Mayoral Column 10th October 2019

Published on 10 October 2019

Housing Strategy

At last week’s Council meeting we were to consider the revised Urban & Fringe Housing Strategy. Unfortunately due to an accidental omission of a public submission we had to delay public exhibition of the document, but I would still like to cover it in this week’s column to begin the conversation within the community.

The revised Urban & Fringe Housing Strategy is one of the most important strategic documents that we as a Council will undertake. The strategy identifies opportunity for an additional 3,500 dwellings over the next 18 years to accommodate the projected population growth of Goulburn and Marulan.

The Housing Strategy identifies opportunity for urban residential land (700sqm blocks with water and sewer, future urban land and large lot residential land.

In Goulburn the strategy recommends this serviced residential growth occur in two main areas:

• Marys Mount, which will remain critical to both our immediate and longer term growth. This area is already service by water, sewer and other infrastructure.
• Run-O-Waters to the west of Goulburn CBD, which is unconstrained and can be serviced with minimal upgrades. Proposed minimum lot size here is 700sqm.

Large lot residential opportunities have also been identified in Run-O-Waters, Mt Gray, Mountain Ash, Gorman Road and Brisbane Grove areas. Furthermore Council will also continue to encourage infill housing within the area proximate (1km) to the CBD of Goulburn. We would like to see more compact and affordable housing in this precinct. We expect around 7% of the new dwellings will be built in this precinct.

In Marulan the opportunity for serviced residential housing is mainly to the north of the current CBD, and Council expect this area to be home to 96% of Marulan’s housing growth, with over 35 years’ worth of supply there.

If all goes to plan at our meeting next Tuesday 15^th October the Draft Urban & Fringe Housing Strategy will be placed on public exhibition for 8 weeks, concluding on the 18^th December.

68^th Annual Goulburn Lilac City Festival

I would like to recognise the immense efforts of the renewed Lilac Festival Committee and all of the volunteers involved in putting on a brilliant event over the October long weekend.

Over the past few days I have had a number of comments made to me regarding how wonderful it was to have the return of the Lilac Street Parade on Sunday, which drew huge crowds and saw a number of great float and walking entrants.

I had the honour of opening the festival on Saturday in Belmore Park, and crowning April Watson as the 2019 Lilac Queen – she was a wonderful ambassador over the weekend. I was unable to attend the Lilac Ball but am told it too was a huge success.

Well done to all involved, and we look forward to the 2020 Goulburn Lilac City Festival which will no doubt be even better.