3pm:
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Asked if the situation was a disaster, Mr Eldridge replied no.
“It’s not ideal, it’s certainly not something that we need to take lightly, we need to be transparent with the community and work towards a solution,” the general manager said.
“Unfortunately, it’s occurred and we need to deal with it.”
Mr Eldridge was asked if he was looking at referring his concerns to police or the possibility of criminal charges, Mr Eldridge said it was not a decision for him.
“We will refer the matter to ICAC, and ICAC will make a decision one way or another,” he said.
Council’s investigation has allegedly uncovered significant shortcomings in the administration of developer levies under Section 94 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act – which sets out how money from property developers must be recorded, accounted for and spent.
“The independent investigation found the Section 94 levy register was non-compliant in a number of aspects and that some funds have been allocated inappropriately,” Mr Eldridge said.
“Council will now have to return funds to the Section 94 levy fund, which will have a knock-on effect on future budgets.”
Levies not collected
Mr Eldridge said there were instances of Section 94 levies not being collected.
“At this stage, we are looking at a remedy to try to understand if we can recover those funds,” he said.
Mr Eldridge revealed that in some cases environmental controls were deleted on projects without correct authority.
Housing Industry Association Wagga director Tony Balding said he did not want the “remediation” processes outlined by Mr Eldridge to negatively impact on council’s ability to deal with current and future planning issues and development applications.
“We are more concerned about the number of council planning staff,” Mr Balding said.
Leading Wagga builder, Peter Hurst, said he had more questions than statements after being read Mr Eldridge’s statement.
“What is the ‘win’ out of it?” said Mr Hurst, who has locked horns with council over the years over the operations of its planning directorate.
“As an industry we are keen to have an agenda moving forward.”
Mr Eldridge said the financial fallout of the remediation would not affect the planned levee upgrade or the proposed Bomen intermodal freight hub, but admitted there would be a “slight effect” on some other projects.
Financial impact
“The financial impact immediately will be the financial resources we used to complete the review of development applications,” he said.
Asked to estimate the costs of discovering and remedying all of the problems, Mr Eldridge said: “We are not sure of the quantum, we know that it’s more than probably a few hundred thousand (dollars), it certainly could be a few million dollars involved. I am only speculating, I am not sure at this point.”
Mr Eldridge said he could not comment on whether or not an staff members have been stood down as a result of the investigation, but said council had made sure “all people in the organisation and people who have since left the organisation” had been treated with procedural fairness.
“We have a process to follow and we have followed the rules,” Mr Eldridge said.
Mr Eldridge described the problems uncovered by the investigation as “legacy issues”.
“These are matters that occurred some time ago now … and the councillors’ directions to me are to fix the legacy issues so that as a community we can move on, and that is what we are doing,” he said.
10am: A PROBE of Wagga City Council going back five years has revealed “unlawful planning decisions and a disregard of planning control tools”, council’s general manager, Alan Eldridge, has just admitted.
“In one occurrence, an applicant received around a $1.5 million reduction in fees and charges,” Mr Eldridge said at a media conference this morning.
“This appears to have happened against professional staff advice, without the correct authority and without a council resolution.”
Flanked by council legal advisor Brian Williamson and mayor Greg Conkey, Mr Eldridge said the cost to council of rectifying the problems could amount to millions of dollars.
On at least 22 occasions development applicants had been treated “more favourably than others”, Mr Eldridge said.
An independent town planning firm has been appointed to examine affected development applications.
The results of council’s investigation will be forwarded to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, Mr Eldridge said.
“I can assure the Wagga community that the resolution of these issues is one of council’s highest priorities,” he said.
“Council will be working with all known affected applicants and others as it deals with the issues.”
The general manager said extra resources had been directed to council’s planing taskforce and a senior planner would join council in the near future.