Dear Residents,
Well, what a year this has been! I’m sure all of us are glad to see the end of it in many ways. A year like no other and hopefully never to be repeated in our lifetimes.
In a normal year, we would have had our Annual General Meeting by now. However the Office of Fair Trading has allowed incorporated associations to extend their “year” until late 2021 if they wish. We elected to extend our year to probably mid 2021. However, we want to give you a summary of the activity since we last prepared a President’s Report in October 2019.
Request for Tender was sent to five developers in December 2019.
After Council Officers refused to release a suite of documents (including the Request for Tender) under our GIPA (Freedom of Information) request, Support Lindfield requested a review of the decisions by the Information and Privacy Commission (NSW). Request for access to the RFT and other suite of documents were recommended by IPC.
Tenders closed on 3 April 2020 with two developers submitting bids. Fabcot (Woolworths) and Aqualand.
Council approved Planning Proposal end of April 2020 for submission to State Government Planning Department for Gateway Determination.
Advised mid May that there is no timeframe for completion of evaluation of the bids.
30 June Councillors approve report from Council Officers stating the tenders received did not conform to the requirements of the RFT and they recommended negotiating with the two tenderers; report to be prepared in three months and submitted to October Council meeting. (See Report at this link.)
Support Lindfield writes to all Councillors over major concerns with the progress of the project. (See letter at this link). Counsellor Sam Ngai replied. (See his reply at this link.) Mayor Anderson replied on 27 July and her response is at this link.
Council confirms expenses on the LVH project since its inception in 2013 total $8.35 million to end of June 2020.
Support Lindfield representatives met with Council General Manager and other senior officers to discuss a range of topics related to the Project. No useful information was forthcoming from that meeting.
20 October Council officers report that “negotiations have progressed, but not yet reached a conclusion”. Councillors received a written report that was confidential and not available to the public. There is no indication when “a conclusion” will be reached.
November Support Lindfield submitted two GIPA (freedom of information) applications to NCAT (NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal) after Council conducted reviews and again refused to release documents; the applications are currently going through the legal processes.
8 December LVH Tender Negotiation Update - Supplementary Report submitted to Council meeting with confidential documents. Councillors resolved “a. the LVH tender and subsequent negotiation period has coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic, creating a global economic downturn, uncertainty in the property market and impacting on project viability and competitive tension. b. that an offer has not yet been received that is financially viable. c. continue to negotiate with any possible providers, while undertaking a review of Council’s project assumptions and objectives.”
The community continues to be kept in the dark by a Council that lacks transparency, accountability and leadership. We envisage nothing but more delays in the project over the next few months. As Council has “gagged” the developers we are unable to communicate with them to get their side of the story.
It’s been another busy year for the Support Lindfield Committee. While we continued to monitor the (slow) progress of the LVH project we also successfully campaigned to interrupt the fraught Housing Strategy that Council was going to submit to the State Government.
The other evening Rajee, Simmy and Sabina Grewal, who own Marciano’s Restaurant in Lindfield, kindly hosted an end of year celebration for the Committee. The food is delicious. Please try it some time! See below for some of the people who work hard for our community.
We wish you a safe and happy holiday season and may 2021 be a much better year for all of us. Thank you for your support.
The Support Lindfield Team
info@supportlindfield
L.to r: Andrew Sweeney, Deb Vievers, Bruce Strachan, Linda McDonald, Sarah Davis, Rachel Watts, Laurie Ormerod, Sabina Grewal, Richard Vowell, Alan McDermid. (Missing: Warren Dwyer and Scott Savage)