What do you love about the Tweed region?
I love Tweed because it is home, I have grown up here and much of my family is in the area. I also love it because there is still so much of it that is untouched, so much forest and beaches that you can walk on and be the only one there – what’s not to love?
Why are you putting your hand up for the Tweed Council?
I have loved serving the Tweed community for the last eight years on Council. I feel like your first term you just have time to learn how everything works, our second term was marred by covid repercussions and the flood. I feel like we are in the most important time for our community as we guide the growth that we need in housing while protecting what we have here and I would like to help guide that for our children.
What relevant skills or experience do you bring to the position?
My background is in scientific research so I can bring critical thinking and the ability to assess options. I have had long experience being the president of Pottsville Community association for seven years where I learned to listen to the community. Having grown up here means I am fiercely protective of what makes Tweed special.
How would you address the local housing crisis?
I think we need a three pronged approach to housing, we need to get the state government to introduce levers to stop landbanking and to build more social housing. I have been advocating for a Common Ground model of community housing that provides wrap around services to the residents and has been proven to create long term housing solutions for our most vulnerable.
Secondly we need to review our development controls to allow more diversity of housing, more gentle density, which is two or three-storey town houses, manor homes, or dual key options that will provide more affordable housing. We also need to look at the new development sites of Kings Forest and the old Tweed Hospital to see how we can get some density that allows for key worker housing.
Do you think there is a role for local councillors beyond roads, rates and rubbish? If so, what is it?
Council provides 52 services and is way more than roads, rates and rubbish. We fund three aquatic centres, an award winning art gallery and two museums, the Rail Trail, sustainable agriculture grants, riverbank protection works, flood mitigation, community events, sportfields, the Uki Mountain Bike Park and so much more. Tell us which of them is not important?
There are over 20,000 approvals in place for residential and business development lots yet there is significant delay in activating these sites. What will you do to change that if you are elected?
This is the landbanking issue I mentioned earlier. We have two or three landowners holding the Shire to ransom by not releasing the land to market that we have approved for housing. I will advocate to convince the state government to put levers in place that allow Council to charge rates to development sites once a reasonable development period has passed after they are approved. They should be charged as if the property had been developed and I think this would be a real incentive for a developer to bring the housing sites to market rather than sit on them. Alternatively we have asked the state government to consider allowing for development sites to be backzoned if they are not developed within a reasonable time.
How do you balance the pressure of more people and the need to protect the environment which is attracting the people?
This is the most important question for the next term of Council. Our Growth Management and Housing Strategy has put forward a lot of options to consider for future growth. We received more than 650 submissions to it and we now need to go through the options and see which ones the community supported.
In this changing climate we need to make sure any new housing we approve is built out of the floodplain and away from bushfire risk. It needs to be defendable from fire and safe from flood. The thing we can never forget though, is that as Councillors we are custodians of our incredibly fragile and world heritage environment and need to do everything we can to protect it. That is why I support gentle low-rise density increases in our existing residential areas, this will allow us to keep the village feel we love, while providing more affordable and diverse housing and protecting the reasons we all decided to live here.
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