Priority 10. Direct Communication and Zoning Transparency | Aldo Antolli for Mayor

Residents should never discover that their property rights have changed through a third party, a social media post, or after the fact. The LCZ debacle exposed a systemic failure in how council communicates with affected landowners. That must never happen again.

Mandatory written notification to every affected household before any proposed zoning change is progressed
Plain English explanation of what a proposed change means for the specific property
Genuine opportunity for the owner to respond before any decision is made
Council to maintain a public register of all proposed zoning changes and notification records
Advocate for this standard to be embedded in state planning legislation

Community volunteers running a fundraising raffle at Mitre 10.

The four reasons I gave for voting down the Specific Area Plans

On Monday 3 August 2026, after a debate running more than an hour and a half in which every councillor had their say, a majority of Kingborough Council voted to withdraw support for the Bruny Island and Bonnet Hill Specific Area Plans. I gave four reasons in the chamber that night. They are here in the order I made them, so you can judge the argument for yourself. Protecting what matters and tying up responsible landowners are not the same thing, and none of this closes the door on a plan for Bruny. It says such a plan has to come the right way, with the strategic work and the consultation done first.

Reason one of four. Section 32 of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act allows a Specific Area Plan only where the land requires provisions unique to it. Require means necessity, and a case built on what may happen does not meet that test.

Reason two of four. Council’s own officers confirmed in writing that the same land could be given the Rural Zone, where the standard priority vegetation provisions already apply without any plan specific control. Protection was never the question. The mechanism was.

Reason three of four. The version put to council was not the version the community saw. The plans were redrafted after public exhibition, and council’s own report records that no additional public consultation was undertaken.

Reason four of four. Planning decisions have to rest on evidence and on the Act. Research reported that morning had monitored 20 swift parrot nests across two breeding seasons and recorded no confirmed predation by sugar gliders.