About Preserve the Reserve
Who We Are:
Preserve the Reserve is a community campaign initiated by residents of Gosford and the Central Coast who share a deep connection to the Rumbalara ridgeline and a commitment to ensuring that major planning decisions affecting our community receive the scrutiny they deserve.
We are not affiliated with any political party, developer, or commercial interest. We are voters, neighbours, ratepayers, and community members who believe that Gosford's natural landscape is worth defending. When the NSW Government creates new fast-track planning pathways, those pathways should not be used to push through inappropriate developments that would otherwise never be considered let alone approved.
Why We Started:
This campaign began in response to in inappropriate, over-height residential development at 70 John Whiteway Drive, Gosford — a site sitting directly on the Rumbalara Ridgeline, adjacent to protected bushland, the fire trail access and the Coastal Open Space System.
The proposal is, by any measure, gross overdevelopment. The site already has approval for a 4-5 storey building. This new proposal is more than double that height, reaching RL101.7m — well beyond the current planning controls of RL77m. The developer is not simply applying to build something — they are simultaneously applying to have the planning rules rewritten to make it possible. The FSR would increase from 1.5:1 to 2.5:1. The height controls would be lifted by 32% at the standard level alone.
What makes this especially concerning is how it is being done. This proposal has been declared through the NSW Housing Development Authority — a fast-track pathway introduced in 2025 to accelerate housing delivery across NSW. The HDA pathway was designed for well-located, largely compliant housing projects. It was not designed — or at least should not have been designed — to green-light a 13-storey tower on a sensitive ridgeline, adjacent to a biodiversity corridor, on a site with known bushfire, geotechnical and visual impact constraints that the applicant's own scoping report acknowledges.
The consequence of the HDA declaration is that normal community safeguards have been reduced. The minimum public exhibition period is cut from 28 days to 14 days. The Minister for Planning — not an independent body — is the decision-maker. The community has less time, less process, and less recourse than it would have for a standard development application of this scale and sensitivity.
We started this campaign because we believe the community deserves to know what is being proposed, how it is being processed, and what is at stake if it is approved.
What We Stand For
We support housing that genuinely serves the Central Coast community — well-located, well-designed, and proportionate to its setting. We are not anti-development. Housing is a real need and we acknowledge it.
What we oppose is the use of emergency housing policy to fast-track a development that is wildly out of scale with its surroundings, would permanently scar one of the Central Coast's most distinctive natural landmarks, and would set a precedent for what can be pushed through sensitive environments under the cover of housing supply arguments.
The Rumbalara ridgeline is not an appropriate site for a 13-storey tower. The HDA pathway was not created to override decades of considered community planning simply because a developer framed their proposal around affordable housing. Ten percent affordable housing — for fifteen years — is a modest public benefit in exchange for a permanent and irreversible change to the Gosford skyline.
What We Do
We research and communicate the facts about this proposal in plain language so residents can form their own informed view. We draw exclusively on the applicant's own documents, NSW Government planning instruments, and verified public records. Where we make claims, they are sourced. If we have made an error, we welcome correction.
We provide tools to make it straightforward for community members to lodge their own unique, personalised submission to the Department of Planning. And we advocate for Central Coast Council to take a formal position, because a Council objection remains one of the most powerful mechanisms available to the community under the current planning framework.
Get Involved
This campaign grows through community participation. Whether you live on John Whiteway Drive, can see the ridgeline from your street, or simply care about what kind of city Gosford becomes — your voice matters.
Every unique, personalised submission on this proposal strengthens the case for proper, independent scrutiny of a development that should never have been fast-tracked in the first place.