Team of experts assemble to plan Bomen's future development

Daily Advertiser September 18th 2019

Wagga City Council's Peter Thompson, Anthea Sargeant from the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, and Regional Growth NSW's Brendan Nelson.

A team of town planners, urban designers, engineers and scientists are this week in Wagga to plan the development of the special activation precinct at Bomen. More than 50 delegates are attending a three-day design workshop in Wagga, which will include special briefings for landholders, an update for Wagga councillors, and a community information session in the civic precinct. The drop-on session for interested community members will be held at the Wagga Civic Centre on Wednesday between 10am and 2pm. Anthea Sargeant, an executive director with the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, said a wide range of issues, including noise and odour, biodiversity and sustainability, and infrastructure needs were among those being considered by the assembled experts. Nearby landholders have already been consulted once and will have follow-up consultations with the experts this week as well, Ms Sargeant said. Regional Growth NSW chief executive officer Brendan Nelson said other issues such as the precinct's use of renewable energy and its carbon footprint were also being considered. "We have an aspiration for the precinct to get to a point of being carbon neutral or carbon positive," Mr Nelson said. The information and ideas that come from this week's workshop will help to develop the master plan for the special activation precinct at Bomen. That draft master plan is currently expected to be ready for public exhibition and comment by the end of 2019.