Blayney is to have a new workers accommodation / motel development in the middle of town following its approval during Monday night's Blayney Shire Council July meeting.
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A battle of semantics over whether the demountable building based development at the old bowling club site was a motel or not dominated much of the discussion, however councillor Bruce Reynolds focussed more on the desperate need for more rental accommodation for the elderly and families.
"We have the situation of a perfect storm when it comes to accommodation in Blayney," he said.
"We have long term residents given notice with their long term rentals to make way for new owners or tenants who are willing to pay more for accommodation of which a lot is construction workers.
"It saddens me to hear of our fellow community members being removed from their homes because demand has outdriven supply."
Cr Reynolds hopes that the development will address some of the shortfalls in availability, and a five year clause which will see the applicants having to submit another DA in five years, will be enough to ensure a well run facility.
However both councillors Kingham and Denton railed against the proposal with Cr Kingham saying that calling it a motel was to get what was otherwise a mining camp permission to build there.
"There will be 26 dongas and 100 people in that small area and I find the management plan to be deficient," he said.
"I don't think the five year clause is of much value at all. You can just imagine if they get going and they put 26 or 22 dongas there, and there are 80 to 100 people there, how on earth will council close them down?"
Cr Kingham added that the style of building also didn't suit the heritage location however it was mayor Scott Ferguson who said that the development was a very interesting and complex problem.
"The driving force behind this is the absolute sheer reality of the shortage of accommodation in this shire and this region," he said.
"We need this facility to be full of contractors because that is what we're facing. We're facing an unprecedented, most serious shortage of rental accommodation that our shire, town and region has ever seen.
"It's having a serious effect now and will continue to have a serious impact across the shire.
"The accommodation crisis is affecting those people that just want to live here. Those that have a job here and just want to rent, but are unable to do that and the future does not look any better in the short to medium term.
"This is our opportunity to take some of the pressure off the very, very tight rental and accommodation market."
The DA was approved by Crs Reynolds, Newstead, Ewin, Somervaille and Ferguson with Crs Kingham and Denton against it.
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