapman said.
“The mayor had the casting vote and voted to approve (boooo, booooooooooooooooooooo in response from the gathered crowd).”
A former Eurobodalla Shire mayor, who fought against the controversial reasoning of bushland at Mossy Point eight years ago, said she will keep fighting against its destruction for her grandchildren.
Longtime local Pam Green also spoke at the protest meeting on Saturday held at the entrance to the block, adjacent to George Bass Drive, known locally as “the Forest”.
“My grandchildren have grown up in my garden and listening to the calls of the yellow belly glider, which are very specific as you would know,” Ms Green told the audience.
“They said to me ‘Gran can’t you stop them chopping down the yellow belly gliders homes’ and I said I’ll give it my best shot,” she said.
Eurobodalla Shire Councillor Mick Johnson said he opposes the subdivision for two reasons.
Councillor Johnson told the crowd the C4 zoning was never intended to allow this sort of thing to happen.
“When staff recommend something. What do you mean by staff? It turns out it means the Director of Planning,” he said.
“So they give this impression that everyone’s behind this you know, staff, the council and staff when in fact it’s the decision of one person, maybe two. That’s the main reason why I oppose it.”
Another councillor has challenged the mayor, Matt Hatcher to reveal what his vision is for the shire in light of his support for the controversial housing development.
Former Deputy Mayor Anthony Mayne threw out the challenge to his council colleague during the public meeting.
“What’s your vision for this shire (Mayor Matt Hatcher) because this is not housing. This is can still have housing in it, it’s zoned to have housing in it but suitable housing conjucive to the natural environment,” Councillor Mayne said.
“So it’s not either or, it’s you can do both,” he said.
“What we are saying, and it’s in the rescission motion is, you clear the forest by definition you can’t meet the C4 zoning for environmental standards. It fails by definition.
“At the same time we’ve got big development occurring at Malua Bay (phone starts ringing) that might be the mayor now (crowd laughs).
“We’ve got big development at Malua Bay, we’ve got the Rosedale development, a lot of new housing coming on at Moruya for the new hospital, down at Dalmeny, Broulee, Tomakin and Oaks Estate.
“We have so much housing coming on that we can’t find the builders to build them. That’s the bigger challenge at the moment. Finding the tradies
Councillor Mayne told the crowd…the mayor should be supporting lower cost housing options across the shire rather than expensive properties like this.
“By the way it is not affordable housing. This mayor put up a housing strategy that did not mention affordable or social housing once (a few members of the crowd exclaimed ‘shame, shame’),” he told the gathered residents.
“That’s why Mick, myself and four other councillors voted it down. We said we were elected to represent our community on responsible, affordable, social and environmentally sensitive housing in our shire.”
Eurobodalla Shire Council will hold an Extraordinary Meeting tomorrow afternoon after three councillors, Johnson, Mayne and Winslade, lodged a motion to rescind the decision.
