Closest neighbour shows it's the place to invest

In value, only the City of Sydney beat Lake Macquarie.
On the Central Coast, Gosford Council approved 2,062 DAs worth $399.9 million compared with Wyong’s 1,788 approvals worth $273.7.  For the Central Coast region it represents investment of $673.6 million for the 2006-2007 year.

However, The figures for Gosford and Wyong were down on 2005-06 which showed Gosford approving 2,955 DAs worth $365.8 million and Wyong approving 2,561 DAs worth $488.6 million. The figures are drawn from the Department of Planning’s Local Development Performance: 2006-07, a report card on the performance of all councils in NSW which was released in late March.

For all of NSW, Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Gosford and Wyong Councils were among the ‘top ten’ Councils for the highest number of DAs. However, all but Lake Macquarie fell out of the ‘top ten’ when it came to total value.

Determination times
The Report discloses that Wyong Council is remains a good place to do business, taking 47 day on average to process applications. This compares with Gosford Council which took 73 days on average. Interestingly, Lake Macquarie Council took 74 days.

In 2006-07 the number of full-time equivalent (EFT) staff employed by Gosford Council, on average, was reported as 64, a decline of 29% on the previous year. At Wyong Council the average number of EFT staff was 66, 17% less than in 2005-06.

Legal costs
In 2006-07 legal fees by Gosford Councils were unreported which indicates that they had dropped below the $500,000 threshold. In 2005-06 Gosford Council ranked 7th in the State with legal fees of $647,515.
Only six Councils in NSW had legal fees above $500,000 in 2006-07, all in metropolitan Sydney.

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