REPORT. GFA meeting with Manny Notaras Thur 27th Feb 2014

Venue…Tosolinis . Baileys Corner , Civic. 3:00-4:00

Present GFA. Chris Watson, John Connelly , Doug Finlayson , Manny Notaras,

Summary John

Meeting is presented as just as a list of semi-verbatim comments as there was no formal agenda. My main impressions are listed below. They could differ significantly from how other people at the meeting saw the situation. Please feel free to add another view.

1. Manny was very friendly and took on a "father figure" role advising us what we should do. He was a different person to the first landholders meeting when he was quite antagonistic about "yellow lines" being drawn on his land. I could actually see Manny as a future patron.
2. He is happy to have his land along the Ginninderra Creek and Murrumbidgee River Corridors set aside as some sort of "Conservation Trust" "it would be spiteful to do otherwise". However he was adamant that he would not "cede" any land to a National Park, he would remain the owner.
3. He seems to think that Riverview will very shortly (next 2 months) put in a submission to the Yass Valley Council to alter the boundaries of the E3 zone on their land. He emphasised several times the need for us to put in a "strong submission" in regard to that rezoning.
4. He has in mind to develop his land as urban "with the next 5 years". He sees he does not have a longer time span. He made comment along the lines "I have a responsibility to my heirs to capitalise on this asset"

Comment. John

Manny seems to have a 5 year time frame in mind and sees a submission to alter the E3 zone coming in the next couple of months. That is not my "speculative scenario". I would see Riverview using the cross border committee to get "in principle" support for the project and then sitting tight to see what happens. I see their long term strategy as getting the land in the peninsula included in the ACT thus will make rezoning of the E3 unneccessary. If they go for rezoning now they risk getting knocked back by the Yass Council.

MEETING

Chris. Outlines our proposals and gives Manny the latest "project status" report and some associated maps.

Manny. "What do you want from me". Doug and , Chris both give responses mainly related to the width of the corridor both along the Riverview portion of the Murrumbidgee and along the Ginninderra Creek. Emphasis of these comments was that the housing development proposed by Riverview was too close to the relevant watercourses. locations.

Manny gave some comments on the river corridor and the E3 zone. He called it E7 so he was not aware of the change of status of E7 to E3.

He felt that Riverview would be making a submission to Yass Valley Council in the near future (2 months) to get the designation changed. He emphasised that neither he nor Riverview would be contemplating housing development on the steep parts of the land. He mentioned that he was not against public access to the land. However he would definitely not "cede" any of his land to a Park but was amenable to some kind of conservation trust being placed over the steep portions of his land and over a "reasonable" corroder along the Ginninderra Creek.

Manny. He certainly seemed to have in mind some sort of "tradeoff". He gets to develop his flat land as urban and in return he cooperates in a trust over the conservation areas.

Doug. Has he in mind any deal with Maxwell. I did not record any answer to that

In summary. "Comfortable with a trust arrangement." "It would be spiteful to say the conservation land should not be used".

QUARRY.

Manny indicated that he had objected to a Hyles proposal to place a concrete crusher on their land. However he said he had quite amicable relations with the Hyles and fully informed them that he was going to object. He was of the opinion that the quarry was a "gold mine" for the Hyles and they would want a high price to let it go.

Manny indicated that NSW Parks?? Had already defined a "curtelage" along the Ginninderra Creek and he was happy to fence off that curtilage to keep cattle from trampling the Ginninderra Creek bank area. Doing that would just be "sensible planning"

Some discussion of West Mcgregor. Manny felt that the ACT Planning had required the roads to be narrow and that it was not entirely Bob Winell’s doing.

Manny. Emphasised the need for good representation to NSW Planning as regards the rezoning of the E3 area. "Start thinking about it sooner rather than later". He seems to have in mind that he would like to develop his land as urban within the next five years. He felt that there should definitely some arrangement in place for the management of the conservation land any trade off between urban development and conservation land would be done by NSW Planning not by Yass Valley Council.

Doug outlined the arrangements that are in place for the Majura Parkway development and suggested that that would be a good model to follow for the development of this area. From memory Manny did not respond in detail but emphasised that we should make the Cross Border Committee know we exist. He said a number of times during the meeting that we should make sure we have a strong submission.

Manny. Many years ago Gib Moore approached him as to whether Manny was interested in buying the Moore/Fleming land. I think Manny was not interested.

Manny. Feels that NSW rezoning will occur within the next couple of months.

Meeting closed 3:45.