Mullumbimby Action Group -> articles -> sartorspeak

Frank Sartor Defends Right Of Community To Reject Supermarket Development?

Responding to a report by a pro-development lobby group, The Urban Taskforce, who claimed that planning laws were driving up food prices, NSW Planning Minister Mr. Frank Sartor said “Planning controls are about making sure that cities work, and they have to balance the individual interest of firms with the longer-term interests of the city as a whole.

"This idea of a free-for-all to allow communities who strongly oppose large retail centres in their residential streets, to terrorise communities with supermarkets on every street corner, is just a wet dream of a development industry,"  He also described the lobby group as “a very aggressive, one-eyed pro-developer group who has been wanting to remove as many planning controls as possible”.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/19/2249023.htm

 

Hold on, isn’t this the same Frank Sartor who approved the Woolworths application to develop a supermarket in Mullumbimby in direct opposition to the wishes of the local council and a majority of the local community?  The debate centered around the application to develop a supermarket in the Sydney suburb of Erksineville. The Friends of Erksineville Village described the development in this way, "the quality of the information that was attached to this development application wouldn't pass muster in a primary school. It wasn't until we started to investigate it that [we saw] the traffic reports were appalling as well as the impact on the neighbourhood assessment. It was put together out of a computer program without any consideration for its impact in the area."  Sound familiar - implications on traffic not properly considered, impact on sewerage not properly considered, impact on community not properly considered and computer graphics that do not even show the building?

 

Well Mr. Sartor now is the time to let your deeds match your words. Mullumbibmy is another community that is being terrorised by a supermarket development that it does not want and that does not satisfy the development standards set by the local council. You need to overturn your development approval and send the application back to council.