DEAR News Of The Area,

A STUDY undertaken by Council’s consultants King and Campbell for the Jetty Strip Structure Plan in 2020, emphasized that proposed development of the Jetty Foreshores east of the railway line would result in a significant increase in traffic movement in Orlando St, Harbour Drive and Marina Drive.

The report recommended that an alternative access via Howard Ave be investigated.

Surprisingly, the director of PDNSW, Vy Nguyen, has stated publicly that they will not be funding an alternative access because “it would be far too expensive and there wouldn’t be any money left for anything else”.

Clearly, it is the responsibility of a developer to fund any works necessary to mitigate any adverse impact from their development proposal.

If they can’t afford to do so, the proposal, in its present form, is not economically viable and shouldn’t proceed.

The Revised Final Masterplan for the Jetty Foreshores identifies an unspecified number of accommodation units of up to six storeys for residential and tourist accommodation.

This will create an exclusive urban enclave to the detriment of road users and residents living in the vicinity of Coffs Harbour Jetty.

As an example, Dept. of Transport Guidelines indicate the provision of say 300 units, could potentially generate in the order of 1500 extra traffic movements per day on roads that are already close to capacity.

It should be noted that low key development does not have the same impact on traffic generation as accommodation.

The issue of traffic generation and access has been raised in numerous submissions.

Why is it only now that they are going to do further studies?

Surely these studies should have been done before the Community Consultation?

Why wasn’t there a question in the Ethos Urban Survey to determine the community’s view on the identified increased traffic that will be generated in and around the Jetty Strip Precinct?

I think we know what the answer would have been.

This is yet another fundamental flaw in the questionnaire prepared by Ethos Urban.

If PDNSW aren’t prepared to fund an alternative access to address the increased traffic movement generated by the proposed development, I believe the time has come to pull the pin on the traffic generating, accommodation component, of their proposal.

Regards,
Bruce FIDGE,
Coffs Harbour.