Greens should demand facts

Greens should demand factsThe City of Newcastle should vote this week to adopt the proposed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with UrbanGrowth NSW for planning and delivering a world-class regional capital city.The Property Council’s Hunter Chairman, Edward Crawford, said the MOU was an effective way to establish an official partnership between NSW Government agencies and the City of Newcastle to ensure collaboration on growing jobs and transforming the urban landscape. “Certain decisions have been taken by the NSW Government in relation to reconnecting the city to the waterfront, delivering light rail infrastructure and providing substantial improvements to public amenity.””The MOU provides a framework for implementing those decisions and is a sensible way of detailing each parties requirements and responsibilities.””UrbanGrowth NSW has entered into this style of MOU with Local Governments across Sydney to successfully facilitate complex, large-scale urban transformation projects.””They are not new and contain nothing that Councillors or residents should find suspicious.”In addition to outlining the policy settings, objectives and key principles of the relationship, Mr. Crawford said the MOU had got the governance arrangements right.”Assessments should be done by professional staff or private sector experts, while retaining Council’s ability to call-in any development for determination within its power.””The make-up of the Strategic Oversight Committee and Urban Transformation Working Group reflects the need to depoliticize development assessments.”Mr. Crawford said it was disappointing the Newcastle Inner City Residents Alliance (NICRA) were running a dishonest scare campaign by claiming the MOU is a legally binding document that would give Council’s General Manager over-riding authority on major planning decisions.”Any MOU does carry a degree of seriousness and mutual respect, but Clause 10.2 explicitly states the MOU is not legally binding.””And it certainly has no power to grant the General Manager new planning controls.””Both of NICRA’s claims are blatantly untrue.”Greens MP David Shoebridge and Greens Councillor Therese Doyle featured recently in the Newcastle Herald with NICRA members calling for greater transparency from UrbanGrowth NSW.”The Greens should now be calling on NICRA for greater transparency in dealing with facts.”