Blacktown CIty Council - Media Release - Council’s Century Of Agreements Is A Winner For The Community

MEDIA RELEASE

26 October 2017

Blacktown City Council has emerged as a leading NSW Council for voluntary planning agreements (VPA), bringing more large-scale community development projects to residents and ratepayers.

Council reached the centenary figure of VPAs in May this year, and has now exceeded 107 agreements in total.

Blacktown City Mayor Stephen Bali said: “Some of the community projects enabled with the existence of voluntary planning agreements include The Ponds Community Hub, The Lake Neighbourhood Centre, Bungarribee Community Resource Hub and Stonecutters Ridge Neighbourhood Centre.

“These are all great examples of what can be achieved when Council and a developer work together to deliver valuable projects to the community, Mayor Bali said.

“It is heart-warming to see young communities benefit from these facilities right from the start. They form the nexus of a community and help people form lifelong friendships and bonds in neighbourhoods,” he said.

Voluntary planning agreements are usually partnerships with single developers who own large landholdings and work with Council to identify and provide the infrastructure required for their large developments.

This is different to an arrangement where there are multiple developers in an area and Section 94 contributions are collected. In these cases Council collects the contributions from multiple developers and constructs the infrastructure.

“There is no central record of executed VPAs, but I am confident there is no other Council in NSW completing the volume of VPAs that we at Blacktown Council are doing,” Mayor Bali said.

“This also goes to show the number of reputable companies that want to work with Blacktown Council to deliver housing to people, as well as great community facilities.”