SINGLETON Council has joined residents in objecting to the way the NSW government is handling land acquisition for the Singleton bypass, rejecting an offer made for a council depot site at Glenridding.
As the Newcastle Herald reported on Thursday, a group of rural property owners backed by Labor MPs are making a last-ditch effort to get better valuations for land that is subject to full or partial compulsory acquisition by Transport for NSW.
Singleton mayor Sue Moore said the council had "done the right thing" by the region by moving staff and equipment out of the Waterworks Lane depot, to ensure that nothing it did delayed the bypass.
She said that depot had moved to temporary premises in John Street, Singleton, but the council needed to build a permanent depot near the waste management and animal treatment facilities on Dyrring Road.
The total cost of $14.6 million was confirmed in the council's September infrastructure agenda, with $6 million of this cost attributed to the move from Waterworks Lane - a cost that would be borne by ratepayers if the state did not foot the bill.
Cr Moore said the council meeting of November 15 rejected the government offer of $600,000, meaning the Valuer General would now assess the land in question.
The council also resolved to seek support from state MPs and seek an urgent meeting with the Minister for Regional Transport, Sam Farraway, to "advocate for additional compensation for the loss of the water and sewer depot".
Cr Moore said that as welcome as the bypass was, it was only a single lane in either direction, with fears it would become congested.
Upper Hunter MP Dave Layzell said that land value was not the only thing that land owners could be compensated for, and that the Just Terms Act offered compensation for disturbance - including relocation and legal costs - as well as "special value on top of the market value", where this applied.
But Labor and the land owners point to a 2020 upper house inquiry into the acquisition of land in relation to major transport projects, which heard a body of evidence from affected landowners and law reform bodies that claimed widespread under valuation of property.
They also point to 2016 amendments to the Land Acquisition (Just Terms Compensation) Act, which they say had the tendency to minimise the amount paid in any compensation.
Greens MLC Abigail Boyd, who chaired the 2020 inquiry, said in her foreword that: "Displacing owners from their communities and support networks due to their inability to buy back into their own community is hardly 'just'.
"It is unfathomable that NSW is the only jurisdiction in Australia that does not allow for the concept of 'reinstatement' to be considered in determining compensation and 'market value'."
Cr Moore said everyone wanted the Singleton bypass to go ahead as quickly as possible, but the council believed that residents had been treated "appallingly" in the compulsory acquisition process.
A spokesperson for Transport for NSW said the bypass required the compulsory acquisition of land held by 36 landowners. Three tenderers had been short-listed; Acciona Constructions Australia Pty Ltd, Fulton Hogan Construction Pty Ltd and John Holland Pty Ltd.
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