The saga over the future of the 110-year-old weatherboard building at 170-174 Leura Mall – the Wayzgoose Cafe – continued at Blue Mountains City Council this week.
A bid to appoint members to an Independent Hearing and Assessment Panel [IHAP] to examine a development application on the council-owned site, left the councillors deadlocked six votes for and six votes against, forcing the mayor to use his casting vote to approve the panel.
Labor councillors Mark Greenhill, Mick Fell, Darryl Bowling, Romola Hollywood, Don McGregor and Independent Shae Foenander backed the matter proceed to appointing members to IHAP. Liberal councillors Brendan Christie, Daniel Myles, Kevin Schreiber, Chris Van der Kley, together with Greens Kerry Brown and Brent Hoare voted against it.
But only days after the council meeting, Greens Crs Brown and Hoare, together with two Liberal councillors Kevin Schreiber and Brendan Christie, asked for the matter to be rescinded. It will now be debated again on Tuesday evening [August 1].
Cr Brown said “we are going to replace the messy business of democracy with the tight business of bureaucracy. We are giving our voice and the community’s voice away”.
At the heart of the issue for Cr Brown is the concern that the panel “had been adopted with a charter which would see it replace the elected councillors for all controversial decisions which attracted significant objections and those [seeking] a variation of the local environment plan”.
“We may have opened ourselves to a major planning risk, opened a Pandora’s box.”
But Mayor Mark Greenhill said that was not so, and it was an “isolated” case. He said “conduct” and “perceived bias” was the issue.
“You don’t muck around with DAs, it’s a slippery slope. I do not believe Schreiber or Brown, or anyone on the council, is biased in this issue, but the problem is we have to be seen to be doing the right thing.”
The heritage value of Wayzgoose building has been the subject of much discussion. Thousands of residents have signed a petition urging council not to demolish it.
Leura resident Lorraine Droga told the council meeting the building’s DA was “toxic” and about “heritage eradication”. While Wayzgoose owner Mark Alchin said a referral to IHAP would be “hasty and ill conceived and … a source of shame to all involved for generations to come”.
Another speaker, Simon Willis, a former member of the Heritage Advisory Committee, also opposed appointing the IHAP, adding the panel process was “undemocratic”.
“Given that anyone who owns or operates a property within Leura Mall, or who made a submission, or signed the petition or expressed a view in the media is ineligible for appointment to the IHAP, I am surprised you received three submissions,” Mr Willis told the meeting on Tuesday July 25.
The Wayzgoose building was constructed in 1902-3 by the Milgate family, who were prominent in the early development of Leura. Two members of the Milgates traveled from the small tourist town of Yackandandah in Victoria to see how their great grandfather’s contribution to Leura was debated.