as posted here
Plan provokes walk-out
30/Jan/2010
By Louise Bettison, Hills Gazette
KALAMUNDA Council officers are sorting through more than a thousand submissions on a proposal to amend the local planning scheme to allow an aged care facility to be developed in Wattle Grove.
Kalamunda chief executive James Trail said assessing the responses would “take considerable time”, with no official deadline.
Shire officers will use the collated responses to develop a recommendation on whether the land should be rezoned, which Council will vote upon before making a recommendation to the Planning Minister.
“There is no right of reply and they (residents) can’t go to the State Administrative Tribunal as it is ultimately a council decision on zoning,” Mr Trail said.
He said it would be “inappropriate” to disclose whether most of the respondents supported or opposed the amendment, or the controversial development it would accommodate on Gavour Road.
But residents in the Wattle Grove Action Group said they were proceeding with plans to secede from the Shire.
Group spokesman Clive Garnham said he could see only risk in remaining with the Shire and little in joining the City of Gosnells – even if rates were to increase slightly as a result.
“We have a very strong case for secession and will easily get 10 times the minimum number of signatures required, so will present a virtually unanimous front to the Local Government Advisory Panel,” he said.
“We have more in common, topographically and demographically, with our neighbours in Orange Grove and other parts of Gosnells than with anyone in our own local government, which is one of the criteria.”
But some Wattle Grove residents remain apathetic, according to one who refused to be named for fear of reprisal.
“At neighbourhood barbecues people say they just do not care and some of us have elderly relatives who would like to move into such an aged care facility here,” he said.
