Central Coast Council rejects offer of private land for soccer field at Avoca
A soccer club, which has never had a home ground in its 24-year history, is tearing its hair out after a wealthy benefactor gifted it a multimillion-dollar parcel of land only for council to reject the offer.
A soccer club, which has never had a home ground in its 24-year history, is tearing its hair out after a wealthy benefactor gifted it a multimillion-dollar parcel of land only for council to reject the offer.
With more than 800 members Avoca Football Club is the eighth largest on the Central Coast and the third largest in the former Gosford Local Government Area.
Despite its size and proud history dating back more than two decades, it’s members or their parents are forced to drive a combined 12,000km a week to attend games at Erina High School and Fagans Park. They have to drive almost double that when away games and training are taken into account.
Imagine their joy then when a local landowner, who wishes to remain anonymous, offered to give them about 2.4ha of his own flat, cleared land at 301 Avoca Drive, near the intersection of Hillside Rd.
The offer was conditional on Central Coast Council contributing a similar amount of public land on the adjoining property at 317 Avoca Drive, across the road from the Avoca Beach Hotel.
The council land is needed for a second field, to accommodate parking and to provide safe access to the site from Avoca Drive.
However council rejected the offer because the land is zoned Coastal Open Space System (COSS), there are threatened species present and the cost to manage flooding and drainage issues would be too much.
Avoca FC spokesman Brett Brown said the COSS land was originally privately owned and used as a vegetable farm before it was sold to the University of NSW, who sold it to the Australian Boy Scouts, who in 1988, sold it to Gosford Council.
Mr Brown said the land was infested with weeds and while there were “pockets” of protected species, these could be retained if the area was developed as community open space with two sports fields, barbecues and picnic facilities.
Both parcels of land back on to Saltwater Creek and Mr Brown said the whole area was surrounded by COSS land, so there would be no loss of a “wildlife corridor”.
He said some nearby residents had gone as far as offering to donate some of their land for COSS zoning to offset any net loss.
“Of course the club would only use the fields as required in winter and would be free for the community to use at other times,” he said.
“It can also provide a water recreation resource as one can paddle watercraft from the site to the lagoon.”
The club has made a submission on the draft Central Coast Local Environmental Plan, requesting part of 301 Avoca Drive and part of the adjoining COSS land at 317 Avoca Drive be rezoned to RE1 Public Open Space to create a wonderful new park for the local community.
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