It is unfortunate that at this time when Tweed Shire Council is making a genuine effort to meet with as many community members as possible to talk through important issues for Kingscliff’s future, Ron Cooper chooses to attack council staff and twist the truth (letters, ‘Kingscliff’s high-rise future by stealth’).
Our role as representatives and servants to the Tweed community is to hear all of the community’s views and to make decisions that strike a balance that favours the broader public good.
We are compelled to speak out because many of the comments made by Mr Cooper are not only wrong but disparage the good people of Kingscliff and its visitors for having a different view to Mr Cooper.
Council staff have worked to bring factual analysis and pragmatic options forward for community discussion.
These ideas originated from the community, council and experts in the field through the work of technical and community-based reference panels and an Enquiry by Design process, which included representatives from the local community and landowners.
They were also informed by a Community Visioning Survey, which attracted 297 responses. All these processes and results are publicly available at http://yoursaytweed.com.au/kingsclifflocalityplan
To find out the views of the people of Kingscliff, what better way is there than to meet the community first hand with ideas and options for the future?
We have done this, most recently over a two-week period though a shopfront on Marine Parade where 715 people (an average of 65 per day) graciously shared their time, their views and ideas on Kingscliff’s future with the planners and members of council’s Community Engagement Network, and contributed positively to the next review of those concepts.
This is grassroots consultation conducted by council staff – council has not engaged a public relations firm at any stage, as claimed by Mr Cooper.
It represents 81 hours of face-to-face consultation on the draft Kingscliff Locality Plan – hardly ‘planners who charge ahead with their own planning ideas divorced from the realities of Kingscliff and its history’, as Mr Cooper states.
This is on top of another 56 hours of face-to-face consultation on the Kingscliff Foreshore Revitalisation and the Kingscliff Dreamtime Beach Coastal Zone Management Plan so far, where the shopfront was visited by an additional 570 people. These figures will no doubt increase, as the shopfront is open until 1 April.
Mr Cooper’s letter also leaves out the plan’s suggestion to reduce the height limit on Marine Parade and the overall aim of increasing liveability and walkability, to ensure Kingscliff’s future features green space and community connectedness.
We acknowledge that for some the concepts prepared by the planners are a step too far; yet for others they did not go far enough. The exercise was about addressing the broad range of views, not just Mr Cooper’s, and the only way to achieve this in an open and unbiased way is to provide options and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
We’re only taking Mr Cooper’s word on the results of his survey – when asked by council, he has consistently refused to divulge details. In contrast, feedback received during community engagement by council is being made available on the Your Say Tweed webpage for everyone to read.
Vince Connell, director planning and regulation, Tweed Shire Council
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
