Waverley Council: FREE’S claims council is rewarding terrorism are nonsense
Liberals in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs have hit back at FREE’s claims that council has rewarded terrorism, following a Land & Environment Court decision refusing the construction of a synagogue.
Waverley Mayor Sally Betts
In a statement they said: “We call on FREE and Rabbi Ulman to set the record straight by admitting that the Court decision was about a development application for two three-storey blocks of units and a place of worship and not about Council giving in to terrorists or about religious freedom in Australia.
The Court refused their application because they failed to properly address an issue that they themselves raised in their own documents. Anyone who actually reads the judgement would see that the door is open for an approval once that issue is addressed.
The facts are:
- FREE lodged a development application with Council but then took the decision-making out of council hands soon after the assessment had commenced and gave it to the Court.
- The L&E Court made a decision based on FREE’s own risk and analysis report and the lack of
- A properly designed synagogue which is permissible by council.”
“Our Liberal councillors and council staff are proud to support the Jewish community and claims we are antisemitic or that we are rewarding terrorism are opportunistic and completely and utterly untrue and unfair,” said Mayor Sally Betts. In the past 5 years or so, we have received applications from many of the synagogues and Jewish schools in Waverley for various works including ‘security walls’ and ALL were approved in-house and without the applicant deciding to take the matter to Court. This is the first application that I can recall where this has happened”.
Betts said the Land and Environment Court rejected the plan to build they synagogue based on FREE’s own Threat and Risk Analyses report which addressed the construction of a blast wall and assessed the consequence of a terrorist attack on the neighbours and locality and the Court held that this was required given the threat that the applicant says exits.
“It’s offensive to blame council over a report commissioned by the applicants themselves or for a decision handed down by a court,” said Betts.
Betts said that she had been instrumental in supporting the creation of the Dover Heights Shule and that four of her Liberal Team were Jewish including councillors Deputy Mayor Tony Kay and Leon Goltsman and candidates Will Nemesh and Daniel Amzallag.
“Its highly likely that a properly designed synagogue would have been approved by Waverley Council, but the organisation chose to take this matter out of council’s hands,” she said.
“What is shocking is that Rabbi Ulman’s comments have opened the door to many outrageous antisemitic comments that have completely shocked me. ” she concluded. “This should have been left as a development application process and not a religious discussion.”
It seems to me that; These are also FACTS:
1. The concerns raised by residents were addressed by the town planning experts and it was agreed that there were no outstanding matters;
2. Waverley Council “employees” advised representatives of FREE to include the very “Security Design Maters” that were included within the DA Application;
3. [Yet] It was Council’s advocates which pursued the security issues in Court;
4. The L&E Courts [I think: Cowardly & Negative] decision was based directly upon the unhelpful and misleading arguments as presented by Waverly Councils representatives [the Council was obviously seeking such a decision];
5. The decision makes it clear the synagogue (and associated development) was rejected ONLY because of the question of security arising because it might be the target of terrorism;
6. No other project in Waverley has been rejected because it might be attacked by terrorists [I’m not aware of any]
7. Places of public worship [Synagogues] are a land use that is appropriately and generally located in residential areas.
Nonetheless; [“in moving forward….”] It’s GOOD to hear that Waverley Council has indicated that it would favorably consider a [DA] re-application in a timely manner.
Once the Council provides an approval to the [properly drafted] re-application; What will happen to the Court Order? Who will cause the Order to be Overturned; as it is begging to be?
P.S.
I haven’t seen any “…outrageous Anti-Semitic comments….”
Only comments that were supportive of FREE’s development and critical of the OUTRAGEOUS “Cowardly” Order by the Court.
Waverley council please reconsider this proposal