Council Confirms Base is a "Planning Fortress" — We Escalated to the Next Level!
Dear Supporters,
We have a massive structural victory to share that completely changes the battlefield in our fight to save Timor Barracks!
Following our recent surge past 390 + verified signatures, Parramatta Council’s Executive Director of City Planning has formally assessed our campaign file under Council Service Request REQ2026-082748.
The official planning audit has revealed three critical facts that completely weaponize our position:
Strict Prohibition of Housing: The vast majority of the 3.1-hectare Timor Barracks site is heavily locked under SP2 Public Administration zoning. Council has explicitly confirmed that all other land uses, including residential housing and apartments are completely prohibited on this footprint.
Statutory Heritage Lockdowns: The site houses two active, legally binding local heritage listings: Kissing Point Cottage (Item I152) and the Signals Hall / Army Signal Corps (Item I153). These listings enforce strict statutory protections that prevent demolition and heavily restrict any developer's footprint.
Exclusion from All Growth Precincts: The base is entirely absent from all local and NSW State Government short-to-medium-term housing growth precincts. It is completely unrecognized for development.
What This Means for Our Strategy:
This is incredible news! It means Timor Barracks is already a planning fortress. As it stands today, the site is completely toxic and financially unviable for commercial property developers.
Because Council planning staff have confirmed that any future development applications would face years of merit-based hurdles, we have decided to put our local Council floor motion on hold. Flooding the Council chamber with a non-binding political vote right now is an unnecessary expenditure of energy, given the existing heavy zoning restrictions that are already doing the heavy lifting for us on the ground!
Our Next Target:
Now, we are pivoting our immediate campaign focus away from local government chambers and shifting entirely toward the federal and military level. We are currently engaging directly with senior federal representatives and statesmen, including the office of former Prime Minister John Howard, to leverage these exact planning facts and force the Commonwealth to pull the site from the Defence Estate Audit list entirely.
Our community engine is humming, but we cannot take our foot off the pedal. We are rapidly closing in on our next major milestone of 500 signatures.
Please take 10 seconds to share our direct short link via text, email, or social media with three friends or family members tonight:
https://www.change.org/SaveTimorBarracks
(A quick reminder: It is NOT necessary to donate any money if the Change.org platform asks you to "chip in" after signing as 100% of those funds go straight to the website operator, not our cause. We only want your signatures and shares!)
Thank you for standing firm with our Cadets, Reservists, and emergency logistics teams. We are winning this fight from the ground up.
Warm regards,
Phil Hickman APM
Campaign Organiser / Retired NSW Police Superintendent