Letters to the Editor
26 June, 2026
Onisforou challenges Mayor
Theo Onisforou has sent a letter to the editor challenging a local mayor.
Letter to the Editor
I am presently waiting for the Land and Environment Court decision after a lengthy and expensive hearing of my development application at 10 Illawarra Highway, Moss Vale.
This application was for a Paddington-style single-level terrace-style build-to-rent, low rental cost development application.
I attach an image to assist your readers.
In my fifty plus years as a developer, I have never had a development that I was more confident should and would be approved without any issue.
It is a fantastic new form of low rental accommodation.
As suggested, I paid my fees and attended a pre DA meeting with Council in this matter and came away thinking this will be a quick approval.
Two years later, with a new Council Town Planner looking at the DA, Council refused the DA, even though it was consistent with the pre-DA meeting recommendations. Go figure.
I took Council to the NSW Land and Environment Court.
My total fees paid to HWLE Lawyers in this matter were $131,000.
I presume Council spent about that amount of money in this matter as well.
There was no chance on the planet that this application was ever going to be refused by the Court and yet Council happily spent money fighting me, and yet morally they were not similarly happy to spend any money defending the Repoly appeal.
Why not?
As they say ‘go figure’.
My simple advice to Council is that going forward it agrees to be bound by its pre-DA recommendations, even if a new Council planner or outside planner takes over the application, to avoid such a waste of Council’s time and very very limited money.
Theo Onisforou, Kangaloon.
P.S. Mayor, are you interested in a little wager. If I win this case, you do not run for Council in 2028. If I lose I do not run for Council in 2028?
--------------
Subscribe to The Southern Wire Newsletter for free at the link below.
https://subscribe-forms.beehiiv.com/1986abc6-c89e-4781-9db2-cf35c9dd71e4
If you value independent local journalism across the Highlands, Tablelands and Wollondilly, please click the link below to support us to ensure we remain paywall free.
Read More: Southern Highlands