The UDIF – Urban Design Implementation Framework – is following in the footsteps of the 'Our City, Our Destiny Master plan’ from 2008 which followed on from 2007’s 'Revitalising Gosford City Centre' Plan.
The big difference this time is there are already cranes in the sky above Gosford. Things are being built, developments are being approved, change is coming, and I commend those who are taking the chance to build the future of Gosford.
All in all, it is very exciting.
However, the Gosford developments that are happening now are happening ad hoc, without a strategy, and the UDIF will play catch up with what growth is already on the table.
While Sydney has the Greater Sydney Commission, responsible for long-term strategic planning, Gosford and the Central Coast have had numerous chops and changes to regional planning since 2011 – with both industry and the community suffering as a result.
The Central Coast Regional Development Corporation, established in 2010, was originally empowered to be the lead agency to create development projects and opportunities for government land holdings across the Central Coast, but now has only a part-time Sydney-based CEO and a board that has been vacant since 2015.
The Minister for Planning has recently announced a revitalised CCRDC that has been given a new mandate to support delivery of the Gosford City Centre revitalisation by identifying development opportunities and driving economic growth in the region –still with a time a part-time CEO, but this time based in Newcastle.
I welcome the State Government’s appointment of new blood to the CCRDC, and in establishing the Coordinator-General role, but both people occupying those positions, with so much power over the future of Gosford and our Coast, are not from our region.
While the consultation with the community phase for the UDIF is done, I encourage both the new CEO of the CCRDC and the Coordinator-General to continue to work with our locals, especially with Central Coast Council, to make sure that local voices and local decisions are a core part of the future of Gosford.
Decisions coming from Sydney or Newcastle and affecting the Central Coast are already happening.
Central Coast Council was pushed back to the drawing board and had to move its preferred location of the Regional Performing Arts Centre following State Government prompting, and more recently the Gosford Alive project, which had been in the works since 2015, has been scrapped by the applicant because bureaucrats in Sydney changed the rules midgame and removed the Council planning controls the company were relying on to move forward with the project.
Both these changes, location for the RPAC and removal of existing planning regulations for the Gosford Alive project, make the future of Gosford uncertain and play into decisions about whether industry feels comfortable enough to make the move to our region to create jobs.
Let’s have a collaborative approach to growth, where all levels of government work together. It’s the only way it will work. We are all here for the same reason.
We know that NSW is changing, and it is not just Sydney that is feeling the squeeze. Regions like the Central Coast are growing and facing change.
Businesses and developers need to know that a plan or a government control they are relying on won’t disappear in the months ahead.
Communities need to know what is planned for their areas and industry needs to know that it can deliver long-term projects without having the rug pulled out from underneath.
Liesl Tesch is State Member for Gosford.
