DEVELOPERS Rose Group and Darren Nicholson are working on a combined plan for the public access parts of their respective projects at Catherine Hill Bay and Moonee Beach, saying the co-ordinated approach is better than a "piecemeal" outcome.
Mr Nicholson and Rose Group director Bryan Rose said preliminary plans had been shown to government agencies in a "pre-application" process, with the finished documents likely to go to the NSW Department of Planning and Environment before the end of this year.
A scoping study document viewed by the Newcastle Herald includes artwork for a futuristic hotel building running the length of the historically significant coal wharf at the Rose Group end.
Further north, at Middle Camp where Mr Nicholson is developing land, a two-storey "100+ seat beach pub" is proposed for the site of the former recreation club.
Development has been a contentious issue at Catherine Hill Bay since Coal & Allied and Lake Coal sold their mining holdings in and around the coastal hamlet, with three separate community groups now claiming to speak for residents.
The Catherine Hill Bay Progress Association, led by "old town" resident Sue Whyte, has been at loggerheads with Mr Nicholson, and describes the latest proposals - which she says includes a hotel on Catho's historically significant coal wharf - as a "Trojan horse" to cover a plan to have new houses built within the heritage precinct.
The Catherine Hill Bay Community Alliance was formed by residents of the Rose Group development south of the old township, and while it remains separate from the progress association, Ms Whyte said the two groups were working together.
A third group - the Beaches Action Group - is led by "new town" resident Burt Errington, who said it was formed as an independent voice from the other two groups as its members did not always agree with what the others were doing.
Mr Errington said yesterday that this group spoke for a majority of the 500 or so property owners in the Rose Group development.
He said residents in the Rose Group area had been promised a shop and a playground from the time the estate was first mooted some 15 years ago, and people were now "selling up because what was promised has not eventuated".
Despite this disappointment, he said he was happy to keep working with both developers to get an outcome that was best for everyone who lived there, and for the visitors who also wanted to enjoy a beautiful and historic part of the coast.
Lake Macquarie Council unanimously approved a Catherine Hill Bay Precincts Master Plan on September 26 last year, with "planning for two key land areas ... the Surf Life Saving Club Precinct and the Middle Camp Sports and Recreation Club precinct".
"The master plan provides the vision and framework to guide the implementation of community facilities required to the meet the growing communities of Catherine Hill Bay, Pinny Beach and Nords Wharf," the council agenda for September 26 says.
The council said yesterday it had met with the developers and given "preliminary advice on the assessment pathway".
"If and when a formal application is made, council will follow the legislated assessment and consultation process," a council spokesperson said.
A spokesperson said the eight-stage Rose Group estate was approved by the NSW Planning Department and timing of the shops "is not known to the council as it was not the approval authority".
Mr Rose and Mr Nicholson both said yesterday that preserving the heritage of the area - especially the jetty - cost money, and while neither would go into detail before the plans were made public, said that what they were proposing would be "welcomed by most people".
They said the jetty cost a lot of money to maintain and would be expensive to rehabilitate and that adaptive reuse was the best way to pay for the work needed to allow public access to a structure that was as iconic to Catherine Hill Bay as Nobbys was to Newcastle.
Mr Rose said another stage of his family's development would go on the market in the next few weeks, with almost 40 blocks on the former headland coal washery for sale from $810,000 upwards.
The development website shows the blocks range from 550 square metres to 3308 square metres.
On the promised shops and playground, Mr Rose blamed the delays on the time it had taken to rehabilitate the former Lake Coal site.
Ms Whyte said the progress association was concerned that the plans proposed by the two developers were at odds with the "quite modest" proposals in the council master plan.
She said the council was now being told, effectively, that the community contributions that have already been promised will only be possible if they get more land to develop.
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