Letter to the Editor: explain overdevelopment

DEAR News Of The Area

This is an open letter to Mayor Adam Roberts and State MP Robert Dwyer, and a request to our local leaders to explain to the community what overdevelopment means to them – and what they actively plan to do about it.

People deserve to know where our elected representatives stand on this issue.

To set the scene, many believe our leaders have been avoiding the core issue when it comes to discussing traffic snarls at the Wrights Road roundabout.

Focusing on that intersection alone masks the tougher topic happening right across this region.

It’s really a conversation about overdevelopment and it needs to be properly addressed.

Unless we start having an honest discussion about overdevelopment, the community we love will quickly become a messy and dysfunctional sprawl for all the generations to follow.

Drive around and look around.

We’re at a real tipping point.

Major land and home developers are pumping more and more people and cars onto an outdated road network that simply doesn’t function, and yet our Mayor repeatedly calls on the state government to do something about the road issue.

And let’s be blunt here.

A few extra lanes on a roundabout, and a few extra traffic lights, will not get this done.

Nor is it just about roads or traffic.

It’s about having the right infrastructure in place for all those new people, including everything from sewage plants to footpaths.

It’s also about the impacts on our waterways and trees for the koalas, to name but a few.

There are 11,000 new homes slated for this area in the years ahead.

Yep, 11,000 more houses – and all the people and cars that come with them.

Just draw breath and think about what that looks like, especially when the system doesn’t work now.

And therein is part of the problem.

Councils will always complain that they’re bound by state government planning laws to approve housing.

It’s not really their fault, they say.

But this council doesn’t just approve houses; it approves entire estates and suburbs.

A few years ago I raised this issue as an emerging trend and suggested that Lake Cathie and Bonny Hills would eventually join up.

This was howled down by the Deputy Mayor of the time… saying this would never be allowed to happen.

Well, fast-forward a few years and take a look at where the new developments are and where they’re headed.

Also, think about what Ocean Drive traffic will look like between Laurieton and Port Macquarie in another five years, once the developers have left with their profits and the houses are all in?

Just imagine.

When it comes to our rapidly expanding traffic problems, these mega developments would seem to be a bit like our council pouring petrol on a bonfire and then acting surprised about the outcome – as well as wanting someone else to take responsibility for fixing the problem.

At the state level, representative Robert Dwyer has been doing the “petition thing” in parliament, trying to kick-start a debate about the Wrights Road issue in particular.

Fair enough to force some talking, but a shame it needs that approach to even get brought up.

Of course, things become a bit more difficult when you’re in opposition, and it’s worth remembering that all the stuff Mr Dwyer would like to happen now wasn’t actually done when his own mob were in power.

Instead, just the occasional Band-Aid.

All of which raises the question of what is the big picture solution?

Surely… it would still be an orbital road, before it’s simply no longer possible to be built (because of the overdevelopment).

This road would be the transport fix for a succession of planning failures from our current leaders, and those who came before.

But then, of course, this is hardly about Port Macquarie alone.

There’s the whole issue of Lake Cathie, Bonny Hills, Laurieton and what traffic on Ocean Drive is going to become in the future.

Over to you Mayor Roberts and MP Dwyer.  Please let us know where you stand on this.

If this is “progress” we’re experiencing, it certainly doesn’t feel like it for a growing number of your gridlocked constituents.

At the very least, as our elected representatives, future generations deserve to have your position on the record when it comes to the issue of overdevelopment.

Brian Johnson

Lake Cathie