Peninsula fares well in planning backlog

The Peninsula appears to have fared well with its development application backlog under the new Central Coast Council compared to other parts of the local government area.

The Gosford development application portal on the Central Coast Council website shows over 200 applications pending on the Peninsula for around $78 million worth of development-related work including development applications, construction certificates, complying developments and tree applications.

Peninsula works accounted for around a third of applications outstanding.

The value of applications pending across the whole Gosford area was around $1.9 billion with some dating back as far as July 2014.

On the Peninsula, those in the system since the start of the year represent $72.6 million.

Applications still outstanding from last year account for $3.8 million worth of work.

And just over $1 million of the older applications are from 2013 and 2014.

Some incomplete applications for the Peninsula in the Central Coast Council system date back to 2011.

The John Singleton-backed Central Coast Taskforce has expressed concerns about planning approval processes and delays under the new Council.

Taskforce chairman Mr Chris Holstein said the total for the whole Gosford area was around $2 billion.

"And that's only half of the Central Coast.

"Wyong's pending applications could double that amount," he said.

"One has to ask what that would do to the jobs market and business in general on the Central Coast.

"The Taskforce calls for the process to be looked at and if local government can't do it then the Minister should step in."

Mr Holstein said recent NSW Department of Planning and Environment data on approvals and net dwelling completions showed that the Central Coast was 38 per cent behind the comparable Illawarra area for approvals and 32 per cent behind on net dwelling completions.

"The question has to be answered is it lack of cohesion, teamwork, leadership, morale or all the above directly linked to the process of amalgamation," he said.

Media release, 5 Dec 2016

Chris Holstein, Central Coast Taskforce

Website, 7 Dec 2016

Gosford Application tracker