Newcastle lord mayor Gavin Morris has urged the Save Link Road Forest community group to "stay in the fight" as he reiterated the City of Newcastle's support for having the bushland slated for housing rezoned as conservation.
Cr Morris met with Save Link Road Forest campaign spokesman Ian McKenzie on Wednesday for the first time since the former NBN newsreader was elected lord mayor in April.
Last year, the NSW government said it was taking over the determination of the 574-hectare Eden Estate housing proposal to accelerate the process.
Eden Estate is proposing to build 4200 dwellings on bushland either side of the Newcastle Link Road, which straddles both Newcastle and Lake Macquarie council areas and is bordered by Wallsend, Cameron Park, Elermore Vale and Glendale.
Newcastle councillors have previously advocated their support to preserve Link Road Forest North and South for the future creation of a national park.
"It's a hell of a fight, this one," Cr Morris told the Newcastle Herald.
"Nothing much has changed from my last meeting [before the election], except I will do what I can.
"The council supports Save Link Road Forest, of course. It's a state decision, but the council is behind the community on this one.
"I'll push it forward to go and talk to the ministers and anybody else I can."
One of the state ministers in question is Paul Scully. The Minister for Planning and Public Spaces was at the Port of Newcastle on Wednesday morning to announce the NSW government's approval of a $1.8 billion Stratford Pumped Hydro and Solar project near Gloucester, which will be capable of powering 120,000 homes.
Asked about the council and community's push to transform the Link Road Forest into a national park, Mr Scully was non-committal.
"There are some pretty stringent conditions on what the [NSW] National Parks [and Wildlife] Service takes on as a national park," Mr Scully said.
"Eden Estate is in that pre-exhibition period. We're looking at the options of how we might be able to balance environmental protection with some additional housing, and that process will progress, including a period of public exhibition should that eventually proceed to that point."
Mr McKenzie said the Link Road Forest would qualify for the government's "stringent conditions" for a national park due to its population of critically endangered scrub turpentine and spotted-gum ironbark trees as well as koalas and squirrel gliders.
"I don't think there's any doubt that it warrants some type of conservation status," Mr McKenzie said.
"Obviously, there needs to be more studies, and a lot of the studies that have been done for the residential rezoning process are showing that the biodiversity and ecological value of the land are very high because its impact is imposing constraints upon the development and the rezoning process."
The City of Newcastle has a target to deliver 11,100 new homes by 2029 as part of the NSW government's plan to tackle the housing crisis. Last year the council warned Newcastle would likely fall short of the target.
Cr Morris said investing in medium-density housing such as the Broadmeadow precinct was a better solution than creating more "urban sprawl" in green spaces without suitable transport and community infrastructure.
"Just building suburbs and everybody wanting a 500 to 600-square-metre block and building a big house and taking away that green space that you're never going to get back, I don't see that as a wise solution to the population crisis at the moment," Cr Morris said.
