Morpeth Land Company wants to build 23 to 30 homes on the former Morpeth Bowling Club site and sell the existing clubhouse as a childcare centre. 

A council report issued last month recommended that the company’s proposal to have the land included in the Maitland urban settlement strategy, which governs future land development and is the first step in the approval process for the housing estate, be denied.

The report also recommended that the proposal to rezone the land to ­general residential be denied.

If the council and NSW Department of Planning and Infrastructure do not support the plan, the company will attempt to provide relocatable housing for the low socio-economic bracket on the land.

That type of housing is permissible, with the consent of council, under ­private recreation zoning. 

Morpeth residents say council is inconsisent

Company director Brad Everett, who is the land use director at Hunter Land and who spent seven years as Maitland City Council’s planning director, met with the council on Tuesday to urge them to change their negative perception of the plans.

Councillors were supposed to vote on the recommendations at the September 22 meeting but council manager David Evans withdrew it at the last minute and said the issue would be dealt with in two parts. 

A revised report, which has kept the same recommendation, is expected to be put to a vote at the October 13 council meeting. 

Morpeth is my town, says developer

Fellow company director Lyndon McCleod, a former Hunter Valley Boutique Wine Show judge, said “the council officers were creating difficulty” and their “report on the proposal was harsh”.

He claimed Maitland councillors did not share the same negativity and said the company would be forced to create a caravan park on the site if the council refused to rezone the land.

“I don’t know why the council would want to put a caravan park there when you could have housing that was designed in keeping with the heritage of the area,” Mr McLeod said.

“With a zoning change the housing could happen and we think it is a more suitable development.”

A council spokesman said the developer could not assume the caravan park would be approved.

He said the proposal would be “subject to a rigorous assessment like any other development application put forward in the local government area” and a range of factors including the “impact on the heritage significance of Morpeth would be considered”. 

Mr Everett’s company Everplan Pty Ltd, and Hunter Land senior development planner Deborah Gordon, also have a financial interest in the project, according to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission documents.

Maitland real estate agent Timothy Peters is another Morpeth Land Company director. 

Hunter Land chairman, ­developer Hilton Grugeon, has worked closely with Mr Everett since 2006 and, although not financially involved in this project, he was privy to the finer details and offered his assistance.

He said, “the council had an easy decision to make”. 

“If the council chooses not to change the zoning it will end up with a cheap and nasty trailer park. A cheap outlay for those involved, and a good return on investment.”

Distressed Morpeth residents have urged the council to say no to both plans.

Merrin Whitney, who is restoring a house opposite the site, was frustrated residents had to “jump through so many heritage hoops” when they made changes to a house or built a house in the town, while developers thought they were above the regulations.

“They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it,” she said.

“The houses would be packed in there and it would ruin the site. A trailer park would also be awful – people coming and going all the time, you wouldn’t know who was over there.”

The initial council report, released last month, provided a range of reasons why the proposals should not proceed – including that it was inconsistent with local government legislation. 

Despite this, the report noted the council could “make a spec­ific exception” for Morpeth Land Company and push through the land’s inclusion in the urban settlement strategy, if the councillors wanted to support it.

The report claimed making the exception would not spark a flurry of requests from landholders who also wanted their land included in the strategy outside the council’s annual land review.