A plan by Lake Macquarie City Council to progress land at Killingworth towards development has been yet another disappointment for a land owner who has been left out of the plan.
Peter Ebbeck has spent decades trying to build on his 1300 square metre Westcroft Street block that he bought "as a naive 21-year-old" in 1982 with the dream of being able to build a home for his family. He's paid residential rates on the block ever since.
When he bought it, Mr Ebbeck knew the land was zoned Rural with no building entitlement, but was advised the area would soon be rezoned. And within a few years, he said there was an amendment to the 1984 Local Environment Plan (LEP) which allowed for erection of a dwelling.
But after waiting many years for services to be connected and council to claim ownership of the roads, Mr Ebbeck said the land was rezoned to "10 Under Investigation" in 2004 without him being notified or consulted.
"Council amended the 1984 LEP specifically to allow development of the entire southern part of Killingworth," Mr Ebbeck said.
"Council supported this development for many years. My property held a dwelling entitlement for approximately 18 years."
The property was then rezoned to conservation in 2015, which council said was "due to the high environmental value" identified in a Local Environmental Study (LES) undertaken by independent consultants to inform the appropriate future land use zones.
Mr Ebbeck disputed this saying there were no threatened or endangered flora near his property, nor any hollow trees for nesting places for birds or mammals. He pointed to council's LES which found the site "consisted of mainly regrowth vegetation, with some disturbances noted in the form of tracks made by trail bikes and Historic refuse, particularly on the mid slopes close to Sackville Road. Some old growth vegetation was noted".
"This hardly describes an area of high ecological value," he said.
Desperate to progress the matter, Mr Ebbeck engaged a solicitor in 2016 who said there may a chance to lodge a development application through an "Existing Holding" provision.
He said council were initially supportive and he addressed the issues they had raised. He also engaged a town planner, architect and a bushfire consultant to help get the DA over the line.
But while undertaking the assessment of the DA, council said it received legal advice stating the land did not satisfy the definition of a 'holding' at the time the development application was lodged.
"Council staff advised the applicant that due to the permissibility issues, as well as zoning, heritage, access and ecological requirements the application would not be supported and was recommended to be withdrawn," a council spokesperson said.
Mr Ebbeck said he believed this should have been clearly stated before he spent time and thousands of dollars trying to progress the DA to approval.
"Every time we came up with a plan they changed the goalposts," he said
I certainly don't get my hopes up about anything anymore.
Peter Ebbeck
Council eventually made an offer to buy the land, but Mr Ebbeck said the offer would barely cover what he had just paid out in legal fees and DA costs, so he rejected it. A council spokesperson said consistent with the 2016 resolution, council was still willing to purchase the property based on a current market valuation.
As a last ditch effort, Mr Ebbeck said he applied to address a council meeting, but was rejected.
The latest development in the saga has been council approving a draft area plan last month to allow for consent to be granted for development in the area. Thirty two lots have been included in the plan, 13 of which are owned by council, but Mr Ebbeck's has been excluded as it is zoned environmental.
Mr Ebbeck said the whole ordeal had been "an emotional rollercoaster".
"There were so many occasions I thought 'yes it's going to happen, I'll be able to build my house, my dream house', but council has pulled the rug out from under me every time," he said.
"The problem I've had with council in recent years is they don't want to know the history, they want to know about what happened yesterday.
"It's the compounding effect. You look at each issue day by day and they don't seem so bad but compounded over the years to today where I have a piece of land that's worth nothing, it's tough."
Mr Ebbeck said his family home plans eventually turned into retirement home plans, but he's given up on those too and has recently moved out of the area completely.
"I certainly don't get my hopes up about anything anymore," he said. "One of the reasons I'm moving is I've just been really put off by what's happened."
When the draft area plan came to council earlier this year, Mr Ebbeck told councillors John Gilbert and Kevin Baker about his long-running situation.
Both councillors have been critical of the decision to leave certain blocks out of the area plan, and objected to the matter back in April and again when it came back to council last month.
"There are property owners who are going to be left out in the cold simply because they are on the wrong side of the street and that's a real concern for me," Cr Gilbert said.
"But I think specifically in that there are council sites that won't be left out in the cold because they are on the correct side of the street and this is by no means something that has been planned by council it's just happened the way the potential for infrastructure and the land to be developed has come about.
"I appreciate council has done their very best in this regard however there are property owners who are going to be disadvantaged by this."
Cr Baker spoke about Mr Ebbeck's situation at council, saying it was an example of someone who will be "a loser" in the plan.
"They're now left in a situation that they are ending up having a block of land, a block of land that they wanted to pursue their dreams on that they are not able to," he said. "That they have lost a significant amount of money on due to the reclassification.
"Unfortunately with this proposal, and while I commend staff for the way that they have worked on this in providing the best outcome for council, I don't think it is the best outcome to all members of the community.
"It is an item where we have winners and losers and unfortunately the winners are council in its land holdings and the losers are the handful of community members who have private holdings in this.
"Council is going to end up with a lot of land that it can develop itself and the individuals are going to end up with environmentally zoned land that is for all intents and purposes useless to them for what they want to do."
