Dalmeny residents were shocked and angered by a council decision to sell a 40 hectare block of land in Dalmeny for housing development despite community opposition.
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An alternate motion put by Cr Patrick McGinlay to delay the land sale until after the September council elections was voted down by councillors Brown, Thomson, Nathan, Tait, Constable and Pollock.
The land to be sold is at 16 Tatiara Street and backs onto Elanora Street, Thomson Parade and Lonsdale Parade.
At a public forum held prior to the vote three community members argued against the sale of the land and cited a lack of community consultation, environmental concerns and stretched services unable to cater for the current residential population.
Dr Nadine Hills presented at the public forum and said she was shocked by the council's decision.
"If we are really serious about housing affordability, we need to work together as a whole community," she said.
"There is no relationship between this current council and the people in the community and they have not even listened to any of the submissions made today."
During the forum Dalmeny resident Nicole Keith urged the council to consider an online petition against the sale started by resident action group Dalmeny Matters which gained more than 1500 signatures in a week.
"Once this land is destroyed there is no getting it back, please don't turn our seaside village into a mini city," she said.
Eurobodalla Mayor Liz Innes said while she supported the release of land for development she did not think there was a need to rush into the decision.
"I support the sale of the land and I believe this council has an extraordinary amount of experience with these decisions in the last five years," she said.
"But do I think there is any great need to rush forward with this decision? No, I don't."
But Cr Pollock said given the shortage of available land for development, it was beholden on council to maximise opportunities in the shire.
"I think everyone is overlooking the fact the whole area needs to be master planned and to be master planned it needs to be on the market," he said.
"It will happen in an orderly manner, where infrastructure is properly planned, where biodiversity is managed and think we should get on with it."
Council planning and sustainability director Lindsay Usher reiterated a planning process would happen once the land was sold and there would be community consultation.
"Ultimately, council will need to adopt a development control plan, which will guide that development going forward as a result of the consultation, so there's a lot of work still to happen," he said.
The council's reason to sell the land was to increase affordable housing at a time when there was a critical accommodation shortage.
"Recent figures show the Eurobodalla has been listed as in the top 10 places with highest rent rises, in the last year rental prices have gone up 18.2 percent," Mr Usher said.
"The main issue is the supply of land and there are limited ways in which council can directly support making land available, one of which is selling operational land zoned for residential use."
Mr Usher said council 'wore two hats', one as the owner of the land and the other as the supervisor of the planning process which would still happen when the land was sold.
"Council owns a piece of land that has been residentially zoned for some time, where that zoning has been reviewed for some time and where the land can be developed," he said.
"The planning process we still need to go through for a development which is separate to the decision to sell it."