4 to 2the committee vote endorsing the staged hybrid model, 6 October 2026

3 to 3the vote on an amendment to defer, lost on the chair’s casting vote

6 of 7committee members present for the item; one absent

What the committee did

Two days ago we set out the officers’ report: no government funding found for the runway upgrade the 2025 master plan relied on, and a recommendation to switch to a smaller, staged model. The committee’s minutes now record what happened to it. Cr John Mouland moved a motion that follows the recommendation with two changes, set out below, and Cr Trent McWaide seconded it. Cr Jane Smith, seconded by Cr Kyle MacGregor, moved an amendment instead: receive the two progress reports, and Defer any further consideration or action of the Master Plan to Gateway 2 until the Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement is finalised by the State Government and reported back to Council.

Six of the committee’s seven members were there for the item, two of them remotely. The amendment split them evenly, and the chair, Mayor John McNamara, used the casting vote against it. The motion then carried 4 to 2. Cr Belinda Neal, who joined the meeting at 4.20pm, seven minutes after the item began, voted for the amendment and then for the motion.

Amendment · moved by Cr Smith

Receive the progress reports; defer further consideration or action on Gateway 2 until the Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement is finalised and reported back to Council

For3

  • Cr Smith
  • Cr MacGregor
  • Cr Neal

Against3

  • Mayor McNamara (chair)
  • Cr McWaide
  • Cr Mouland

Lost on the casting vote of the chair

Motion EDC-26/70 · moved by Cr Mouland

Receive the progress reports; support the amended Gateway 2 and actions 15 to 22; endorse the staged hybrid-delivery model; eleven parts in all

For4

  • Mayor McNamara
  • Cr McWaide
  • Cr Mouland
  • Cr Neal

Against2

  • Cr Smith
  • Cr MacGregor

Carried

Absent: Cr Lawrie McKinna. Cr Neal was present for items 2.3 to 3.1.

How the two votes on item 2.3 fell, as recorded in the Economic Development Committee minutes of 6 October 2026, pages 1 and 6 to 8. The one-line summaries of each proposal are ours; the names, counts and results are the minutes’.

Two changes to the officers’ words

The motion that carried follows the officers’ eleven-part recommendation almost word for word. We compared the two texts line by line and found two changes of substance. The first widens what Council may do with Area 2, one of the development parcels around the airfield: the recommendation spoke only of a sale, and the resolution adds a lease. The second concerns the Central Coast Aero Club. The recommendation would have authorised the chief executive to negotiate and finalise a long-term access agreement with the club; the resolution inserts the words “through Council resolution”, which on our reading means councillors, not the chief executive alone, finalise it.

Officers’ recommendation

  • Part 4(b): considers the sale of part of Area 2 to contribute to enabling infrastructure costs
  • Part 10: Authorises the Chief Executive Officer to negotiate and finalise a long-term access agreement with the Central Coast Aero Club

Resolution as carried

  • Part 4(b): considers the sale or lease of part of Area 2 to contribute to enabling infrastructure costs
  • Part 10: Authorises the Chief Executive Officer to negotiate and finalise through Council resolution, long-term access agreement with the Central Coast Aero Club

Highlighted: the words the resolution adds. The other nine parts match the recommendation apart from punctuation.

The recommendation is from item 2.3 of the 6 October 2026 agenda, pages 23 and 24; the resolution, EDC-26/70, from the minutes, pages 6 and 7. Highlighting is ours.

The protections the officers proposed survived intact. The resolution still says the model requires further Council approval before any land disposal, external operating arrangement or additional capital commitment proceeds, still notes that the airport lighting upgrades will be paid for from the 2026-27 capital budget Council has already approved, and still notes that the planning proposal will go on public exhibition before any final planning determination.

What the deferral was about

The amendment tied the next stage to the Porters Creek Wetland Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement, a proposed conservation agreement over council-owned land at Porters Creek Wetland and the Warnervale Floodplain, part of it contributed from the airport master plan land. The officers’ report calls it a significant environmental and financial component of the Airport Master Plan: the sale of biodiversity credits could bring Council money, and the credits may be needed for future airport development. The report does not put a date on the agreement being finalised. Its latest milestone is the assessment report, with BSSAR lodgement planned for February 2027.

The Porters Creek Wetland agreement, as the report describes it

  • Investigation areaabout 1,000 ha
  • Council-owned lots34
  • Share of the assessment area from airport master plan landabout 15%
  • Land proposed for rezoning to C2 Environmental Conservationabout 38 ha
  • Interim agreement assessmentcomplete
  • Site assessment report lodgementplanned Feb 2027

The report expects it to be the largest Biodiversity Stewardship Agreement Council has undertaken.

From item 2.3 of the 6 October 2026 Economic Development Committee agenda, pages 30, 32, 39 and 40. The report gives no date for the agreement itself to be finalised.

The minutes record the amendment’s words but not the debate, so they do not say why its mover and seconder wanted to wait, or why the majority did not. The amendment’s own words describe the agreement as one to be finalised by the State Government; the report describes it as an agreement Council is undertaking. We report both as written.

The question left open

The officers’ report made one recommendation without an answer in it: it asked the committee for direction on whether to run an expression of interest for an outside operator. That is the choice between the two hybrid scenarios the consultants modelled, Council running the airport or an operator doing it, and on our subtraction of their figures the gap between the two is about $3.7 million in net present value over 20 years. The resolution carries that part in the same words.

Provides direction on whether to pursue an Expression of Interest process to identify and engage a suitably qualified external operator for Airport operations only.

Part 5 of resolution EDC-26/70, Economic Development Committee minutes, 6 October 2026, page 7

No direction follows it in the minutes, which we read in full. That matters because the first operator step in the plan the committee has just supported waits on exactly that answer. Action 16 in the amended Gateway 2 list reads:

Subject to the determination of Recommendation 5, undertake an EOI process and appoint a preferred airport operator.

Amended Implementation Action 16, item 2.3, Economic Development Committee agenda, 6 October 2026, page 38

Our view

The committee has endorsed a direction, not a deal, and the resolution says so in terms: no land sale, no operator contract and no new capital without another Council decision. Adding the lease option for Area 2 and putting the aero club agreement before Council are both sensible tightenings. But the one question that most changes the money, whether anyone will run the airport for Council, is recorded as a request for direction with no direction attached. Until that is settled the plan’s operator step cannot start, and the stronger of the two hybrid cases rests on an assumed operator payment; the report describes no approach to the market so far. A 3 to 3 split on whether to wait for the biodiversity agreement, settled by the chair’s casting vote, says the committee was not of one mind either. The next Council decision on the airport should answer the operator question on the record.

What happens next

The officers’ report said it recommends that the amended Gateway 2 program be referred to Council for final consideration and determination. The resolution as carried opens with “That the Committee” and contains no referral; at the same meeting the committee carried the next item, the draft Commercial Lands Strategy, in the form “That the Committee recommends that Council”. The minutes do not say whether the airport resolution goes to full Council. The next Ordinary Council meeting is on 27 October. We will read its agenda when it is published and say here whether the airport is on it.

  1. 25 February 2025 Council adopts resolutions 553/25 to 561/25 on the airport master plan.
  2. 6 October 2026 Economic Development Committee endorses the staged hybrid model, 4 to 2.
  3. 8 October 2026 The committee’s minutes are published to the council’s business papers portal.
  4. 27 October 2026 Next Ordinary Council meeting, 6.30pm, Central Coast Chambers.
  5. 3 November 2026 Next Economic Development Committee meeting, as scheduled in the minutes.
  6. February 2027 Planned lodgement of the Porters Creek biodiversity site assessment report.

Sources: 6 October 2026 agenda, item 2.3, pages 23 and 30; 6 October 2026 minutes, pages 6 to 8; the portal’s record of the minutes’ upload; the council meetings page, read 8 October 2026. No date is given for the end of Gateway 2, when the resolution asks for a further report to the committee.