Central Coast Council will call for expressions of interest for “aviation purposes” to come to Warnervale Airport, after failing to sign up Nighthawks, a business that approached Council for a helipad lease at the airport.
Nighthawks approached Council asking for a quick decision late last year.
But in April this year, while Council was still in its due diligence stage, the company said it would take the business to Melbourne.
It is believed the business is going to Essendon airport, which is run by private enterprise with a long term lease from the Federal Government.
The Nighthawk request saw an urgent motion debated in Council in November last year.
The Liberal/Team Central Coast (eight votes) were all for a quick decision and voted to allow the CEO to go ahead and organise a lease.
They defeated the Labor/independents (seven votes), who argued for a public open tender rather than dealing with only one company and against any decision at all before a masterplan for the airport was adopted.
The defeated seven put up not one but two rescission motions to try to reverse the decision.
Both rescission motions failed 7-8.
Since November 2024, the airport masterplan has been adopted.
The report to the councillors at the May meeting recommended that Council conduct a public Expression of Interest (EOI), over part of the site and negotiate, finalise and enter into a suitable leasing arrangement after consultation with councillors.
A helicopter business is not reliant on any widening or strengthening of the runway.
Councillor Corinne Lamont asked about community consultation.
CEO David Farmer said no community consultation was needed for the lease but then the lessee would need to get a development application approved and that would go on community exhibition during that process.
Councillor Margot Castles put up an amendment wanting a bit more detail about how long a long-term lease would be but it didn’t get the numbers.
The airport runs at a loss – last year it was $158,000.
The Master Plan has been “strategically structured”, with foundational work to be completed over two years.
These foundational works include sorting out the zonings and the subdivisions that apply to different parts of the land, separating the surrounding wetlands from the airport and a biodiversity stewardship agreement.
After that a further report will be presented to Council for consideration on how to proceed.
Options include improving and upgrading the runway, preparing areas for leasing potentially to aviation-related businesses and sewer and road works – with all options requiring various amounts of millions of dollars to implement.
An operational budget of about $655,000 will be spent on the airport over the next two years.
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