Blue Mountains mayor Mark Greenhill has joined with former Liberal Party mayor Daniel Myles in calling the upcoming council elections a referendum on over-development.
The Labor mayor said there will be candidates in September's council elections "who will be aiming to get the over-development agenda of the [state] government into the Blue Mountains".
He said these candidates will aim to hide their true agenda.
"None of them will come out and say this is what they are about. They will be the candidates who do anything but promise to keep the Blue Mountains safe from over-development," he said
"They will talk about footpaths and curbing and guttering, issues that every councillor will work for. But they won't promise to protect our quality of life and the very reason many of us live here: The environment. There will be candidates at this election who will happily cram more people into this bushfire prone city. That is just unacceptable."
The mayor said while he came from the opposite side of politics as Cr Myles, "they have always been united on the issue of over-development".
Former Liberal mayor Myles quit the party last year, claiming it was overrun by a pro-development faction in the Blue Mountains.
He said the state government was hostile towards the Blue Mountains.
"There is the state government's medium density housing code that allows over-development throughout the Mountains with no reference to council and no chance for neighbours to properly complain.
"Three times the state government has tried to remove this council. Three times they have have failed and the Ombudsman has indicated unlawful and inappropriate conduct by a government agency against the council in the attempt," he said. "The government wants us gone."
Cr Myles said: "I, along with Deputy Mayor Chris Van Der Kley, quit the Liberal Party to contest this election as independents. We did that because there is a cancer, particularly in the Blue Mountains, within the Liberal Party. It is a pro-development cancer. It needs to be removed. The only way for this to happen is at the ballot box. We can use this election to secure our quality of life but we can also send the state government a strong message about the various appalling over-development initiatives they propose that will impact every resident of the Blue Mountains."
The Liberal Party is yet to announce its Blue Mountains candidates for the council elections, or even it it will run endorsed candidates.
