Auburn council administrator overturns pro-Mehajer decisions

A council administrator last night delivered a double blow to Sydney’s most famous former deputy mayor, Salim Mehajer.

The former deputy mayor of Auburn City Council, Salim Mehajer.

Sydney’s most famous former deputy mayor, Salim Mehajer, suffered a double-blow last night when the administrator appointed to Auburn City Council terminated two controversial decisions that stood to deliver him large property development windfalls.

Interim administrator Viv May halted long-running negotiations to sell a council-owned carpark in Lidcombe to companies owned by Mr Mehajer, who as well as being, until last week, an Auburn councillor, is also one of the area’s most prominent developers.

Last night Mr May also scuppered contentious council plans to rezone a parcel of land to allow mixed-use and high-density ­development outside the footprint of Auburn town centre.

That area to be rezoned comprised a “finger” jutting out from the existing boundaries of the town centre and contained properties owned by Mr Mehajer, including shops which in December were ­destroyed by fire.

The council had been divided, with a group known as the “super six” councillors, which ­included Mr Mehajer, at least one other property developer and a real estate agent, almost always voting in a block and in favour of increases to development limits.

Another block, the so-called “poor four”, typically voted along the same lines, and often in opposition to the “super six”. In recent years the group was consistently outvoted.

On December 2, at Auburn council’s last general meeting, “super six” councillors voted in favour of the two motions favouring Mr Mehajer’s companies.

On Christmas Eve, “poor four” councillors Irene Simms and ­George Campbell, who have long campaigned against alleged corruption at the council, lodged recision motions in a bid to have those motions reversed.

Mr May last night upheld those motions and ruled out the Auburn rezoning and the sale of the council’s Lidcombe carpark.

“I am ecstatic about both decisions,” Ms Simms said last night.

She said the controversy over the carpark had been ongoing since 2011 and she had lodged complaints with the Independent Commission Against Corruption and the NSW Office of Local Government.