Forest in Danger

20/10/2022

FORESTINDANGER needs YOUR help

As you may know, the three construction DAs for the ForestinDanger site are being determined at a Planning Panel meeting on 27th October 2022. Please register to speak at the meeting if you possibly can - info is below. The future of this site is in YOUR hands. The Forest can't speak for itself, it's relying on help from as many of YOU as possible.

The reports from Council that will guide the panel are now available. Appallingly Hills Shire Council is recommending approval of 8-storey tower blocks and removal of 1,877 trees. Here is an extract from Council's executive summary:

"The proposed maximum building heights of apartment buildings A, B, C and D are 26.4m, 27.1m, 24.9m and 26.6m respectively. This represents a variation of 4.4m (20%), 5.1m (23.2%), 2.9m (13.2%) and 4.6m (20.9%) to the height standard……..It is considered that strict compliance with the development standard is UNREASONABLE AND UNNECESSARY in this instance and the variation can be supported."

The increase to building heights to 8 storeys is massive. It's clear that allowing 8 storeys on the Mirvac site will encourage developers owning land much closer to Cherrybrook station to ask for even higher limits. The recent Cherrybrook plan suggesting height limits of 5 storeys can also be labelled ‘unreasonable and unnecessary’ by Council.

Council's support for clear felling ANOTHER 1,877 trees is beyond appalling.

If you are unhappy with the Hills Council report for the Planning Panel meeting, please register to speak as an individual. If you need any help, please contact us by replying to this email.

If you wish to either address the panel or to listen to the meeting, you must register by contacting the Planning Panels Secretariat before 4pm Tuesday, 25 October 2022 on 02 8217 2060 or via email to [email protected] .

The meeting will be held online and starts at 11am. More details in the images in this Facebook post.
There are separate reports for each of the 3 DAs under consideration, but the most important one is for the Concept Plan as it deals with the majority of issues raised in submissions and has details of the consent conditions. You can download the reports here:

Hills Council’s Report on Concept Plan DA 860/2022/JP
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T21-73MJ4jg6Ce0lPkhZDBve_Ep7ttZw/view

Hills Council’s Report on Apartments DA 861/2022/JP
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hg3uRqJgVdwmpe6eNQpYAsekRplH4bPy/view

Hills Council’s Report on Southern Housing DA 859/2022/JP
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y9lJoB-XYxgpSHlftyp_GoN8DN1DQ7A6/view

We expect that many of you will be devastated by the recommendations from Hills Council. Please register to speak at the meeting and don’t hesitate to contact us if you need assistance with your speech at [email protected]

Please help us help the Forest and all its inhabitants great and small.

ForestinDanger

10/10/2022

MIRVAC GREENWASHING

How frustrating is this developer? Four and a half years after first promising to dedicate part of its land to the NSW Government and Mirvac is still hanging onto it like a spoilt child. Every time it lodges a new DA it says how good it is because it's going to dedicate the forest it loves so much. Right.

Now it has the nerve to tell the Hills Shire Times that "The forest will become publicly accessible for the first time in 100 years, as it has previously been private land WITH NO PUBLIC ACCESS".

Does Mirvac really believe its own spin or does it have such a high turnover of staff that most of them don't have a clue about this site? Or maybe they don't have a fact check mechanism.

Because the whole time IBM was there, they allowed public access to the forest. A whole generation grew up walking tall amongst the trees and standing quiet to watch the wildlife. We miss you IBM.

Get a grip on reality Mirvac or at least stop bending the truth to fit your reality. Mirvac greenwashing.

Read the full story here - https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/hills-shire-times/forest-in-danger-raise-fresh-concerns-over-mirvacs-coonara-ave-development-on-west-pennant-hills-ibm-site/news-story/5de293cf7a29e3fb9abc849312843aa2

🏗️🌳Mirvac has defended plans for a major redevelopment in Sydney’s northwest as community groups accuse the property developer of ‘greenwashing’. 📍Find out why 👉 https://bit.ly/3Ej8TzB

05/09/2022

Community groups are concerned about the impact of cutting down thousands of trees Mirvac will clear for 418 apartments at West Pennant Hills.

04/09/2022

MIRVAC WILL RAZE THOUSANDS OF TREES

This is the picture that Mirvac didn't want anyone to see. Where once there was over 1,200 towering mature trees, thousands of smaller trees and shrubs and a beautiful oasis that supported dozens of native wildlife species, now it's a desolate scarred wasteland. And that's not the end of it. Over 1,800 more mature trees, including critically endangered forest, is still to be recommended by Hills Shire Council for approval.

Mirvac doesn't care that you're angry. It's going to make almost $300 million from this site. They could have done less damage and made less money but no. Maximum Mirvac Millions was their goal.

Every level of government is complicit in this debacle -

• NSW Government approved the fast track listing
• Hills Shire Council approved it going to Gateway in the first place
• Local member declined to make representations to stop the fast track
• Federal Minister Sussan Ley approved clearing of Blue Gum High Forest
• Department of Planning approved the rezoning for medium and high density residential
• Hills Shire Council recommended approval to clear the 1,200 trees
• Local Planning Panel approved clearing and demolition
• District Planning Panel now set to approve clearing 1,800 more trees

And every single one of them tries to shift blame onto the others. Not our fault they all say.

And still Mirvac has the gall to say that it's handing over 10 hectares of Forest. ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS FORCED TO DO SO - it's early plans were to build across the whole site. But it still hasn't handed the Forest over yet has it? Is this just more Mirvac green-washing?

WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU MIRVAC. WHY WON'T YOU GIVE US THE FOREST NOW?

Hills Shire Council, why don't you make it a condition of approval for clear felling the other 1,800 trees? Because the community isn't sure that it can trust Council either.

Read the full SMH article here -
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/property-developer-will-raze-thousands-of-trees-despite-local-distress-20220831-p5beah.html

Dom Perrottet David Elliott Anthony Roberts Dr Peter Gangemi - Mayor of The Hills Shire Council Chris Minns Penny Sharpe MLC Cate Faehrmann

27/08/2022

BULLDOZING TRUST - Mirvac under scrutiny

As Michael West Media shines a light on the inadequate processes that are failing to protect our native wildlife on development sites, the Mirvac ForestinDanger site at 55 Coonara Ave comes under increased scrutiny by the MWM independent reporter Kurt Johnson.

While a Mirvac spokesperson told MWM: "Mirvac has undertaken a wide range of initiatives to protect, restore and enhance the flora and fauna at Coonara Avenue", wildlife vets, carers and even the Animal Defenders Office have reacted with all guns blazing.

Some of the criticisms raised with MWM about the current protocols for handling native wildlife across NSW include:

• "the legislation is failing"
• "there is no requirement for the Fauna Management Plan to be consistent with the animal welfare standards"
• ecologists "shouldn't make an assessment of the animal's health"
• "there just seems to be this huge exemption for development compared to the rest of the people in NSW".

Yet as the managing solicitor of the Animal Defenders Office explains, the "prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1979 (NSW) still applies to approved developments".

So just what IS going on behind Mirvac's 3 metre high impenetrable wall, as the rumbling earthmovers 'gently' shake the trees to supposedly "encourage any animals remaining to leave"?

Read more of Kurt Johnson's investigation into wildlife protection -
https://michaelwest.com.au/covid-recovery-projects-endanger-animals-and-environment

01/05/2022

HILLS SHIRE COUNCIL vs MIRVAC. WHO TO BELIEVE?

Did anyone notice the 'slight' problem with the photo of Mirvac's wall? Apart from the hole in the road. Yes, well done to those eagle-eyed Forest followers who queried 'where has the public footpath gone?' The Mirvac wall is built right up to the edge of Coonara Ave and encloses the Council footpath. So what gives?

Council says that "no permission was sought" by Mirvac to erect the wall on public land.

Mirvac says it has approved plans that show the wall where they've built it.

ForestinDanger has seen no approved plans that enclose the public footpath.

So who to believe? All we know is that someone should TEAR DOWN THE WALL.

29/04/2022

NEW MIRVAC APPOINTEE

Mirvac has appointed a new member to the 55 Coonara Ave Community Reference Group, Alan Haselden. Some of you will remember Mr Haselden as an ex-Hills Shire Councillor. His photo appears in the centre of the Hills Shire Times montage for their article dated 28 November 2019.

22/04/2022

THE FACE OF MIRVAC

Where residents and motorists used to see deep into the lovely treed landscape that was the face of IBM along Coonara Ave, now they see the ugly black wall that is the current face of the Mirvac development. What a visual atrocity for the beautiful West Pennant Hills Valley. A horrible harbinger for things to come for the Valley?

22/03/2022

DEMOLITION IMMINENT - just as the breeding pair of Powerful Owls on the Mirvac site (which Mirvac is too blind to find) are starting to mate.

The 2022 breeding season for Sydney’s Powerful Owls is underway. Maybe you’ve been hearing their beautiful, haunting, double hoots. At this time of year, singles are calling for a partner, and the established pairs are cementing their pair bonds, investigating tree hollows, and deciding whether to nest in the same tree as last year or move to a different one. The owls are also visiting the perimeters of their territories and calling to remind the neighbours where the boundaries are. Around the end of May/beginning of June, the females of this year’s breeding pairs will enter their hollows to lay their eggs and brood.

If you’re interested in helping to monitor the Powerful Owls in the Greater Sydney Area, watch this space. Our next training session is coming up very soon and we’ll post the details here shortly. You can also send us an email at [email protected].

Photo Credit: Mick Carlsson

18/03/2022

MIRVAC WANTS DISCOUNT ON COUNCIL CONTRIBUTIONS

If Mirvac's environmental credentials weren't already in tatters, this latest ploy takes the cake. Mirvac has lodged a Voluntary Planning Agreement for 55 Coonara Ave that includes $2 million which it recommends Hills Shire Council uses to convert George Thornton Reserve to plastic playing fields. According to Council's report, this is "thereby creating additional capacity to cater for the development".

In other words, the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment wouldn't allow Mirvac to build a plastic playing field on the Coonara Ave site because of the significant negative environmental impacts it would have. So instead, Mirvac wants to meet its requirements for providing active open space for this development by putting plastic grass on an existing Reserve.

Didn't Mirvac read any of the thousands of objections that were made AGAINST the use of synthetic turf? Does it even care what residents think? Clearly not.

But wait, that's not all.

Of course a developer wouldn't lodge a VPA unless it benefited from doing so and wow, is this one Mirvac-centric. According to the Council report (link below), Mirvac -

• wants to have the additional sum of money required under the Section 7.12 Development Contributions Plan based on "the current estimate of the cost of construction submitted by the Developer", instead of being based on actual construction cost provided for each relevant development application. As Council's report says, this "will potentially result in Council receiving less contributions"; and
• has not included contributions for the recreation facilities and land subdivision components (just skipped that bit did they?); and
• wants to index the Section 7.12 Contributions against the Non-Residential Building Construction Index, instead of the usual Consumer Price Index. You are building residences Mirvac - you changed the zoning from non-residential, remember?

Is there anything that Mirvac does on this site that is beneficial to the residents of the Hills Shire? If there is, it's only those benefits that residents have had to fight tooth and nail for.

This Voluntary Planning Agreement should be rewritten so that Hills Shire residents are not further environmentally and financially disadvantaged by Mirvac's Coonara Ave development.
https://www.thehills.nsw.gov.au/Council/Meeting-Agendas-Minutes/2022-Meeting-Agendas-Minutes - 22 March 2022 Ordinary Meeting

Do let your local councillors that you are not happy with the environmental impacts and discounts in this VPA, before Tuesday night's meeting.

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24/02/2022

FANTASTIC NEWS - POWERFUL OWL FOUND ON MIRVAC SITE
BAD NEWS - MIRVAC ISN'T GOING TO DO ANYTHING DIFFERENT

A Powerful Owl has just been photographed on the Mirvac site. I spy with my little eye, nothing beginning with P.

Or as Mirvac told the Planning Panel last year, words to the effect of "The important thing to note there as well is THERE ARE NO POWERFUL OWLS. They haven't been observed there. We have been monitoring them for years and WE HAVEN'T SEEN THEM ON OUR SITE for a number, well, THEY HAVEN'T BEEN SEEN AT ALL". Not if Mirvac removes the monitors they won't see them. Or maybe Mirvac is as blind as the proverbial (micro)bats on the site.

But sadly nothing is going to change, no changes to fauna protections, Mirvac will bulldoze on and destroy valuable Powerful Owl habitat and foraging sources.

Hands up anyone that still thinks Mirvac is a environmentally responsible company. If you do, please contact Mirvac to offer to buy them some monitoring cameras.

14/02/2022

Do you support Mirvac's development plans at the former IBM site? That's going to be a resounding NO!

With 3000 trees set to be obliterated to pave the way for a $236 million proposed development, residents united to mourn the loss in a last-ditch protest. Full story 👉https://bit.ly/3HRAkj0