It's a case of going around and around the carousel, as Fairground Follies was back in council.
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The modified application was previously heard in council on December 9, 2020 where the matter was deferred.
The application sought council approval to waive the developer charges under the council's development services plan which were levied against the development.
Council's deputy general manager for corporate, strategy and development services Mark Pepping addressed the council.
"The specific modification was to waive condition 14 concerning the developer contribution to the value of approximately $69,500," he said.
"One of the reasons for the deferral in December was for the acting general manager and staff to meet with the proponent. We did that on February 4, 2021. We visited the owner of the facility on his premises to better understand what the collection is about.
"Three options have been presented to councillors. The first option is to uphold the recommended refusal of the modification application.
"Option two is to waiver the developer contributions or remove those contributions from the consent so that would be an elimination of condition 14
"Option three is to seek the withdrawal of the modification application but offer a donation of a specified amount to offset the costs incurred by the developer."
Councillor Peter Nelson put forward option three to invited the applicant, Mr Robson, to formally withdraw his modified application and that council offers a donation of a specified amount to offset the development contribution charges.
It was seconded by Councillor Graham McLaughlin.
An amendment was put forward by Councillor Garry Turland and seconded by Councillor Grahame Andrews which called for the council to waive the developer fees and approve the development application.
Cr Nelson said a 50 per cent contribution from the council was "on the money".
"It's asking for half of what the costs are," he said.
"The staff have done all they can to assist the developer and we can't breach the council's policy set up. However, the council can apply the community benefit to assist the applicant.
"With the community benefit, the $35,178 water contribution fee and the 34,096 sewer contribution fee is combined and we give the applicant 50 per cent of the community benefit.
"It then has to go out to the community to get people to have their say if they agree to that."
Cr Nelson said he believes that the community would prefer a 50 per cent benefit.
If community benefit is applied, the donation would be approximately $35,082.
Councillor Ken Halstead said he was firmly against both options put before the council.
"I just think that it's not a non-for-profit. Why would we be supporting this development more than any other one that we've had before us over the year," he said.
"This ratepayers money. I can't support any of these."
Councillor Ian Scandrett said he would support the amendment put forward by Cr Turland.
"These are tours that bring in pensioners from across Sydney and the greater region to see one of the top three collections of mechanical music in the world," he said.
"Of course part of our tourism destination strategy is to encourage things like this. All over the state councils are now scrambling post covid to capitalise on the local tourism boom while international travel doesn't exist.
"This is a private collection and it's only because Mr Robson likes sharing it with people that he puts on those bus tours and functions.
"He showed me recently, that to put the lights on for an hour and a half for a bus tour is $1000 in electricity.
"This is not a profit-generating thing."
Cr Turland said Fairground Follies was the passion of a man who had spent millions restoring his collection.
"Council wants to charge a lot of money for people who may use the toilets," he said.
"This does not make sense at all.
"There is no need to not comply with our Destination Southern highlands strategy. This meets the requirements. If we don't go forward with this, we will lose this gentleman.
"He will go somewhere else."
Councillors first voted on Cr Turland's amendment.
Councillors Turland, Andrews and Scandrett voted for the amendment.
Councillors Larry Whipper, Duncan Gair, Halstead McLaughlin and Nelson voted against the amendment.
The amendment lost.
Councillors then voted on Cr Nelson's motion.
Councillors Gair, Nelson, Whipper, McLaughlin and Andrews.
Councillors Halstead, Turland and Scandrett voted against it.
The motion passed.
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