The fate of more than 500 trees in the way of Orange's $25 million sporting complex is set to be decided at an extraordinary Orange City Council meeting later this month.
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And while it is expected a public forum will be provided to allow people to address the council at the meeting council will not alter meeting procedures or accept any further petitions or submissions on the issue.
The meeting will take place in the council chamber from 7pm on Tuesday, April 27.
We have rules we have to abide by
- Cr Reg Kidd, Orange mayor
Tuesday night's council meeting was told staff were awaiting the Heritage Council of NSW setting its terms of consent for the removal of the trees at the former golf course at Bloomfield before a report and recommendation was put to the extraordinary meeting.
In Tuesday's public forum council was asked to change its meeting format to allow discussion between councillors and people in the gallery.
However, Cr Joanne McRae said she wanted to ensure governance rules were followed in the decision making.
"One of the speakers in tonight's forum mentioned possibly having some sort of different process," she said.
"I have also seen still around Orange some petitions that continue but I believe the exhibition period had closed."
Mayor Cr Reg Kidd said normal meeting rules would apply.
"We have rules we have to abide by and we cannot change. It will be a normal council meeting and the protocols will be according to the meeting [rules]. There would be no changes."
Council CEO David Waddell said staff had contacted the Heritage Council.
"We are awaiting for the Heritage Council's terms of consent and then we can go to the finish line. No more petitions are being accepted or will be considered in the report as is our normal practice," he said.
About 170 public submissions were received in the public exhibition period which ended on February 5.
Cr Stephen Nugent asked for the meeting date to be pushed back to May 11 and that up to a week be provided between the council report becoming public and the matter debated to give people more time to assess it.
"An extraordinary meeting is warranted for such an important issue. The paper that is going to be produced will be quite a large one, if we've got 170 submissions."
However Cr Kidd said councillors needed to allocate time off work and fit with other commitments for an extraordinary meeting and changing the date would cause problems including some possibly being unable to attend.
Under the plan 513 trees (449 exotic species including pines, 55 native planted species and nine remnant native trees) would be removed and 281 would be kept.
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