Proposal for '20 year plan' of CBD beautification to be voted on at council meeting

The proposal has been put forward as part of an effort to beautify the city centre, which will help achieve the Blueprint 100 plan according the mayor, Col Murray.

"I think it will help refresh and revitalise our CBD, part of one of the other reports from the city centre working group talks about asking the council to consider the next stages of beautification," he said.

"That's very much a 20-year project, and the excellence in design goes hand in hand with that to ensure that we don't get too bland developments in the CBD, and that they are attractive and high quality."

The business district is currently zoned as 'B3 Commercial Core', which comes with its own set of criteria, and if a development application meets that criteria then there is currently limited grounds to refuse it.

However, it is argued in the council's business papers the criteria is not in line with Blueprint 100, so approving these developments is counter-productive.

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"Unfortunately, it is apparent that the zone objectives (which commenced as part of the Local Environmental Plan in 2010) are not particularly helpful in achieving council's (and the community's) Blueprint vision," it reads.

"However, at present, any development application lodged within the zone must be assessed against these objectives and on this basis, there are limited grounds available to either refuse a development, or require a proponent to enhance the design, the appearance or the activation potential of the proposal."

If the proposal is approved, the label 'design excellence' will remain relatively open ended though.

While some regions require their businesses to maintain a certain colour scheme or architectural theme, Cr Murray said Tamworth council will not go that far.

"It's just more broadly to just have an excellence in design so they're high quality designs," he said.

"We're not specifically asking for any theme or anything, it's just a much more broad statement."

If approved by council on Tuesday, a planning proposal will be forwarded to the Department of Planning, Industry and Environment requesting a gateway determination. Public exhibition will then take place if required.

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