In 2003, STEP joined a committee, the Community Reference Group, to hear and assess plans by the University of Technology Sydney to build a residential development at their Ku-ring-gai campus in Lindfield.

Consultancy firms CRI Australia and JBA Urban Planning gave presentations to the CRG on various aspects of the proposal. The CRG expressed very serious concerns on numerous grounds.

STEP submission

In September 2004, STEP prepared a paper for the CRG, outlining the concerns, among others:

• that JBA reported on community consultation without clearly recognising that the CRG opposed strongly to the proposal;
• that the ERM Ecology Report is fundamentally flawed, lacks impartiality and controversially states that the proposal will result in a "relatively small removal of bushland" and "improved management of threatening processes such as weeds, stormwater and feral animals";
• that the ERM Ecology Report is misleading in stating that the "development will result in some direct impacts to native flora and fauna over a relatively small area of the site"; and
• that the BioDesign Trees Assets Report and ERM Ecology Report both promote the concept that modified bushland is still bushland. STEP refute this and particularly object to the portrayal that some vegetaion within the Asset Protection Zone is termed bushland when in fact it is mown parkland.

In response to a thankyou letter from UTS, STEP replied outling further concerns, namely:

• the CRG has been shown countless projected slides and illustrations, but were not permitted more than these on-screen glimpses or brief viewings of site plans or drawings;
• a refusal to engage with the community and adherence only to the agenda (Clayton's consultation); and
• a fear that it was their intention to report that the CRG approved of material presented to it, while to the contrary, UTS "presented an evolving design for residential development which the CRG opposed".

Department of Planning Community Reference Group, 2007

Representatives of STEP have been invited onto another committee, this one set up by the Department of Planning. It is another Community Reference Group, meeting thrice, and in all likelihood this will be a very large committee with little opportunity to have any real impact on the type of outcome - if UTS and the government want housing, then housing will result. STEP can only work to ensure that bushland concerns put forward by the original CRG are dealt with properly.

Meeting #1 held 26 July 2007

The DoP's CRG consists of residents, students and councillors, plus representatives and staff of the National Trust, STEP, UTS and DoP. This CRG is not a debating forum. The DoP controls it and it is to provide information to interested parties who will be making a submission as part of theprocess.  Whether submissions will influence the DoP or the Minister or whether their minds are already made up and we are acting out a charade, we simply don’t know.

STEP's task has become clearer with the admission that UTS has no interest in the bushland unaffected by their proposal and they would happily give it away. DoP further confirmed that it would be possible to amalgamate it with Lane Cove National Park or protect it by some other mechanism such as a conservation agreement. Clearly, STEP mustwork to maximise the amount of bush saved and ensure it is permanently protected.

While the overall proposal is still the main problem, STEP is also concerned by the threat to bushland from the size of the Asset Protection Zone (ie. firebreak)  being mandated by the Rural Fire Service. STEP believes the new regulations are a vast over-reaction by the RFS that probably stem from legal liability perceptions, however we are relieved to hear that the Minister can arbitrarily amend their requirements.