Chamber seeks Woy Woy town centre makeover

Woy Woy Town Centre needs a makeover, according to the Peninsula Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber president Mr Matthew Wales said the former Gosford Council produced a report in February 2015 that holds they keys to Woy Woy's future.

The groundwork for the development and growth of Woy Woy Town Centre over the next 20 years was spelt out in the document called Planning for the Future Gosford City Growth Framework Inception Report.

The Inception Report was to devolve into a series of Master Plans with a focus on Town Centres, particularly Woy Woy when it came to the Peninsula.

The next step identified by the former Gosford Council was to set up a committee to act as a consulting group to put together an action plan for the Woy Woy Town Centre area.

"If the new council decided to proceed with a Woy Woy Major Town Centre Area Action Plan, the chamber would support the formation of a committee provided it included people with relevant expertise," Mr Wales said.

He said the right committee could help Council to better understand the Peninsula's expectations for the future of Woy Woy.

Previous plans for the future of Woy Woy were inadequate, according to Mr Wales.

He claimed a "complete lack of activity over the past two decades" as evidence of that inadequacy.

The new Central Coast Council must commit to allowing development with greater density and greater height in Woy Woy, Mr Wales said.

"Minimum floor levels are a major impediment," he said.

"I think we need to come to terms with the fact that certain areas in the Woy Woy Town Centre are constrained by the one-in-100-year flood levels and that we need to make way for development in other areas in view of those constraints."

Mr Wales said he wanted to see development controls on the southern side of Blackwall Rd "beefed up".

"We should be looking at floor space ratios of three and four to one and we should not be afraid of developments with storeys greater than six," he said.

"The fact is unless you provide a set of outcomes sufficiently attractive to developers and property owners, they won't do anything."

Connectivity between Deep Water Plaza and the retail area of Blackwall Road also needs to be addressed, according to the Chamber.

"That may mean we need to rethink the use of the ground level of the parking station and not have car parking in some areas because at the moment it is a black hole that people don't want to walk through.

"We need to create a civic space, a brightly-lit corridor between Deep Water and Blackwall Rd," he said.

Mr Wales said he believed the most important step the new Council could take to reinvigorate Woy Woy Town Centre was to rethink traffic management and reverse the 20-year old decision to stop right hand turns at the corner of Blackwall Rd and Railway St.

"I would like to see the framework for this wrapped up with a nice red bow to hand up to the newly-elected council," he said.

Mr Wales said the subsequent formation of the committee and planning for Woy Woy Town Centre would take some time but the foundations could be ready by the next local election..

"We have to be realistic about our expectations in the short-term because the task of meshing the two councils is enormous with over 3000 employees and there are currently constraints on infrastructure.

"But I am confident the planning structures being put in place are sound and that there are good people in council responsible for delivering the right outcomes," he said.

Interview, 13 Oct 2016

Matthew Wales, Peninsula Chamber of Commerce