Quarry hopes crushed in vote by Lismore councillors
Council have voted over the controversial Santin Quarry on Riverbank Rd.
Lismore
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LISMORE City Council’s Riverbank quarry quandary is no more after councillors voted to refuse the application for modification of development consent at their meeting.
Councillor Adam Guise bought forward his motion to refuse the timeline extension of the quarry after the original motion lapsed.
Cr Guise cited “the likely impacts on locality”, the quarry not being “in the public interest”, the application was not “substantially the same” as the original DA and that consent had expired and for those reasons the DA should be refused.
The motion passed in a tight vote, with councillors Ekins, Casson, Lloyd, Bird and Guise voting for the refusal of the application.
The quarry had been a controversial issue and featured in previous council meetings earlier this year, with a DA seeking to extend the quarry’s lifetime for another 16 years and the council business paper had recommended that the DA be approved prior to the meeting.
“The application does not seek to increase the rate of production nor move outside the area approved to be quarried in 1993,” Malcom Scott, speaking in favour of the quarry, said.
“This is a local businessman, it’s a local business and there are local people employed there so I respectfully request you adopt the staff’s recommendation.”
Most of the opposition to the quarry centred on their desire to see the owners of the quarry resubmit a DA for the quarry to ensure it was in-line with 2020 standards rather than adhering to 1993 standards from the original DA.
“As I have always stated, I have no objection to the proponent submitting a brand new DA, just not a modification such as this, this is to ensure the quarry operates to contemporary standards which will limit the impacts on neighbours,” local resident James Berkaya said at the meeting.
“No objector has said no quarry, rather, we simply want a new DA so we can all be certain that appropriate and contemporary laws protecting us and the environment are satisfied by the proponent, I don’t think that’s too much to ask,” local resident Belinda Berkaya said at the meeting.
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