Wadalba East Land Release Area a festering sore

The WELRA comprises an area of some 143 ha of land with potential for 1,500 homes, originally announced by Wyong Council in 2012 and finally rezoned in December 2020 and becoming effective on 31 July 2021.

It included a Wildlife Corridor which through Council’s further review, that eliminated about 300-500 home sites.

Following the rezoning the Land Owners took steps to develop their land in accordance with an adopted Development Control Plan and approved Masterplan for the WELRA. However, Central Coast Council has adopted a policy of frustrating its approval and costing property owners hundreds of thousands of dollars in needless costs

There are currently at least 9 DA’s lodged, collectively yielding more than 575 new residential lots and ready to inject more than $430M into the local construction sector.  Some of these DA’s have been with Council for over 700 days (23 months).

Every Development Application has been thwarted at some point. At least 2 DA’s are now before the Land and Environment Court, with other proponents forced to take similar action to Mr Denny or continue to wait indefinitely for Council to process their development application. Put simply, Council is denying procedural fairness. 

CCBR also notes that Council was provided with $1.4M grant funding in 2022 under the State’s Regional Housing Fund, to speed up housing delivery in this Precinct, but industry is yet to see any tangible outcomes that has helped with delivering faster housing, when nearly daily the mainstream media reports on a housing crisis.