At the July ordinary Hilltops Council meeting councillors moved a motion to defer the Local Environmental Plan (LEP) submission to the August meeting after receiving a number of submissions addressing it.
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Hilltops Council Mayor, Brian Ingram, sought to defer the matter to August with a representative for Causmag, a chartered accountant from Grove Estate and two locals using the public forum to speak out about their concerns over the proposed LEP.
"Prior to the weekend, this was our meeting to deal with it (the LEP), but because of situations outside of our control and implemented by the State Government we will not be going into caretaker mode next month," Cr Ingram said.
Cr Ingram believes with the size of the document and the complexities held within it he and his fellow Councillors would only benefit from further time to ensure they are fully informed on the proposed LEP.
"I gave it great thought and we all know the size of the document, the ins and outs of the document are very complicated and I thought it would be remiss of us as Councillors if we didn't give ourselves the opportunity to take another month to thoroughly get our head around the document," Cr Ingram said.
Mr Ingram said the added time would also allow Councillors time 'to seek out questions and answers from staff in that month'.
"I just want to make sure everyone's clear and understands that this is not an extension period for people to put submissions in," Cr Ingram said.
"This is a period for councillors to take the opportunity of an extra month to ensure they've got a full understanding of the documents that are coming before us at our next meeting."
Only one councillor spoke against the proposed deferral with Cr Armstrong saying that the matter actually comes down to a debate on zones.
"The reason I'm speaking against it is that I think that this basically comes down to an RU4 versus RU5 debate," Cr Armstrong said.
"If I look back at the objectives of the zones an RU4 zone is significantly different to an RU5. The potential for conflict between land uses with RU4 where a dwelling is created and other sorts of agriculture is significant.
"I think that really this deferral isn't going to resolve the issue which is at the core of the debate."
Crs Flannery and Wallace both spoke for the deferral saying that council could not be held up by the State Government's 'failings'.
"I don't think we as a council can stand behind the state government's failures," Cr Armstrong said. "We need to act and to simply use mapping as a reason not to provide answers, a - on the RU4 area but also RU1 zoning sides...I think we ought to get on with it."
Cr Flannery stated that given the submissions received council needed to go back and see if they can incorporate the visionary document despite State agencies not putting forward mapping.
