Blue Mountains ‘City’ Council’s development approval process is organisation-wide, culturally mealy-mouthed and corrupted from one’s learned personal experience since 2001 and of records well prior, indeed since 1957 from damning local accounts.

 

The Land Use Development Issue at Hand:

 

 

A case in point is an ongoing current over-development/overcrowding of a residential property In Katoomba situated close by us, situated within a designated historical conservation area.  It is in breach of many Council development rules.  Yet, despite our expressed concerns, citing of legislative breaches (ignored), then our submitted complaint, Council has just turned a blind eye and wipes its hands, citing NSW state legislation supposed exempting legislation.   Council’s attitude, by some blow-in inspector from Sydney, is that property owners may do what they bloody well want, heritage be damned, neighbours be damned!

As a Conservation Consultant, this little black duck didn’t come down in the last shower!  

This is a non-public photo of the subject property, only to demonstrate the reality anonymously.  It is situated somewhere within a listed heritage conservation area and there exist multiple ‘rules’ regarding development for this area and this address. 

Firstly, we know because firstly, we have ourselves gone through the property development rules, guidelines, red tape restrictions, respecting where we are, sensitive to the heritage amenity and to our neighbours.  We eventually succeeded in having our plans approved by Council way back in 2005 after much effort, research and personal cost.  Our renovation project is both a sympathetic restoration and quality classic home improvement to the long neglected cottage we purchased back in 2000. 

Secondly, Steven Ridd, this joint owner has spent many years since 2001 as a environmental/conservation activist  initially with The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.,  The Blue Mountains Conservation Society, The Colong Foundation for Wilderness Inc., and The Habitat Advocate – ongoing here since 2001.

 

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Disclaimer:

 

1. This article herein expresses the concerns of this author. 
2. This article is yes, political. 
3. The views, assumptions and opinions expressed in this article are the author(s) own. They do not purport to reflect the official policy of The Habitat Advocate or associates. Data references (images, documents, links, copyright, sources, etc.) appearing in this article are not necessarily controlled or monitored by The Habitat Advocate.
4. The information provided on this [Website/in this Article/Document] is for general informational purposes only. 
5. This article and its author hold absolutely no malice towards the example property developer which is anonymously used in this article simply to highlight the ongoing systemic failures of the Blue Mountains local government to respect local heritage conservation. 
6. This article is purely intended as a critical commentary on the injustice of due process, using this property development example as a sample case study only.  The property owner is irrelevant, rather it is about the failure of due process.
7. All information is provided in good faith; however, we make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information provided.
8. Under no circumstance shall we have any liability to any reader for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of the [site/article/document] or reliance on any information provided therein.  A reader’s use of the [site/article/document] and/or reliance on any information is solely at the reader’s own risk.  This article  is citizen journalism.
9. The [site/article/document] cannot and does not contain [medical/legal/financial/etc.] advice.  The information is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice.  Accordingly, before taking any actions based on such information, we encourage any reader to consult with the appropriate professionals. The use or reliance of any information contained in this [site/article/document] is solely at a reader’s own risk.
10. Due privacy is respected in this article.  No identifying information is provided in this article that a member of the public could recognise in any text or images included in this article.
11. The purpose of this article is not about any individual property owner, but to critique and challenged an example the systemic wrong/illegal land use development approval process by Blue Mountains (City) Council over many years, and clearly ongoing.

 

 

 

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Issue Background:

 

So how does Blue Mountains ‘City’ Council’s heritage hypocrisy persist? 

Here’s an extract map of part of  North’s Estate Conservation Area in Katoomba dating back to 1883, as registered by Council but only on paper:

 

 

Council’s repeated actions fail to comply with its very own policies, planning documents, bi-laws, and PR gestures.   That this local government Council (BMCC acronym) pats itself on the back about in its quarterly community newsletter is blatant propaganda about all the so-called good it is doing for the Blue Mountains – its oxymoronic slogan “A City within a World Heritage Area” boasted claim.   

Yeah?   Like how all its stormwater and unbunded rubbish tips (Blackheath | Katoomba | Blaxland) up on the plateau tops seep their toxic effluent into the surrounding groundwater to watercourses and water catchments through World Heritage? 

And yeah?  Like how its five public swimming pools (all chlorine saturated) respectively at Blackheath, Katoomba, Lawson, Springwood and Glenbrook each drain their entire contents each winter into the surrounding watercourses.   So is that why all the native aquatic wildlife (fish, eels, freshwater crayfish and macro-invertebrates) – no longer subsist in the Blue Mountains World Heritage creeks and rivers downstream? 

 

 

Long dead are all downstream creeks and the Kedumba and Grose Rivers of our World Heritage Blue Mountains.  Why are we still “World Heritage” listed with UNESCO if it’s just a political ruse to fuel a megalopolis snowballing Sydney’s drinking water supply?   Labor’s former Member for Blue Mountains Bob Debus never answered that question.  I wouldn’t drink the stuff, well knowing what goes downstream into Lake Burragorang above Sydney’s survival Warragamba Dam.

Council in its aloof chambers perched in a high rise away from the Katoomba community has thought of itself as running a “city” moreso than a regional municipality well beyond the big city high-rise and sprawl that is the metropolitan city of Sydney.   Most councillors, management, staff (the ‘Council mob’) and of course the plethora of senior management’s ring-in consultants have emanated from Sydney, muchly with an urban big city mindset.  

Quote: “Suburbs“?   So is NSW Tibooburra a quote “suburb” as well?   Wikipedia:  “Tibooburra is a town in the far northwest of New South Wales, Australia, located 1,187 kilometres (738 mi) from the state capital, Sydney.”  [read more]

 

 

Katoomba, for those not familiar, is not yet a suburb of megalopolis Sydney.  It’s just an equivalent remote village like that of Shelby in Montana, USA ain’t yet a suburb of New York City.  [read more about Shelby]

Meanwhile, property investors across Australia are cashing in with Airbnb outsourcing and the NSW Government lets ’em… Check this in this subject area of North’s Estate Conservation Area in regiional Katoomba, which confirms no tourist accommodation exists.  Crapiola! … Try more that 500 Airbnbs taking over the regional Blue Mountains !!!  Here’s an example…

 

 

 

“The average rent for a house in the Blue Mountains is around $600 – $650+ per week, with specific suburbs varying, but showing strong demand and low vacancy rates, meaning it’s a tight rental market with prices generally trending up, especially for larger homes“. 

[Source:  Google AI (2025) – so anonymous, so frankly who knows the truth online these days.]

 

Sydney is far from being an ideal city, so not an appropriate role model for any regional community.   The Blue Mountains village of Leura would be a far better role model, but visitors note, the streetscape and garden plantings down Leura Mall are not the work of Council, but rather the volunteer efforts and funding by local Leura residents and Leura small retailers.   Whereas, Council loathes knowledgeable long-time locals because ex-Sydney council staff are blow-ins reaping self-interest paychecks.  Council prevails in its bubble mindset in ‘north Katoomba’ conjured up tarting up the footpath in nearby Katoomba and Bathurst Streets (‘south’ Katoomba).  That brain snap cost $3 million and did squat.  Of course Council outsourced it to some Sydney contractor again.  But it directly shut down many retailers retail for nearly a year causing many to go broke.  Nice one, lower Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill!

More recently, self-anointed Blue Mountains councillors (100% Labor Party obedient disciples) have ramped up the ‘ECO’ zealotry thus…

 

 

Pull the other one, Council!  

This Council mob continues to remain aloof to the interests of locals and chronically blasé in attitude to respecting local Mountains heritage in all its genres.  The bureaucrats are so overpaid (out of local ratepayer rates and their NSW Labor mates’ NSW government grants) and so happily unaccountable, especially the higher echelons to a salary of $300,000+ per year.  Where’s the helicopter and helipad to fly in Council’s GM’s ring-in commute from Sydney to Katoomba chambers to show up for the odd (“yeah, we need you”) meeting?

As a long-time resident of the Blue Mountains region west of Sydney, The Habitat Advocate (read about us) has become accustomed with this local council’s ongoing contempt for heritage.  Heritage conservation in all its genres – natural/environmental, historical, built/architectural, village streetscape, Aboriginal, you name it.   

A case in point is comparing the ground-truthing reality with Council’s webpage entitled ‘Heritage Conservation Areas’ (GoTo this link and read: ^https://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/heritage/heritage-conservation-areas).

 

The spiel starts off as follows: 

“The Blue Mountains is well-known for the historic character of many of its towns and villages.  In some towns and neighbourhoods buildings from the Victorian, Federation, Edwardian, Inter-War and Post-War eras create visually interesting and layered streetscapes.  Many streetscapes are enhanced by mature street tree plantings and established exotic gardens. 

Council has established ongoing recognition and protection for the many early houses and the generally traditional streetscapes found in most towns and villages of the Blue Mountains. These important historic areas are protected as heritage conservation areas. The full list of heritage conservation areas is listed in Schedule 5 of the Blue Mountains Local Environmental Plan 2015 (LEP).

The boundary and inclusions for each heritage conservation area are defined by an accompanying map, and the reasons for listing explained in the heritage inventory sheet for each area. 

On 19 July 2019, areas of older housing, formerly protected as Period Housing Areas, were converted to new heritage conservation areas as part of Amendment 6 to LEP 2015. Subsequently, the Period Housing provisions of the LEP were superseded by Clause 5.10 of LEP 2015.  Full details and timelines from start to finish on this planning proposal are under ‘related sites’.”

 

‘Propaganda‘ is generally defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a particular cause, doctrine, or point of view.”   That is what the above  extract is – Council propaganda.  Council says one thing yet does another.  Council is hypocritical.

So, why do Blue Mountains councillors seek out Sydneysiders as consultants so repeatedly?  Political links? Favours?  Bias?  Corrupt conduct?  All the above?   It is because the management are culturally fearful that by Council staff learning such skills, that the Council staff will gain more knowledge that the management.  So by Council management engaging distant contractors for one off research tasks, at ratepayers expense of course (else funded out of NSW Government grants) the management incumbent management cannot be replaced by more knowledgeable and compenent staff.  Jobs for life.  Like, Council’s General Manager Dr Rosemary Dillon (not a medical doctor) has been on management for 30 years, and now gets paid $421,535 per year.  Australia’s prime Minister gets $622,000 per year.

We note the tabulated list of these branded ‘Heritage Conservation Areas‘ and surprised to note that these are grouped under the tabulated heading of “Villages”.  Good!  This is correct!  It is in contrast to many amongst the Council mob (ex-Sydney) terming the villages as “suburbs” as if the Blue Mountains is a city.  It is that city-centric mindset being propagated to the Mountains locals.   

We focus specifically herein on Katoomba’s ‘North’s Estate‘ listing midway down the table.  By then clicking on that table’s Map and Inventory Sheet hyperlink  ‘K171‘ for North’s Estate, one is directed to another Council webpage to enable one to download a PDF document.   The full name of the North’s Estate “item” is ‘North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area‘ (Local ID: K171).  That document is eleven pages long in PDF and we supply a copy link, since it is in the public domain.

 

 

[SOURCES:  Not Blue Mountains own, but yet again more of Council’s outsourced ring-in consultants from Sydney – the likes of: 

1. 1. Paul Davies Heritage Architects Pty Ltd (of Drummoyne, Sydney)
   2. (Robyn) Conroy Heritage Planning (of Surry Hills, Sydney)
   3. Croft & Associates Pty Ltd (of Baulkham Hills, Sydney)
   4. Meredith Walker (of Rockdale?, Sydney),
   5. Tropman &Tropman Architects, of 55 Lower Fort St, The Rocks, Sydney.

 

Blue Mountains Council’s heritage knowledge resides not within its management nor staff.  Over the years as long-time employees leave or are asked to leave, no-idea ring-ins typically escaping Sydney take on responsible roles such as in heritage yet with no local knowledge and no handover nor training.  It’s like Council’s new recruit orientation going like this:  “Welcome aboard, there’s your seat and your shared desk, any questions?”  Indeed, we know of one of its legendary former employees Local Studies Librarian and Blue Mountains local historian, Mr John Low OAM who got ‘retired’ way too early by Council management in 2007.  

“John Low was Local Studies Librarian at the Blue Mountains City Library 1982-2007.  [Note: some 25 years]  An active member of the Blue Mountains Historical Society, he received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2012.”

John had more local knowledge about Blue Mountains history than anyone else at Council.  John has over the years written history books on the Blue Mountains and has delivered public presentations on various topics of Blue Mountains history.  He researched and prepared a history of this author’s house and street back in 2001.

The reason why we are writing this article is to cite yet again another example of Blue Mountains Council’s city-centric organisational culture of ignoring and acting contrary to its own policies, planning, rules particularly as they related to Blue Mountains heritage respect, conservation and sympathetic restoration.   This deals with a land use development within North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area  (Local ID: K171).   

 

 

This article’s writer, and The Habitat Advocate’s founder and Conservation Consultant, Steven Ridd, continues to be based in residence within the North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area since 2001. 

This area is also within what we refer to as ‘The Gully Water Catchment‘, otherwise more broadly known as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley for many decades.   Within this catchment is the small natural bushland valley, termed ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place‘.   In recognition that many locals (immediate locals) will not know or even be aware the specific location we are to focus upon, for introductory reference, given that we reach a wide audience, for clarity we supply the following maps zoom-in sequence to identify where we are: 

 

[A]   A Global Location Map:

 

[B]   Katoomba- Sydney Location Map: 

 

[C]    Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Map: 

 

[D]   ‘North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area’ extract historic cartilage map (within):

 

 

So hopefully now as a reader to this article, you can find the location of where we are talking about.  

Prices per night under San Francisco based Airbnb…

 

 

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Our Critiques of Blue Mountains Treatment of ‘North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area’:

[NB:  A ‘critique’ is not just criticism, but also evaluation and judgment, with some constructive recognition of content of merit.  Whilst we do criticise certain aspects of this Council documented report, we also constructive when we consider content to be apt, based upon our own insight and research.   Such critique comes from this author’s personal background (academically, professionally, research, local knowledge and reasonable longevity from living in the subject area.   The author of this article is an Analyst by qualification and experience.  This article aims to provide thoughtful insight and feedback of the report (the oddly entitled ‘Draft Heritage Data Form‘).  We encourage a deeper understanding of the concept and details of what comprises a ‘Heritage Conservation Area’, that it be formally completed, enhanced to best practice standards, then displayed as a comprehensive draft #2 publicly freely, consulted publicly, before being legally gazetted and thereafter legally enforced.]

 

Here we focus on ‘North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area‘, being where we are based and reside.  Again, this is Council’s ‘Draft Heritage Data Form‘ pertaining to this heritage ‘item’:

 

This enclosed document, Council’s ‘Draft Heritage Data Form‘ pertaining to this heritage ‘item’ (or really ‘area’) warrants a few critiques, as follows:

 

[Our Critique 1]   The form is in 2025 dated 2016, making it in December 2025 being a decade old, so sending a message that it has been since ignored by Council.

 

[Our Critique 2]   The form is in 2025, remains a “Draft” a decade later.   Why?   Council does not care.  Council only prepared this document (or rather was legally required to do so because of NSW Government legislation in 2015 re-branding what was zoned ‘Period Housing’ to be ‘Heritage Conservation’.  Cynically, this effectively was just a tokenistic name change. 

 

[Our Critique 3]    Council has overlooked its own website concerning heritage conservation across the Blue Mountains local government area.  How so?  Well, its Development Control Plan of 2015 still continues to use the long obsolete term ‘Period Housing‘.   

 

Source: ^https://www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/development/planning-rules/development-controls-for-land-zoned-under-LEP-2015/DCP-2015

 

[Our Critique 4]    The form was not written by Council.  As highlighted above, it was researched and compiled by outsourced ring-in consultants from Sydney – the likes of  Paul Davies Heritage Architects Pty Ltd (of Drummoyne, Sydney), (Robyn) Conroy Heritage Planning (of Surry Hills, Sydney), Croft & Associates Pty Ltd (of Baulkham Hills, Sydney), Meredith Walker (of Rockdale?, Sydney), Tropman &Tropman Architects, of 55 Lower Fort St, The Rocks, Sydney.

 

[Our Critique 5]    The Statement of Significance at pages 1 and 2 requires factual historical correcting.   

Yes, we note that the ‘Level of Significance’ for North’s Estate is at both ‘Local’ Level (Blue Mountain Local Government Area and at ‘State’ Level (New South Wales).  So this is not insignificant.

The North’s Estate Heritage Conservation Area (HCA) in fact dates to 1876 when the then Government of the colony of New South Wales sold a large bushland parcel of the Blue Mountains plateau (western part of today’s Katoomba around the Katoomba Falls environs) to English immigrant, stockbroker, miner then property developer John Britty North (1831-1917).  North subdivided the northernmost part of his property for residential development in 1883 and it became known as North’s Estate, the very first (and so oldest) housing subdivision in the Blue Mountains region.

 

 

 

 

This is where The Habitat Advocate base resides.   It is also especially why, one takes a special interest in this matter.  We are here, home long located in North’s Estate of 1883 ‘SEC IX‘. 

Yes, we after 25 hard-working and costly investment renovation years, take a focused interest in what happens in our neighbourhood that could try to ever undermine it.

 

 

 

 

 

*

 

[This article is a work in progress]

 

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References and Further Reading:

 

Blue Mountains Council’s ‘love local’ hypocrisy towards local businesses

 

 

 

Within just a minute’s walk from The Habitat Advocate base we happened upon some wonderful local wildlife. 

It was a native Blotched Blue Tongue Lizard in this case (scientific species name Tiliqua nigrolutea).   It was 10th February 2025 (summer) in the late hot afternoon around 6:30pm AEDT, so the sun was still up in the western sky; this given sunsets in late summer at this time of year are as late as 8 pm, some two hours hence.   So, this happenstance timing made sense, but a rare sighting these days.

 

 

Upon our initial sighting, this lizard had been laying in the middle of the footpath sunning itself – being a cold-blooded lizard (‘ectothermically’ that is; not the human malice variety).

This one we think is female – telling from the comparatively small head size and its thicker tail root.  It was not a native Shingleback Lizard (scientific species name Tiliqua rugosa) since such species has a stubbed tail land prefers the habitat plains inland from the Great Dividing Range, and are not found in the Blue Mountains region, whereas Blue Tongues are. 

The location was on The Gully’s urban periphery, yet wholly environmentally within the broader Gully Water Subcatchment, where The Habitat Advocate is based.  So nice to see wildlife in one’s neighbourhood – we share local wildlife’s neighbourhood.  

We provide hyperlinks below to further information and clearer images about this lizard species.

Anyway, it was a pleasurably welcomed and encouraging sighting.

Such sightings however are increasingly rare around these parts these days due to Council’s habitat destruction – pretty much since Council has existed since its origins in Katoomba in 1890, then in 1947 re-branding itself Blue Mountains City Council from being a two adjacent regional municipality/shire councils.   Then from November 2000 after the Blue Mountains region was declared an international World Heritage Area, this local Blue Mountains Council has bizarrely extolled its contradictory perceived virtues of being a city within a World Heritage Area – what espousing urban sprawl development and high-rises amongst Eucalyptus habitat?

We bought our house in 2000, which had there since the 1920’s.  So, we did not build into bush, but rather it was long existing ‘in-town’, and so technically we just recycled and renovated it.  It had had only lawn back and front, but since 2001 we have created an onsite forest and restored much local habitat on site, So, no more grass and we then gave away our lawn mower!

One also recalls that on 13th February back in 2017 around 5:30 pm during a 47^o Celsius unseasonal heatwave weather event across New South Wales, observing a large native Eastern Brown Snake (scientific species Pseudonaja textilis) of almost 2 metres in length scurrying across the scorching road surface of our street into the cooler shade of our forested front garden.  Well, we chose not to garden or water there for a week afterwards and warned our neighbours.  However, we immediately reported this snake sighting to the volunteer-based Wildlife Rescue Service (WIRES) for safety guidance and we spoke to one of their trained snake catchers who gave us helpful and reassuring advice over the phone.

Also, when we first moved in where we are, one had to contend with a native Blue Mountains Funnel Web Spider (scientific name Hadronyche versuta) ground nest in our then unkempt backyard, also unfortunately the native Brown Broadfooted Marsupial Mouse (scientific name is Antechinus stuartii) family over the back fence that we observed, eventually sadly perished.

But it beats living in increasing sprawling concreted, treeless sterile Sydney human megalopolis.

 

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References:

 

[1]   ‘Blotched Blue-tongue Lizard‘,  2020-11-20, by Australian Museum (Sydney), ^https://australian.museum/learn/animals/reptiles/blotched-blue-tongue-lizard/

 

[2]   ‘Shingleback Lizard‘,  2025-04-14, Australian Museum (Sydney),  ^https://australian.museum/learn/animals/reptiles/shingleback-lizard/

 

[3]   ‘Blue Mountains Reptiles‘,  ^https://www.inaturalist.org/guides/12346

 

[4]   ‘Blue Mountains City Council‘, by Data.NSW, 2020, NSW Government, ^https://data.nsw.gov.au/data/organization/about/blue-mountains-city-council#:~:text=In%20May%201946%20Katoomba%20was,the%20Blue%20Mountains%20City%20Council.

 

[5]   ‘Snake Advice‘, Tuesday, 2017-10-10, WIRES, ^https://www.wiresmembers.org.au/seasonal-animal-advice/snake-advice

 

[6]   ‘World Heritage places – Greater Blue Mountains Area‘,  Australian Government  (its departments change like the wind),  ^https://www.dcceew.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/world/blue-mountains#:~:text=History%20of%20World%20Heritage%20listing,session%20on%2027%20June%202013.

 

[7]   ‘Fauna Watch – Winter is not the time for hunkering down for Antechinus!, 2019-08-19, by Anne Carey, Bushcare Blue Mountains (Fauna, Natives), ^https://bushcarebluemountains.org.au/fauna-watch/

 

 

So, following the loud noise disturbance from the Katoomba Carrington Hotel on Saturday 26th October 2024, and from our failed attempt to chat with the hotel’s festival organiser, who immediately ordered us off his premises, we notify local Blue Mountains Council on the following Monday 28th October when Council is back at work.

We lodged a Customer Service Request (CSR 514828) to Council and request a dialogue about this matter. 

This Carrington’s owner had setup some brass band with additional amplified music situated in the guest car park that played over towards adjoining residences, rather than having previously utilised their approved festival space (of equivalent size) on the other side of The Carrington’s grounds in the more suitable bustling retail heart of uptown Katoomba just off high street Katoomba Street.

We received no response from back from Council by Wednesday 30th October.   So we emailed out complaint to Council in writing as follows, and this isn’t the first time we’ve raised this intrusively loud amplified noise issue with this Carrington owner. 

 

 

Attention:  Council’s Programme Leader for Health and Compliance

 

RE: Noise Complaints – Carrington Hotel amplified music | CSR 514828/13 Feb 2024 | CSR 558418/28-Oct-2024

I hereby again complain a second time to you about the amplified noise coming from The Carrington Hotel premises…

PLAY:  >Brass Band Playing from Carrington Car Park

 

Last time, on 13th February this year I had previously raised this noise problem with both The Carrington management via its Reception and then local Council.   A day later I happend to then receive a phone call from one of the joint owners of the Carrington Hotel identifying himself to me as Michael Brischetto.   I explained to him about my genuine concerns about the very loud amplified music audible from my place and our conversation then was amicable.

Now we have another noise disturbance incident. 

All I seek in this matter is a right to quiet enjoyment of where I live in an historical and typically quiet residential neighbourhood. I am concerned about this new noise becoming a precedent and a more frequent occurrence if not nipped in the bud.

My records and expressed concerns support my real worries about what this ‘new noise’ pollution could lead to, to risk destroying our peaceful home environment:

 

1.  I refer to my email to you 7th March 2024 about the loud amplified music noise at The Carrington Hotel car park off Parke Street in Katoomba, and also from last Saturday 26th October 2024.

 

2.  This loud noise was clearly audible to me at my home, being situated three streets away to the west in Kundibar Street. The noise started in the morning, and on and off, continued into the night. The first I heard it, it was a loud small brass band playing with a heavy bass guitar reverberating deep sound that was audible from inside my home. I happened to have been ill that day and I was asleep in bed, and this noise woke me up.

 

3.  This amplified noise could be heard as far away as Waimea Street in The Gully, more than 250 metres away westward through this residential precinct.  I had a walk around the block that day and I confirm this. [See attached ‘Residential Proximity to Noise Map’]

 

 

4.  I then went to inspect where the noise from coming from and found it emanating from The Carrington Hotel’s car park off Parke Street, used again for a music festival – this time The Carrington’s own ‘Oktoberfest’ festival involving live bands (amplified music) and selling beer in The Carrington’s car park.

 

5.  Again, as a local resident, I consider it highly inappropriate and disrespectful that amplified noise be allowed to occur adjacent to residential homes and audible into the back streets beyond.

 

6.  Generally, The Carrington Hotel’s owners permit public access on site to the Grounds, Front Verandah, Reception, the Cocktail Bar, its adjoining toilets, Lounge and Dining spaces. On this particular Saturday, public access was granted to the car park’s upper level where the festival was taking place under a large marquee. So as a member of the public I was free to walk around the grounds and the upper level of the car park and to freely take ‘tourist’ photos.

This I did.

 

7.   I noticed the event’s signage on the day read that it was open to general public. I also read the event promotional banner above the car park lower-level eastern entrance read ‘Free admission’.

 

8.   As supporting evidence, I attach photos I took last Saturday on foot as well as my audio recording (software of which does not reflect the true loudness of the actual volume).

 

9.   For your reference, also as supporting evidence I attach copies of excerpts of The Carrington’s public website specific to this event ’Oktoberfest’. SOURCE: ^https://thecarrington.com.au/whats-on/oktoberfest/ [Accessed: 30-Oct-2024]

 

10.  My understanding is that The Carrington a few years back (perhaps 2015) gained Council approval to double the size of its car park by converting it into a two-storey car park. But this car park second-story development was surely not approved as a venue for holding festivals, concerts, serving alcohol and encouraging large crowd gathering, nor for playing loud amplified music. Is this the case?

 

11.   The Carrington’s website advertised this event to occur between 11am and 9pm on the Saturday. Did Council give approval to The Carrington Hotels owners for this event and amplified music?

 

12.   The juxtaposition of this car park is directly across the street from residential homes.  Indeed, these homes at situated in a heritage housing conservation precinct dating back to the 1870s.  It includes heritage listed ‘North’s Estate’ which pre-dates The Carrington Hotel opening of 1883.  This Norths Estate’ is where I live and have done so in residential quiet enjoyment continually since 2001.

 

13.   The current owners of The Carrington Hotel date their ownership to 2004.

 

14.   I request a copy of council’s consent conditions for this car park development, since I am an adversely affected neighbour to this development use.

 

15.   Did Council approve the use of the car park for festivals including loud amplified noise that could be audible into the adjoining residential area many streets away?

 

16.  On this occasion, I walked up to the pedestrian entrance to this festival in the car park and met a man in a silly pixie hat and costume wearing sunglasses (my photo attached) there gatekeeping the festival’s entrance, who then identified himself as one of the joint owners of The Carrington. It was Michael Brischetto again.

I expressed my concerns to Mr Brischetto politely about the loud amplified noise, pointing out that I live just a few streets away.

But he was quite rude to me, refusing to listen to me, and recalled my previous complaint from the February festival and realised I was the same person who had complained then.

Mr Brischetto then immediately ordered me to “Get off my property!”  So I immediately did so.

 

17.  So, having tried to reason with Michael Brischetto unsuccessfully, I now complain to Council about this noise.

 

18.  As before, I request such loud festival events not be staged in The Carrington’s purpose-built car park off Katoomba’s Parke Street, but rather at the dedicated grassed lawn area (below), which has been successfully used previously for such festivals as the Lady Luck Festival (of the past 14 years) , which is more appropriately located off Katoomba Street in the heart of retail Katoomba, some 200 metres east of the car park.

 

 

I am sure that both The Carrington Hotel owners and Council could readily work together toward a mutually suitable arrangement for such ongoing festivals, so as not to upset local residents like me and my family by it using its unintended car park near homes.

 

19.  This time, I request Council actually contacts the owners of The Carrington about this matter, notifies them of my complaint and that Council does something to address it, ideally prohibit such loud amplified music from being played from its car park off Parke Street please.

 

20. I am prepared to go public on this matter, and indeed pursue this matter legally.

 

Sincerely,

Steven Ridd
Conservation Consultant

W: https://habitatadvocate.com.au/
T: 02-4782 1300

 

From our personal experience, we would NOT describe The Carrington Hotel as being a good neighbour in Katoomba where we live.

On Saturday late morning 26th October 2024, from where we live in The Gully Catchment of Katoomba, we were dozing at home as not feeling particularly well.

Suddenly, we then get this pounding deep bass sound reverberating from somewhere not far away.  It was so loud that it became impossible to sleep through.  Where was it coming from?

Ours is a quiet residential neighbourhood set in the oldest heritage precinct of the Blue Mountains.  Our street dates to the 1870s, even before The Carrington Hotel of 1883 up on the hill.

So we get up and dress to investigate the noisy racket.   We shortly find the source just three short streets away.   We reproduce two samples below, but the volume is ten times louder that what the AMR software on our iPhone has captured.  Most of the band playing sounds out of tune.

Noisy Carrington Hotel – car park festival

 

And we discover some beer fest going on!  

 

It’s that bloody Carrington Hotel again, thumping its amplified festival music from what is supposed to be its large car park rooftop on nearby Parke Street on the top of the hill in our township of Katoomba.   

We had previously raised our concerns about a similar car park festival episode directly with one of The Carrington’s joint owners on a previous occasion back in February 2024, when some other concert started up on top of the same car park playing loud amplified music (multiple large stage speakers pointing in direction of our home) so audible as to be heard down into The Gully, half a kilometre away.  

On this occasion, 26th October, it was some blood brass band amplified up at full volume, again!   WTF!

Yet there are residential homes just across Parke Street, just metres away from the stage where the band is playing, like ours about 300 metres away from the now fabricated temporary stage.

This is what we heard and saw on the car park second storey upon our investigation after having just woken up…

 

This is just not fair!  A festival with loud amplified music set up juxtaposed to residential homes?   It’s so selfish and arrogant and it’s not right.  It’s hardly respecting the rights of immediate locals like us to our quiet enjoyment.  It’s a noise impost.

And it’s also so unnecessary that this particularly large accommodation hotel with options of utilising its multiple internal entertainment spaces and on such an extensive site, should resort to re-purposing its purpose built guest car park into a festival venue and so cause annoyance to locals immediately across the street (Parke Street) and on to adjoining quiet back streets like ours within earshot. 

We say this because The Carrington Hotel has ready onsite access also to a similarly sized level grassed area at the front of the hotel site just off retail Katoomba Street.   The Carrington has long used this level open lawned space for various festivals and events.  It’s a perfect location in the retail heart of Katoomba!

 

So, then why move the Carrington’s marquee from here in town to the rear car park opposite residences?

Today, unable to sleep and feeling a bit crook, we approached the entrance to the car park festival and briefly expressed our concerns to some bloke in a pixie hat and joker costume about the loud amplified noise and that we lived just a few streets away.   The bloke happened to be one of The Carrington’s joint owners in disguise.  He promptly got agitated with one’s comments and then immediately ordered me to leave his property, as in “bugger off”!  

 

 

As a Katoomba resident where we live since 2001, we provide some instructional background.

A few years back, Blue Mountains Council granted The Carrington Hotel development approval to double the size of its car park off Parke Street on its very large site.  The approval was to build a second storey car park above the existing car park so as to double off-street parking capacity for its in-house guests.  This followed substantial renovations of many rooms which so increased the hotel’s accommodation capacity.

We have no problem about The Carrington Hotel’s enlarged car park being used as a car park for its staying guests.  The investment into restoring, upgrading and diversifying the Carrington continues to wonderfully appreciated for Katoomba.  As long locals we know of no other tourism establishment that has done so this this extent.   This is a credit to its joint owners.

The car park concrete structure is about the size of a narrow-elongated  basketball court and further dominates the hotel’s 4 storey high-rise landscape on top of the hill in uptown Katoomba.

 

 

But why a decision for a remote miniature Oktoberfest festival in Katoomba outside Sydney, when there has long been a huge one in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens annually every October attracting thousands?  It’s held on the very same day on the 26th! 

So why the hell would tourists in Sydney not conveniently head close by to the real big deal in Sydney, to instead choose a 4-hour return train ride to The Carrington car park in Katoomba for a half-pint to bad music?  No chance!

 

A big double storey concrete car park is one thing, but then we discover they’re starting to use it for ticketed music festivals and even lease it out to independent festival organisers.   So they’re profiting from festivals despite never having had such Council approval to do so.   We would have objected had the development application plans included converting the car park into a venue for external festival hire. 

This is the car park in question showing its driveway entrance off Parke Street.  The brass band is playing behind the car park gates on a stage behind the calico screen inside the temporary marquee. 

 

The following aerial view of this precinct in Katoomba (Google Maps) shows the relevant juxtaposition of The Carrington hotel with its car park used as a band stage (shown in red), plus the  remaining section of the car park for audience seating and outdoors drinking of German beers in large jugs. 

It also shows the proximity of the residential housing and also the similar sized garden lawn (yellow rectangle) situated within the Carrington grounds off Katoomba Street.

 

 

 

So why doesn’t the Carrington simply return to using the Council-approved outdoor entertainment space it had purposely re-developed on its flat lawned area right in the retail heart of Katoomba, rather than pissing off local residents to the west of the hotel.

Some big business people presume they can do what they want and bugger everyone else?   Perhaps the owners would benefit more by investing quality time researching negotiation pathways with local Council to mitigate the costs of returning to utilising the grassed area for events as before and the Carrington’s similarly sized large ballroom.  But diversifying into illegally using the hotel’s guest car park to hock for event leasing to external festival organisers for a pittance return?   

Indeed the event is promoted as “free admission” as per the banner outside (see below).   So what its the point of this event?  The musicians would not be performing for free.  Only the beer it seems, is for sale.   So the whole thing appears to be a loss making exercise.  Is this for the indulgence of the pixie who just likes getting dress down and drinking beer?  Or is he just wanting to piss off the neighbours?

 

Of course, while the car park has been leased out, many of The Carrington’s in-house guests will be denied the brochured off-street parking, so be relegated to use Council’s on street paid parking, costing over $100 per day.  We suggest this pet project to annoy locals is a false economy.   So as Katoomba long-time locals, we wont be frequenting The Carrington any time soon.  The actions of The Carrington are so unneighbourly.

The big concern we have is that this illegal use of the car park repurposed for festivals, risks setting a precedent for drunken crowds and on a more frequent basis.   The toilets are not convenient to the car park.  The only toilets are well inside the hotel itself, passed reception, passed the bar if you now where to find them.  So what is preventing drunken party goers after downing a full German beer jug or three, desperate for a leak, taking advance of the adjacent brick walls of the adjoining Blue Mountains Cultural Centre and the front fences of local homes to urinate into the wee hours.   There are no toilets in the car park.  Is the car park a licensed venue to serve alcohol?  We’ve not heard.

What is to come if this is allowed to snowball into a more regular Carrington Hotel Booze Fest, fuelled by incoming bus loads of yobbos on bucks nights.

Surely, no Katoomba local here wants this problem.  The festival lease brain-snap for a re-purposing of the car park needs to stopped in it tracks before it morphs out of control!

 

 

Where is local Blue Mountains Council in all this?

 

Comment:

 

Judy Harding: 

“I text the Carrington saying I was considering staying there but have been told it’s too noisy because of the bands playing in the car park so I have decided to stay in Leura.” 

 

---

 

References:

 

[1]   ‘Katoomba now Australia’s booze capital‘, 2021-02-21, ‘Mountains Drums’ blog, Nature Trail website, ^https://naturetrail.com.au/blog-post/katoomba-now-australias-booze-capital/

 

[2]   ‘Oktoberfest in the Gardens‘,  Botanic Gardens of Sydney,  ^https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/whats-on/oktoberfest-gardens, Australia’s biggest and best Oktoberfest celebration returns to Sydney in 2024,    Abstract: “Inspired by a love of the traditional Bavarian festival and great beer.  Oktoberfest in the Gardens Sydney features two massive beer halls, authentic German food stalls, roving performers, sideshow alley, silent disco and an eclectic mix of entertainment and competitions across multiple stages throughout the afternoon and evening.  Taste your way across Europe with a large selection of imported German beer, cider, wine and a range of other beverages.”

 

[3]   ‘Oktoberfest‘, The Carrington Hotel, ^https://thecarrington.com.au/whats-on/oktoberfest/

 

[4]   ‘Lady Luck Festival‘,  The Carrington Hotel website, ^https://thecarrington.com.au/whats-on/ladyluck/

 

This is yet another example of neglected stormwater runoff maintenance by Blue Mountains {city} Council.     Its in-creek water pollution trap (vane style) device is situated just above Katoomba Falls (left of photo). 

 

 

This pollution detritus trap has, from our very local experience over two decades, been typically full of destroyed native vegetation debris caused by (a) torrential rain events, and (b) bushland clearing (deforestation).  It has also been observed typically full of siltation from (a) upstream creek bank erosion through Maple Grove, (b) from housing construction sand and graded topsoil, and (c) from unfiltered urban stormwater waste ignored by Council since it was established first as the Municipality of Katoomba in 1889. 

We have lived in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001.  The Gully Water Catchment includes all land with watercourses and natural drainage flowing to Katoomba Falls, and we have taken a keen interest in this natural place.  

 

From our observed experience as local environmental activists, Council’s ongoing management culture is such that it focuses on the capital works projects, obtains external grant funding (usually from the NSW Government) but then fails to budget and resource the ongoing maintenance of such capital works projects.  This Baramy Trap is another case in point.

We repeatedly observe this pollution trap full and overflowing for months at a time, so the trap overflows and the continuing detritus flows downstream into the downstream Kedumba River to supply Greater Sydney’s drinking water to Sydney’s artificial Lake Burragorang for Sydney and a Greater Sydney so scarily morphing beyond.  Currently this pollution trap has been full of sand sediment for many months.   

The above photo shows the concrete ramp down to the pollution trap for access by a small front-end mechanical loader designed to remove the sand and debris pollution into a waiting tip-truck.  

 

Council is supposed to maintain it and clean it out on an ‘as-needed‘ basis periodically, but it doesn’t.  The following is an extract of Baramy’s terms and conditions for this pollution device once installed.  

We obtained a copy of these terms and conditions back in 2004 when The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (the Friends) sought a quote for a similar but smaller pollution device (4 m long x 2.1 m wide) previously to be constructed in the same creek further upstream.   Baramy’s quote came in at $26,000 and we referred this initiative for action/grant funding to Council – it being the custodian of this community land and the creek water catchment.  But Council ignored it.  

In this case Council is the “customer” having paid to have this much larger device constructed by Baramy Engineering in this different location much further downstream.  It would have cost Council double, constructed probably around 2005 from one’s memory.  

Council’s culture 

Council has form of having its other non-environmental priorities, such as its latest newfangled ‘Planetary Health Initiative’ to showcase its environmental stewardship, when it is just more greenwashing.

Previously, all such debris, sediment and stormwater pollution into the creek used to just flow over Katoomba Cascades and further downstream over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River below and southward through the Jamison Valley.   

 

 

 

By the way, Upper Mountains sewage design (Katoomba, Leura, Wentworth Falls) back between 1907 and the 1990’s also flowed by iron piping down into the Jamison Valley to the former Leura Sewage Treatment Plant (historic image below) situated just by Leura Falls Creek between Echo Point and Sublime Point.   The iron piping still can be seen along hiking tracks down the escarpment – the reason for the hiking tracks actually being first constructed. 

We estimate that the current sand quantity filling this particular Creek Pollution Trap would be twenty cubic metres at least.  We reported the problem to Council the day we took the first photo above – receiving Council’s Customer Service Request reference #533082.

We’re not the only locals having noticed this particular in-creek pollution trap full.  Here’s another documented event of the very same pollution trap in February 2020.  It was during the start of Australia’s East Coast Low events associated with the La Niña oscillating weather pattern:

This pollution trap’s exact location is situated beside Cliff Drive in Katoomba on the southern (downstream) side of the road at the road culvert over Katoomba Falls Creek.  See the aerial photographic map below showing the yellow star.  

 

This in-creek pollution trap was constructed by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd of Katoomba for Council.   

 

The construction timing was a few years or so following The Greater Blue Mountains Area (1 million km²) being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 29th November 2000.   Katoomba Falls flows into the Jamison Valley within this World Heritage area.  The Jamison Valley, below these falls (and others) is also part of the drinking water catchment leading to Warragamba Dam supplying an ever-expanding Greater Sydney (current population approaching 5.5 million) adjoining the Blue Mountains region.   

It is the researched opinion of The Habitat Advocate that this World Heritage listing was more about the human utility of protecting the value of Sydney’s drinking water in perpetuity, than it was about protecting the Eucalyptus forests of the Blue Mountains. 

 

Notably, the sand type in this pollution trap appears to be not the naturally river sand, but consistently all the same light colour of Concrete Sand type used commercially in construction.

 

 

Concrete Sand is a coarser sand variety, pivotal in construction use to create strong and durable concrete structures.  It’s typically made from crushed quartz, which gives it a rougher texture, enhancing the binding properties in concrete mixtures. This sand type is indispensable for laying robust foundations, constructing driveways, and forming sidewalks.  This is exactly what is going on in The Gully Catchment upstream of this creek pollution trap.

Whereas the natural creek-bed of Katoomba Falls Creek is comprised of small pebbles.  This editor knows this from being local to Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and having voluntarily performed Streamwatch quality monitoring of Katoomba Falls Creek for five years (2004-2008) on behalf of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. reporting to the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) within the New South Wales Governments Sydney Water department. 

 

Council doesn’t analyse the sand to determine its source.  Council doesn’t fine the polluters and issue a stop work court order.  Council doesn’t employ a hydrologist or geotechnical engineer on its books.     Yet where is all the housing constrution taking place in the Blue Mountains?   Upstream of the World Heritage area.

In our view, Council is unfit in delegated stewardship as custodian of the geographic plateau of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) atop the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area from its atrocious record of failings.   So long as this pollution control device is full and overflowing, sand and debris is flowing downstream over Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River.   Parks Service (‘NPWS’) doesn’t monitor pollution levels or water quality in Kedumba River down in the Jamison Valley.

Council doesn’t enforce sediment controls are housing development sites upstream in The Gully Water Catchment (Katoomba Falls Creek Valley).

There are current two large housing subdivision sites contribution to sedimentation of the creek.

 

1.  Katoomba Golf Course – ‘Yarrabee Katoomba’ – a 24 townhouse subdivision

 

 

2.    21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba – massive housing subdivision

Some 13 odd hectares of fragile native bush surrounding an upland brook between Stuarts & Wellington Roads is to be bulldozed into a 53 cluster housing subdivision.

 

 

Council care factor?   Zilch.

 

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References:

 

[1]   ‘Concrete Sand: Essential for Structural Integrity’, ^https://www.constructor.net.au/breaking-down-the-different-types-of-sand-used-in-construction/

 

[2]   ‘Flood photos: Three-day drenching‘,  2021-03-24, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7178181/flood-photos-three-day-drenching/

 

[3]   ‘Police to co-ordinate evacuation of visitors trapped in Megalong Valley following landslip‘, 2024-04-04, by Damien Madigan, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8580550/blue-mountains-flash-flooding-warning-ses/

 

[4]  ‘Katoomba Baramy Trap‘, Maple Grove Reserve, February 2020, video by David King, ^https://www.facebook.com/dingodarbo/videos/maple-grove-reserve-katoomba-baramy-trap-february-2020/783187302176658/?_rdr

 

[5]   ‘Pollution Control Device‘ quote prepared for ‘Frank Walford Park Bushcare’ (Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc), 2004-09-27, by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd, 7 pages.

 

[6]    ‘Leura Sewage Treatment Works‘, by Ask Roz Blue Mountains, Tourist information centre, ^https://www.facebook.com/AskRozBlueMountains/posts/historic-snapshot-leura-sewage-treatment-works-what-were-they-thinking-if-you-ha/3724364867606906/

 

 

Back in 2004, Blue Mountains {city} Council’s pre-existing Plan of Management for The Gully, was entitled ‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place‘. 

Yes, sixteen words made the title a tad lengthy, so Council bureaucracy abbreviated it to ‘PoM’.  Perhaps ‘The Gully Plan of Management 2004’ would have been just fine for most.    

Our research attests that the 2004 Plan for The Gully sadly is but the 18th report over many decades for this long abused and neglected small valley on the western fringe of Katoomba, increasing surrounded and encroached by profitable housing development.

Council’s 2004 Plan for The Gully was some 105 pages incorporating Council’s defined ‘Community (public) Land’ reserves of the following multiple bushland parcels :

1. Frank Walford Park
2. McRae’s Paddock
3. Selby Street Reserve
4. Katoomba Falls Reserve
5. Katoomba Cascades
6. Plus side watercourse/riperian gullies through Council’s recategorised as ‘Operational Land’ and sold off for profit, namely Katoomba Golf Course and the significant side valley innocuously identified as 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba…

 

All these lands lie directly upstream and feed downstream into Katoomba Falls and the Kedumba River water catchment.   The 2004 Plan was portrayed as holistically recognise, encompass and include the catchment value of entire remnant natural bushland valley upstream of Katoomba Falls (image below).  It was Council’s pretense.

 

Katoomba Falls

 

Yet of the many ‘Management Policies’, ‘Masterplans’ and ‘Action Plans’ that were specified in the 2004 Plan (of Management) over last 17 years Council’s management bureacracy has done precious little by way of implementation of any ‘management’. 

Many of the same bureaucrats involved with The Gully on Council over the years are still there, with increasing remuneration.   Whereas the bulk of funding for remedial works undertaken in The Gully has come from external NSW government grant sources and in most cases the works undertaken by local community volunteers unpaid.   

The 2004 Plan of Management for The Gully was basically filed by Council on the day Council approved the plan.  Council bureaucracy has sat back let others source any funding and conduct reparations.   Recent history confirms after seventeen years that Council was disingenuous about the 2004 Plan and never intended it to be a plan of management, rather just another compliance report for filing, something Blue Mountain Council has proven adept at, paying fortunes to external consultants.

All the while The Gully is but a ten minute walking distance from Blue Mountains Council chambers situated 300 metres away just across the highway.   In Council’s list of management priorities, The Gully may as well be situated in another local government area.  

Indeed, Council’s custodial responsibility has been perpetually avoided ever since 1957 and prior.  Council’s management performance in The Gully and its broader community of support has been characterised environmentally as one of destruction and neglect, and socially as one of contempt, obstruction, hauty recalcitrance, and divide and conquer politics.  From this author’s experiences since 2001, Council’s management bureaucracy has persisted with a culture of contempt for The Gully, and no councillor has dared champion the plight of The Gully’s neglected cause. 

Blue Mountains Council since 1957 has held custodial responsibility for community owned lands known as Catalina Park, Frank Walford Park, then Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and then Upper Kedumba River Valley, all currently referred to collectively as ‘The Gully‘.  The Gully was declared an ‘Aboriginal Place’ in 2002 under Section 84 of the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974.

But Council is selective about what it labels as ‘The Gully’.  Council’s zoned ‘Community Land’ (mostly stilll natural bushland) is a larger parcel that what it identiifies as ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place’ within the entire valley.  You see the holistic natural valley of The Gully extends to the entire water catchment upstream, of Katoomba Falls – basically from the watershed of the Great Western Highway along the northern boundary,  the watershed of Narrowneck Road along the western boundary, and what is Parke Street along the eastern boundary.   Of course, this valley has been long developed by housing subdvision over the decades since colonial settlement in the 1870s and so the natural bushland and riparians zones have been bulldozed for settlement use on the bushland edge of the town of Katoomba.

So the lands that comprise The Gully are somewhat confusing to many.  This suits Council’s management bureaucracy’s agenda to do what it wants.   This author, a local since 2001 has been monitoring and researching Council’s bureaucracy ploys with The Gully and its communities since the late 1940s in the lead up to its 1957 forced evictions of poor people – black, white, brindle. 

 

Council’s review of The Gully’s 2004 Plan is long overdue

 

In 2020, Council stated on its Gully Plan review webpage thus:

“This Plan of Management (PoM) is 16 years old and does not reflect the contemporary cultural values and perspectives held by the Gully community.  Funding from the NSW Government, NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects has been made available to review and update the Plan of Management for the Gully.”

Council began its review of the 2004 plan in 2017.   The bulk of the consultation process to review the 2004 Plan of Management of some 17 years prior was supposed to have be done in 2009, and with annual assessment of the progress of the implementation of Council’s approved 2004 plan, as evidenced as follows:

SOURCE:  ‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place (Blue Mountains {City?} Council, revised edition 2004, Appendix C: ‘Summary of Relevant Strategies / Policies’, p.101.

 

Well, better late than never.  Council only undertook the plan’s review kicking and screaming in order to comply with NSW Government legislative requirements – and then it did so by outsourcing the task to a contractor and to an external consultancy using ratepayer funding.  The Gully being an Aboriginal Place listed under the National Parks Act 1974, Council reviewed the 2004 Plan and prepared draft Plan of Management for The Gully, following the NSW Government’s Guideline for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places 2012.  The review of the 2004 plan was also prepared in accordance with Division 3.6 of the Crown Lands Management Act 2016.   Public exhibition of the draft Plan of Management was required under Sections 38 and 40 of the Local Government Act 1993, which requires not fewer than 28 days for public exhibition of the draft plan.

 

So who is  ‘The Gully Community‘ according to Council aficionados?

 

Back in the days of when dozens of concerned local residents in and around The Gully catchment were campaigning to end the invasive car racing (1989 – 2006), those considered informally part of The Gully Community were quite a bush of mixed racial/cultural background that mattered not.   It was just about the cause of cariung for The Valley/Gully.  It included former residents of The Gully (before the racetrack was bulldozed through the valley in 1957), both Aboriginal (mainly of Gundungurra and Dharug ancestry) and non-Aboriginal  and intermarried families, descendants of those residents, subsequent locals living in and around Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, members of local community bushcare and activist group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc., and an informal collective know for a time as The Gully Guardians.

However, it is worth pointing out in the interests of transparency that Council’s definition of what it terms “the Gully Community” is unknown.  It is believed to be only Aboriginal people and of those only those holding local Gundungurra ancestry and of those only a select few and mostly a select group of women of Gundungurra descent.   This suits Council bureaucracy – compliant ‘Yes Folk’ to do Council bureacracy’s bidding secretively behind closed doors. 

So in October 2021 just gone, following Council bureaucracy’s selective and secretive consultation process, the latest Plan of Management for The Gully has been finalised.  This is plan No. 19.  But worse, it’s just a plan on paper and follows a sad Council legacy of precious little actioned implementation.   This latest plan has an unbudgeted pie-in-the-sky cost estimate of a whopping $4,742,910 (see summary cost table on page 113 of the 20121 Plan below in this article under ‘Further Reading’).    The focus group consultants must have had their all wish lists out and fueled by a huge budget and extended timeframe.   Council’s outlay for its review process of the 2004 Plan has not been made public – $250,000 perhaps or more?

The Habitat Advocate based within The Gully Catchment in Katoomba, is in possession of both the glossy printed version of the document ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place Plan of Management‘ dated 4th October 2021 of some 145 pages, as well as the digital version of the same title.  The latter we provide a full copy at the end of this article under ‘Further Reading‘ publically available for free to download and print by anyone.  The Gully is after all is gazetted ‘Community (public) Land’, so its plan is by extension, public, not restricted by Council’s presumptive copyrighting.

Council claims that it “consulted extensively in preparation of the Draft Plan of Management (POM), including with Gully families, at NAIDOC week, and with the broader community through an online survey over a period of four months.   The public exhibition of the Draft POM is an important part of community consultation and was open for a period of 60 days, longer than is required (42 days) under the legislation (Local Government Act and Crown Lands Management Act 2016).  The public exhibition period was advertised via media and advertising and closed on 26 July 2021.”

However, once again as in the past, Council’s consultation process was both selective and controlled.    Council only allowed and heard what it wanted to hear.

 

A.   Blue Mountains Council’s Selective Consultation

In  this review process, Council partnered with two favoured groups, being ‘The Gully Traditional Owners Inc.‘ (membership is not publicly available) and ‘The Gully Cooperative  Management Committee‘ (membership is not publicly available).  It is understood that the membership make up of both groups may well be dominated by the same few select individuals.  It is for Blue Mountains Council to disclosed this given that The Gully, whilst in part respected as an Aboriginal Place under the NPWS Act 1974, remains gazatted as Community (public) Lands.

 

B.   Blue Mountains Council’s Controlled Consultation

Between 2017 and 2021 Council published its review of its 2004 Plan of Management.  It published a webpage on the Internet, a subdomain ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan  It ran a series of advertisements in the Blue Mountains regional Gazette newspaper and posted a number of physical signs around The Gully valley like the one below.   Council termed this its Exhibition Period.

However, all contributions from locals and the broader community was funmelled by Council compulsorily to the above webpage and to be submitted to Council via an online form.  In this way, Council could avoid genuine face-to-face dialogue with the interested community. 

NOTE:  ‘Have Your Say’ is simply outsourced software that is designed for community engagement, so that Council management and staff don’t have to.  ‘Engagement Hub’ is one such software product. 

 

And remember that the NSW Government pandemic lockdown which outlawed normal human face-to face conversation had not taken effect until March 2020.   In this way, Council sought to deliberately avoid genuine and open community exchange and conversation on The Gully and of Council’s intentions for The Gully.   Such aloof  and tokenistic ‘community consultation’ by Council bureaucracy sadly has become the norm by what ought to be local council in power to representative oof local community interests and values.  

Council claims that it has undertaken comprehensive “stakeholder engagement” as part ensuring community participation in the preparation of Plans of Management for this community land known as The Gully.  However, Council’s communications and engagement was restricted to “Aboriginal families of former Gully residents and their descendants, NAIDOC Week participants in The Gully (2018), and to  people who visit and use The Gully through the Have Your Say survey.  The latter was an online form for one way input, not dialogue, and not a forum.

Instead of Council reviewing the 2004 and its implementation or otherwise, Council ignored the 2004 Plan and instead focused on the view of stakeholders on:

• What’s important?
• What needs to be protected?
• How should be The Gully be in the future?

Council bureaucracy’s planning framework and scope for reviewing the 2004 Plan was conveniently restricted to its formal relationship with The Gully Traditional Owners Inc. and within The Gully Cooperative Management Agreement.   

According to Council’s Gully Plan webpage “decisions on whether a suggestion can be included in the Plan of Management (for 2021) is measured against the core cultural values of The Gully as an Aboriginal Place, and whether the ideas are supportive of these core values.  The outcome of this consultation is presented in Chapter 5 of the Draft Plan of Management Talking with the Community. A complete summary of is presented in Talking with the Community Stakeholder Engagement Report – The Gully Aboriginal Place Katoomba.”

Notably input from the broader community and non-Aboriginal ‘stakeholders’ who inputed via Council’s outsourced ‘Have Your Say’ online form and was deliberately excluded. 

There was one other public forum offered by Council, its ‘Public Hearing‘ so-called staged by Council staff and management on Saturday 7th August 2021 by means of online forum via Zoom meeting software.   

This public hearing had in the lead up been promoted by Council as to focus on The Gully’s Plan of Management review.  Keenly, almost 70 individual members of the community enrolled to contribute to the public hearing. 

However from the outset of the Zoom meeting, Council’s outsourced consultant Ms Sandy Hoy was quick to disappoint.  Ms Hoy is principal director of the planning consultancy firm Parkland Planners based in Freshwater on Sydney’s northern beaches – once again Council goes off-Mountains to source its consultants. 

The so-called ‘public hearing’ was distinctly an online forum NOT to discuss the plan of Management, but rather for participants to input into Council’s alternative piece of legislation – Council’s ‘ The Gully Aboriginal Place Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land July 2021‘.

So as toward the end of October 2021, with submissions received, Council  declared “The Exhibition period for the Draft Plan of Management has now closed”.

Council’s final recategorisation document for 2021 was subsequently renamed thus:

 

This is a sneaky and mischievous Council that has form back to 1989 and indeed back to 1957 when it bulldozed Aboriginal settlements in The Gully. 

So this is The Gully Plan 2021, number 19 no less – again set for filing by Council bureaucracy for another decade or so.  

The Gully’s Plan of Pretense No.19.

 

And Council Propaganda on all this?

 

“Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a submission.  All submissions will be analysed and carefully considered as part of the consultation process.  Recommended amendments to the Draft Plan of Management will be conveyed to the Councillors when the Final Plan of Management is prepared for adoption.  This is currently anticipated to be at the 26 October 2021 Council meeting.

SOURCE:  ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan

 

So contradictorily, on the one hand Council bureaucray’s public hearing staged on Saturday 7th August 2021 was promoted on its flyer to discuss and input into the 2021 Plan of Management,.  But then on the day of the ‘public hearing’ up front Council’s consultant Sandy Hoy instructed all participants that this was NOT to be the focus of the hearing, but purely on some other obscure document about Council’s land recategorisation in The Gully and somehown no related to the 2021 Plan.   Then on Council’s website the comment above reads ..“Thank you to everyone who took the time to make a submission. All submissions will be analysed and carefully considered as part of the consultation process.  Recommended amendments to the Draft Plan of Management will be conveyed to the Councillors when the Final Plan of Management is prepared for adoption.” 

How deceptively mischievous of Council’s community consultative process! 

 

Other points noted on Council’s webpage on The Gully: 

 

1. Council’s community consultation has concluded with The Gully’s plan version dated 4th October 2021. 
2. The Gully Aboriginal Place PoM 2021 was endorsed at the Council meeting 26th October 2021.
3. The Gully Aboriginal Place 2021 Plan of Management was formerly adopted 28 Oct 2021
4. Council claims that “there are no proposals to sell off, or develop, any bushland or public land within the Gully for private housing.  The Gully is comprised of Council Community land and Crown land classified as Public recreation reserve, as well as a number of Council and Crown road reserve.  In regards to concerns focused on the parcels of 38-46 Gates Avenue:
   1. The 5 parcels of land of 38-46 Gates Avenue are not within the Gully Aboriginal Place area as Gazetted in 2002. The Gully Draft PoM has been updated to include all and only land within the Gully AP area. Hence these parcels were not included in the revised PoM.
   2. The Gully Draft PoM does not propose any change to the classification of Council community land within the Gully AP, (or for 38-46 Gates Avenue). Changes from Community land to Operational Land is a separate process and would require revision of the Local Environmental Plan (LEP).
   3. There are no proposed changes to the land classification, or land categories of the land parcels of 38-46 Gates Avenue. They remain classified at Council Community (13/1-4/L1/2059) and Operational land (13/5/L1/2059) and remain categorised Natural Area Bushland.

 

As for point 4, this is contrary to the land categorisation mapping in the 2004 Plan.  Compare the following two maps of land categorisation.  The first map is in the 2004 Plan on page 7.  The second one is the 2021 Plan on page 25.  Spot the notable differences – the many bushland parcels missing from the 2021 map, notably the 5 parcels of land of 38-46 Gates Avenue on the corer of Peckmans Road near the Aquatic Centre.

 

Council has form over many decades in re-categorising Community Land to Operation Land under its custodianship – Hat Hill Airstrip, Wentworth Falls Golf Course, …

 

Further Reading:

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[1]   The Gully Plan of Management 2021 (Final) , 4th October 2021, Blue Mountains (city) Council), ^https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Gully-POM-4-Oct-2021.pdf

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[2]   Council’s Gully Plan, ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan   [Editor’s note:  This outsourced webpage link is likely to be deleted by Council soon, given that its ‘consultation process’ has concluded]

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[3]   The Gully Plan of Management Report to Councillors, Item 12, 26th October 2021, ^https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/The-Gully-Plan-2021-Council-Paper.pdf

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[4]    Gully Plan for 2021 is unbelievably No. 19, ^https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/gully-plan-for-2021-is-unbelievably-no-19/

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[5]   ‘Have Your Say’ community engagement software, Engagement Hub, ^https://portal.engagementhub.com.au/

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[6]  Parkland Planners, Council’s outsourced planning consultant for its public hearing staged online on 7th August 2021, Freshwater, NSW, ^http://www.parklandplanners.com.au/about-us/people/

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[7]  The Gully Collection, ^https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/consultancy/the-gully-in-katoomba/the-gully-collection/

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Local residents in and around The Gully water catchment area situated on the western side of the rural township of Katoomba may be astounded by the following truths we at The Habitat Advocate have gleamed of late about Blue Mountains Council’s legacy of plans for The Gully.

An analysis by our editor into the archival records maintained by The Habitat Advocate reveals that this current report/plan by Blue Mountains Council entitled The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management dated 7th May 2021 is actually Plan Number 19.   There could well be more out there. 

Don’t believe it?   Well we have a copy of almost every one of the nineteen reports, and these are just the ones we know about.  This revelation comes after being a member of one of the longest lasting environmental groups in the Blue Mountains region, ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.’ which lasted for 28 years initially forming informally in 1988 to protest and lobby against the Catalina Raceway from 1988 incensed by Bob Jane’s helicopter buzzing low over residents’ homes around what was then Catalina Park.   Over the span of half a lifetime, The Friends fought many a campaign against a host of environmental threats to the valley/gully and amassed a considerable record of material during that period.

The following is our list of the planning reports into The Gully:

 

List of Plans for The Gully, so far…

 

1. Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study A & B (date TBA)
2. FWP – ‘Bushland Management and Report’, (date TBA)
3. Frank Walford Park Master Plan for Development 1955 (car racetrack), by Katoomba Municipal Council
4. Draft Assessment of Frank Walford Park, Katoomba – Land Suitability, Environmental Constraints, circa 1980
5. Frank Walford Park Management Plan 1981, 54 pages
6. Katoomba Falls Creek Valley by Neil Stuart (provided to Wentworth Falls TAFE Library on special reserve), 1988 and revised in 1991
7. Katoomba Falls Reserve Draft Plan of Management, Volume 1, by Mandis Roberts Consultants for Blue Mountains City Council and  the NSW Department of Lands, April 1990 (possibly a Volume 2 as well)              
8. Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study – Part 1 (Draft Report and Management Plan of 87 pages) and Part 2 (Technical Reports, Data and Analysis of 55 pages) by Fred Bell of F.& J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd and Dr Val Attenbrow, June 1993
9. The Gully Archaeological Grant Project, 16^th August 1995
10. ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Draft Plan of Management – Main Report’, by Des Brady of Connell Wagner Pty Ltd, of approximately 150 pages, April 1996       
11. Frank Walford Park Plan of Management, December 1998
12. Upper Kedumba Valley, Katoomba – Report on the cultural significance of Upper Kedumba Valley for declaration as an Aboriginal Place prepared by Dianne Johnson with Dawn Colless for NPWS, 162 pages, 3^rd July 2000
13. Draft Katoomba-Leura Vegetation Management Plan by Blue Mountains City Council, December 2000, 46 pages,
14. Upper Kedumba River Valley Plan of Management (The Gully Aboriginal Place – Council Revised Edition, (Spiral Bound, 105 pages) by Environmental Partnership, February 2004
15. Final Report for Sydney Catchment Authority – Catchment & Improvement Grant No. 44 Upper Kedumba River Vallkey, prepared by members of Kedumba Creek Bushcare 7 Blue Mountains City Council March 2005, 27 pages.
16. A Heritage Study of the Gully Aboriginal Place, Katoomba, New South Wales by Allan Lance of Heritage Consulting Australia Pty Ltd August 2005 (2 versions – a detailed confidential version for the local Aboriginal peoples and a second summary version for Blue Mountains City Council, 113 pages)
17. Construction Environmental Management Plan – Blue Mountains Sewer Trunk Mains Amplification: Upper Kedumba River Valley, South Katoomba Sewerage Catchment by Total Earth Care Pty Ltd for Sydney Water and Blue Mountains City Council, 17th October 2007, approximately 50 pages.
18. Reconnecting to Country – Progress Report #2 by Rouse Water, Council, Gully Traditional Owners, Sustainable Futures Australia, Widjabul Custodians, September 2009. (possibly a Progress Report #1 as well)
19. The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management 7^th May 2021, by Soren Mortensen and Brad Moore, Blue Mountains City Council, 142 pages.

 

 

As Council currently prepares its final version of its 2021 plan version for The Gully, the obvious critique we posit to Council is that it is about time Council actually focuses on implementing its plans rather repeatedly spending money having more plans written.   

We point out that the only plan on The Gully that Council has funded out of its budget (ratepayers’ money) and not from external grants was the construction of the racetrack in 1959.   And then the funding was a loan to the then Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Ltd, a collection of wealthy local business men who persuaded Council to bulldoze the homes of the poor residents so they could race cars on a new racing circuit. 

 

Council’s loan was in excess of £20,000 (say a conservative $40,000 equivalent at the time, since at the Australian government’s switch to decimal currency back in 1966 set the conversion rate of $2 to being equivalent to £1 (Australian).

[SOURCE:  Minutes of Special Meeting of the Council (duly convened) , Tuesday 13th day of January 1959, page 8, Item 45, signed as validated by the Mayor and Town Clerk and verbatim thus:

“Car Racing Track – Catalina Park, Katoomba. Page A12 Town Clerk’s Report.

Resolved on the motion of Alderman K. Smith and W. Smith that consideration be given when dealing with the Loan Estimates for 1959/60 to the inclusion of an amount of about £20,000 for the construction of a blacktopped surface to the racing track and the provision of adequate safety fencing.”

In today’s value that $40 000 would be valued at about $700,000 in today’s money in 2022.  That budget excludes the costs of Council’s contracted bulldozer work to  demolishing The Gully homes, then grade the new racetrack circuit, or the deforestation, or the construction of the changing sheds beside the lake, or the red brick toilet block inside the track circuit, or the addition of the dirt Rallycross circuit or the  other racing infrastructure. 

Loan calculation (estimate only):

 

That ratepayer loan by Council to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Ltd was never repaid.   The opportunity cost of ratepayers’ wealth for more vital needs of the Blue Mountains would have been considerable.  It was an indulgence by certain councillors and their wealthy business mates and off-Mountains petrol heads to provide an exclusive hobby.  It was all bugger The Gully residents and the surrounding local residents with the decades of thunderous racetrack noise in the process.  Whilst the official racing ended in 1971, unofficial racing continued to 2002 when The Gully was gazetted an Aboriginal Place.  But the illegal motor racing  persisted for another three years until up to December 2005 – The Habitat Advocate as a local has records to support this.

Irresponsibly, council management and councillors at the time were mindful of Council’s massively over-indebtedness to the tune of £155,460 (excluding Electricity debts).   Records show that Council at the time had been threatened by legal action to withdraw its claim for loan recovery.  So likely due to Council’s then dire indebtedness at the time, Council cowered, backed off and wrote off racing track loan to its business mates.

  

 

A Brief Background

 

Back in 2004 a Plan of Management was published for The Gully in Katoomba by its government custodial owner Blue Mountains Council (Council).  This followed three years of Council delegating an off-Mountains consulting firm ‘Environmental Partnership‘ (Ultimo-based) to research and draft an expensive and length report of some 105 pages. 

This 2004 Plan followed a host of previous studies, reviews and reports including ‘The Bell Report’ of 1993 – its correct title being ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study‘ of some 87 pages undertaken by environmental consultants F. & J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd.  This plan in 1993 had been commissioned by local Katoomba environmental activist group ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.‘ (1989-2016) thanks to a $10,000 government grant which was the cost of this very details and independent study into Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, which was Council’s official name of The Gully at the time.   For more information on this study please refer to the Further Reading reference section at the end of this article.

 

The Gully’s evolving names

 

Note that the term ‘The Gully‘ was first officially applied to this creek valley in Katoomba by Council in the 2004 Plan of Management.  This is the 2004 Plan -was ridiculously long title of 16 words verbatim as:  

‘UPPER KEDUMBA RIVER VALLEY Plans of Management Covering the Community Lands within “The Gully” Aboriginal Place’. 

Put that up your jumper!   Here’s the original for reading, download and printing in the public domain:

It followed That draft document was entitled, which is an affectionate term used by former residents and their descendants from the 1950s and generation prior.  Other terms for The Gully have been:

1. ‘Blacks Camp‘ (a colonial disparaging term [1870s up to the 1950s] as cited in the book ‘Artificial Horizon – Imagining the Blue Mountains’, p.198, by Martin Thomas, 2004) (being the northern section)
2. ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley‘ (being the entire 70+ hectare creek valley of riparian bushland area still not yet sold off by Council for housing)
3. ‘Frank Walford Park‘ (being also the northern section)
4. ‘Walford Park’ (being also the northern section without Cr Walford’s first name ‘Frank’)
5. ‘McRae’s (horse) Paddock‘ (being the central section)
6. ‘Selby Street Reserve‘ (being the central section’s eastern side watercourse creek gully from a spring at now Hinkler Park)
7. ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve Cascades section‘ (being the same central section’s eastern side watercourse creek gully from a spring at now Hinkler Park)
8. ‘Catalina Park‘ (being the northern section named by Council in the late 1950s on behalf of the Blue Mountains Sporting Car Club Ltd)
9. ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘ (being the entire creek valley as renamed by Council in 2002)
10. ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve’  (being the southern section dominated by two grass ovals named by Council)
11. ‘The Gully Aboriginal Place‘ (being a lesser portion of the entire 70+ hectare creek valley of riparian bushland, since many bushblocks of what as Community Land has been sold off for housing, or else rezoned or proposed for rezoning so that Council’s coffers can be boosted by land sales for more housing)
12. ‘Garguree‘ is apparently a regional Gundungurra Aboriginal word meaning ‘gully’ which was purportedly provided by a local historian into Blue Mountains Aboriginal heritage Jim Smith PhD acting as a consultant to The Gully Traditional Owners (group) circa 2007. 

 

 

Of note, two significant side watercourse gullies flowing into The Gully from the west are excluded from The Gully’s geographic scope by Council’s mapping. 

One side watercourse flows into The Gully through a very large bushland/riparian zone side gully having a land title address of 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba.  The second to the south flows through what was clear-felled bushland/riparian zone and then bulldozed, graded and fertilized into the now defunct Katoomba Golf Course which Council had backed financially.  This year the site of the old Katoomba Golf Course is being prepared by Council, external consultants again enticing two universities to develop it as believe it or not a ‘Planetary Health Leadership Centre‘ – how hypocritical on a site of ecological destruction!

Recalling the 2004 Plan of Management and its drafting, despite many efforts by locals expressing a keen desire to constructively engage with Council to provide input into this Plan, Council arrogantly shunned these requests, so very little local community consultation went into this 2004 Plan.   

On page 101 under the sub-heading ‘Review of the plan of management‘ it reads as follows:

“It was the intention of the authors (Environmental Partnership) that the progress of implementation should be assessed by Council on an annual basis in terms of the performance measures described in Table 7 and updated or reviewed as appropriate.  It was also outlined in the plan of management that a more comprehensive review should be made after five years to assess the effectiveness of the plan and need for review.”

 

This is the Table 7:

 

Well, neither the annual assessment of progress nor the five year review took place.  None of the core objectives has been achieved by Council since 2004 (nor prior from the Bell Report of 1993) and it is now 2021. 

From our experience over the past twenty years as local activists to save and protect the ecology of The Gully, Council’s ongoing neglect and abuse of The Gully has persisted and particularly Council management’s disdain for local Bushcare volunteers to altruistically request Council to commit to caring for and rehabilitating The Gully’s natural ecology after decades of harm.   

It has taken until 2017 for Council to finally get around to reviewing its 2004 Plan of Management after some thirteen years, because Council was legally required to undertake a formal review of the 2004 Plan of Management – still pending in 2021…

“in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act 1993 (NSW) and the Crown Land Management Act 2016, and the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) Declared Aboriginal Place Guidelines for Development Management Plans.”     

[SOURCE: ‘Public Hearing for the Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land  in The Gully Aboriginal Place, July 2021, by Parkland Planners, Background Information, page 1, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Public-Hearing-for-Proposed-Recategorisation-of-Community-Land-in-The-Gully-Aboriginal-Place-July-2021.pdf]

The 2021 Plan has been prepared by Council’s contracted Environmental Planning Officer Soren Mortensen and Council’s Aboriginal Community Development Officer Brad Moore is vastly different to the 2004 plan.  However a quick comparison of the 2004 Plan and the current 2012 draft Plan reveals that most of 2004 Plan’s 105 pages have been ignored in the 2012 draft plan.   The current 2012 draft plan reads more like a cultural document borrowed from elsewhere and applied to The Gully instead of being as a place-based plan of management for a natural place as is the 2004 plan.

 

Our concerns about Council’s proposed “Re-categorisation” of ‘Community Land’ in The Gully

 

 

Whilst The Habitat Advocate is receptive to Council’s proposed reclassification of the current Council-owned community land specifically and only to the defunct Catalina Raceway from being a ‘Sportsground’ to being a ‘Natural Area’, this proposed reclassification is noticeably absent in the Table 2 on page 14 (copy below) of the ‘Background Information document supplied.  The relevant column headed ‘Proposed Categories’ in the table is blank (“-“).  Is this an oversight or intentional?

History is history, and the impost of the racetrack and motocross circuit in the northern section of The Gully back in 1957 involved Council’s forced eviction of numerous poor residents from their simple bush homes, including the violent demolition of their homes by mechanical excavators.  The racetrack remnants remain since the track was ultimately shut down to vehicles permanently in 2003.  We consider it is important the history of the racetrack and this traumatic story is not lost to current and future generations.

We are opposed to the remnants of the bitumen racetrack being destroyed by any excavation works, but rather the track be allowed to be significantly narrowed in width, and to be maintained to facilitate passive recreation use for following purposes:

1. Recreational Walking (NOT organised running/marathon events)
2. On-Leash Dog Walking (NOT off-leash and no more mass gatherings of many dogs like the RSPCA’s annual Millions Paws Walk event that invaded The Gully back in May 2004)
3. Individual Cycling (NOT large groups of cyclists or organised cycling events)
4. Fire Truck Emergency Access (track to a maximum width of 4 metres wide) in order to facilitate the extinguishing of a bushfire (NOT RFS bush arson/‘hazard reduction’). NB.  The original racetrack width was at least 10 metres wide and has since has the natural bushland retake the invasive bitumen.
5. Other Passive Uses – such as interpretation and for cultural purposes by the local Aboriginal peoples.

 

However, we are otherwise opposed to Council’s proposed reclassification of the Council-owned community land in The Gully because there are numerous land parcels shown in the supplied mapping on Page 16 (copy below) that indicate their removal from the current community land categorisation shown on page 15 (copy below).  The fear is that this removal will result in Council’s selling the excludes land parcels for housing development and so again profiteer from The Gully as it has in the past. 

 

We also opposed Council’s proposed reclassification because the supplied mapping scale (approx. 1:10,000) is too small a scale ratio to read and to discern the boundary changes accurately.   A more readable map scale ration would be 1:5,000 and we request that Council provide this to all registered stakeholders included in:

1. Council’s Stakeholder Engagement Methodology (2018-2019)
2. Council’s Public Hearing for Proposed Re-categorisation of Community Land in The Gully (2021)

Council’s supplied mapping is also obscure.  Whereas the supplied map for the current categorisation (Figure 3 on page 15) is cadastral (that is, shows land parcels) and is overlayed with colour-coded categorisations; the supplied map for Council’s proposed re-categorisations is an aerial photo with the colour-coding overlay in heavy bold which makes it impossible to read accurately.   The comparisons between the two map styles are also difficult to discern.

 

Council’s exclusion of multiple bushland sites from ‘Community Land’ status (protection)

 

Based upon a quick comparison of the two maps, we have concern for the following identified land parcel proposed for removal from current Council –owned Community Land included within The Gully Aboriginal Place, and we ask Council what it the justification and have explanation before this 2021 Draft Plan of Management goes before Council to be approved.

This site is the bushland block across the road from the Katoomba Sports and Aquatic Centre which covers about a hectare at address 34-46 Gates Avenue.

 

Close inspection of Council’s proposed re-categorisation of Community Land map, shows that this site has been excluded from Council’s Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place.  The logical presumption is that Council intend to rezone it ‘Operation Land’ so Council can then legally sell the hectare off to private land use developers into for or five housing lots.  So the bushland gets bulldozed and Council management profiteer with a million dollar bounty. 

 

 

On the above bases, we reject Council’s current (2021) proposed re-categorisation of Council-owned community land in the Gully.

Our concerns above were contributed by The Habitat Advocate to Council in its dedicated Public Hearing held via Zoom online software on Saturday 7th  August 2021 as well as with a follow up email dated 12th August 2021 to Council’s delegated Environmental Planning Officer Soren Mortensen.    However, no acknowledgement of that email has been received from Council.

We have sourced land title mapping of The Gully Water Catchment from Google Maps dated 2021.  There are six maps that cover the water catchment extent of The Gully extending from the Cox’s watershed (Great Western Highway) in the north, down through what was Frank Walford Park and Catalina Raceway, as well as the side watercourse through Selby Reserve (from Hinker Park), and the two watercourses that flow from the west and then to Katoomba Falls Reserve and to Katoomba Falls itself.

We have compared Council’s proposed land re-categorisation map (Figure 4 above) with the land titles on these six mapped sections from Google Maps, and placed an ‘X’ on each identified the land parcel that are bushland within The Gully but which have been excluded in Council proposed recategorisation. 

Not all these bushland lots are Community Land, but many are.   Bushland and swampland land parcels that are categorised by Council as ‘Community Land’ are generally protected from land use development.  However those bushland and swampland land parcels that are excluded from Council’s colouring in Figure 3 above, are NOT protected.  Council could then easily rezone them as ‘Operation Land’ which is the next stage before selling them off for housing development.   Council has a record or doing this throughout the Blue Mountains local government area over decades, including on the periphery of the Gully.

What we wish to illustrate here in these six maps is the scale to which the bushland amenity risks being destroyed for likely housing development and so alter the natural amenity of The Gully forever.

Each map below is in Adobe Acrobat (PDF).  We allow for each map to be zoomed into so as to enable enlarging the map on the screen via Google Docs (free software), as well to be downloaded and printed.

 

Further Reading:

 

[1]  The Gully Report No. 8, ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Environmental Study‘, published in 1993, by F.J. Bell and Associates Pty Ltd, (Fred Bell), Sutherland NSW, contains 87 pages in A4 spiral softcover binding, (available internally on this website) >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/gully-report-no-8-the-bell-report-of-1993/

 

[2]  The Gully Collection, by The Habitat Advocate (available internally on this website), >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/consultancy/the-gully-in-katoomba/the-gully-collection/