The Gully Plan of Management 2021

The Gully: Blue Mountains {city} Council’s notice of an updated Plan of Management for its 2004 plan, being on public exhibition in 2021. It was only 7 years overdue.

Council’s current review of The Gully Plan of Management (2004) has been undertaken over the past five years between 2017 and 2021. Council has published four key reports in this review process currently published on Council’s webpage: https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan

These four key reports are as follows:

Report A: Upper Kedumba River Valley – Plans of Management (revised edition 2004)

Report B: The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report [2018-2019] (June 2019)

Report C: Public Hearing for Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place (July 2021)

Report D: The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management (7th May 2021)

We anticipate that Council’s above outsourced ‘yoursay…’ webpage will likely be publicly available only for the duration of Council’s current review process, then it will be deleted by Council soon after Council’s review process has concluded. So in the local community interest, since these reports and their research have been both publicly funded and concern a public place ‘The Gully’ in Katoomba, we herein provide an enduring online record for the interested public.

Each of these reports are provided below as links to the same reports stored internally on our website in Adobe Acrobat format and available to the public to download and to print…

A: Upper Kedumba River Valley – Plans of Management (revised edition 2004)

>Upper Kedumba River Plans of Management – revised edition in 2004

B: The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report ‘Talking with the Community’ (2018-2019) (Report dated June 2019)

>The Gully – Stakeholder Engagement Report (June 2019)

C: Public Hearing for Proposed Recategorisation of (Council-owned) Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place (Report dated July 2021)

>Public Hearing for Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land in The Gully Aboriginal Place (July 2021)

D: The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management (Report dated 7th May 2021)

Preparation of this draft document was partly funded by Blue Mountains Council and supplemented by the NSW Government out of its ‘NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects’ in 2017-2018 from NSW taxpayer funding, that is, by the wider general community.

SOURCE: ^https://www.heritage.nsw.gov.au/grants/grants-recipients/2017-18-heritage-grants/

This draft document comprises some 140 pages with an Adobe Acrobat file size of 22 MB. So for community access and download convenience, we have divided the original document into smaller sections in order via hyperlinks internally within our website to sections in Adobe Acrobat format, each of which is downloadable to the general public in perpetuity. We consider this is in the public interest since the community lands concerned within The Gully are publicly owned through Council and the draft plan has also been public funded.

Background

‘Blue Mountains Council* ‘has prepared a Draft Plan of Management (PoM) for The Gully Aboriginal Place in accordance with the requirements of the Local Government Act 1993 and the Crown Land Management Act 2016, and Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) Declared Aboriginal Places Guidelines for Developing Management Plans.

The Draft Plan of Management updates the 2004 Plans of Management for Upper Kedumba River Valley, covering the Blue Mountains City Council managed community lands within The Gully including Frank Walford Park 2003, Katoomba Falls Reserve McRae¡¦s Paddock Section and Katoomba Falls Reserve Cascades Section 2003. The draft 2021 Plan of Management for The Gully includes the addition of three parcels of Crown land, covering all public land within The Gully Aboriginal Place.

Council has placed The Gully Aboriginal Place Draft Plan of Management on public exhibition for comment until Monday 26 July 2021. The Draft Plan of Management is available to view online at the Blue Mountains City Council website https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan

The existing community land categories (as defined under Section 36 of the Local Government Act 1993) over Council managed land are being amended to:

1. Remove the Sportsground category over the race track in Frank Walford Park to be replaced by the Natural Area category;
2. Reflect changes in boundaries between the Park and General Community Use categories in Frank Walford Park;
3. Reflect an update to vegetation mapping within the Natural Area category in Frank Walford Park, McRae’s Paddock and Katoomba Falls Reserve.

The proposed recategorisation of these parts of The Gully Aboriginal Place is set out in the Draft Plan of Management and in Section 3 of this document.’

SOURCE: ^https://ehq-production-australia.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/c0e5c124cb2929162a0942fcfcee07de890b5aac/original/1627515069/354392a69f60ca0079d9a997cd17832d_The_Gully_Aboriginal_Place_Public_Hearing_Background_Information.pdf?X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIBJCUKKD4ZO4WUUA%2F20210819%2Fap-southeast-2%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20210819T034250Z&X-Amz-Expires=300&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=b0977255885e5498dcb3f910d5cddb6707ed197ccd2cf2556ad4d655d0e60b91

NOTE 2: We do not expect that Council’s above hyperlink will last for very long, hence why we have downloaded Council’s’ publicly funded documents to our website in the public interest.

* NOTE 2: The Habitat Advocate disagrees with Council’s propaganda to incorporate the word ‘City’ into its organisational title.

Katoomba Falls Creek (in 2002 Council unilaterally renamed the creek ‘Upper Kedumba River’)

Community Consultation Restricted (yet again)

Council’s chosen community consultation process continues to be restricted on a one-way basis. Members of the community only have the choice of the following one-way communication means:

A. Internet by mandatory registration and completing an online submission form at https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan

B. In writing by: email: council@bmcc.nsw.gov.au Attention: Andrew Johnson/Soren Mortensen; and to Environmental Planning Officer smortensen@bmcc.nsw.gov.au

C. In writing by post to Blue Mountains City Council, Locked Bag 1005, KATOOMBA NSW 2780 Attention: Andrew Johnson/Soren Mortensen

No public forum either face-to face or online was offered by Council to the general community. The only public forum offered by Council to the general community was a Public Hearing held on Saturday 8th August 2021 (1pm-3pm). This hearing took place via Zoom meeting software in compliance with the NSW Government’s public health order social lockdown in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

However, this ‘public hearing’ did not address this Draft Plan of Management, but was instead strictly limited to Council’s proposed re-categorisation of various land parcels throughout The Gully gazetted as ‘Council-owned Community Land‘.

The only material provided by Council on this specific sub-topic was a table and two tiny maps. This was not made clear in advance to the community participants (which numbered just 32).

The material relevant to the public hearing was actually not part of the Draft Plan of Management, but in a quite separate document entitled ‘Public Hearing For Proposed Recategorisation of Community Land in The Gully Aborigional Pace – Background Information‘, dated July 2021. This hearing was only offered by Council only because legally Council had to comply with Section 40A of the Local Government Act 1993, which as at 10th June 2021 reads as follows:

‘LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT 1993 – SECT 40A: Public hearing in relation to proposed plans of management

(1) The council must hold a public hearing in respect of a proposed plan of management (including a plan of management that amends another plan of management) if the proposed plan would have the effect of categorising, or altering the categorisation of, community land under section 36(4).

(2) However, a public hearing is not required if the proposed plan would merely have the effect of altering the categorisation of the land under section 36(5).

(3) A council must hold a further public hearing in respect of the proposed plan of management if–

(a) the council decides to amend the proposed plan after a public hearing has been held in accordance with this section, and

(b) the amendment of the plan would have the effect of altering the categorisation of community land under section 36(4) from the categorisation of that land in the proposed plan that was considered at the previous public hearing.’