Ku-ring-gai Council


Ku-ring-gai Council is a local government area in Northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The region is named after the Kuringgai tribe who once inhabited the area.
Major transport routes through the area include the Pacific Highway and North Shore railway line. Because of its good soils and elevated position as part of the Hornsby Plateau, Ku-ring-gai was originally covered by a large area of dry sclerophyll forest, parts of which still remain and form a component of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. There are also many domestic gardens in the residential parts of Ku-ring-gai.
The Mayor of Ku-ring-gai Council is Cr. Jennifer Anderson, an independent politician. Anderson was elected to her sixth term as mayor on 17 September 2019.
Ku-ring-gai is the most advantaged area in Australia to live in, at the top of the Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage.

Suburbs and localities in the local government area

Suburbs and localities serviced by Ku-ring-gai Council are:

Demographics

At the, there were people in the Ku-ring-gai Council local government area, of these 48 per cent were male and 52 per cent were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 0.2 per cent of the population, significantly below the national average of 2.8 per cent. The median age of people in the Ku-ring-gai Council area was 41 years; slightly above the national average of 38 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 20.2 per cent of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 18.2 per cent of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 61.3 per cent were married and 4.3 per cent were either divorced or separated; a rate that is more than half the national average.
Population growth in the Ku-ring-gai Council area between the and the was 0.93 per cent and in the subsequent five years to the, population growth was 8.13 per cent. At the 2016 census, the population in the Ku-ring-gai Council area increased by 8.1 per cent. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same period, being 8.8 per cent, population growth in the Ku-ring-gai local government area generally on par with the national average. The median weekly income for residents within the Ku-ring-gai Council area was significantly higher than the national average.
At the 2016 census, the area was linguistically diverse, with Asian languages spoken in more than 18 per cent of households; more than four times the national average. Whilst the rate of all residents in the Ku-ring-gai Council area who nominated a religious affiliation with the Anglican Church has been declining over a number of census periods, the proportion during the 2016 census was 40% greater than the national average of 13.3 per cent.

Council

Current composition and election method

Ku-ring-gai Council is composed of ten Councillors elected proportionally as five separate wards, each electing two Councillors. All Councillors are elected for a fixed four-year term of office, but due to delays as a result of amalgamation processes, the current term will only run for three years. The Mayor is elected bi-annually by the Councillors at the first meeting of the Council, while the Deputy Mayor is elected annually. The most recent full Council election was held on 9 September 2017, and the makeup of the Council is as follows:
The current Council, elected in 2017, in order of election by ward, is:

Council history

Ku-ring-gai was first incorporated on 6 March 1906 as the "Shire of Ku-ring-gai" and the first Shire Council was elected on 24 November 1906. The first leader of the council was elected at the first meeting on 8 December 1906, when Councillor William Cowan was elected as Shire President. There would not be a Deputy President until the council election on 1 March 1920.
On 22 September 1928, the Shire of Ku-ring-gai was proclaimed as the "Municipality of Ku-ring-gai" and the titles of 'Shire President' and 'Councillor' were retitled to be 'Mayor' and 'Alderman' respectively. In 1993, with the passing of a new Local Government Act, council was retitled as simply "Ku-ring-gai Council" and Aldermen were retitled as Councillors.
A 2015 review of local government boundaries by the NSW Government Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal recommended that Ku-ring-gai Council and parts of the Hornsby Shire north of the M2 merge to form a new council with an area of and support a population of approximately 270,000. The Ku-ring-gai Council took the NSW Government to court and, on appeal, the NSW Court of Appeal found that the Council had been denied procedural fairness. The proposed merger was stood aside indefinitely. In July 2017, the Berejiklian government decided to abandon the forced merger of the Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai local government areas, along with several other proposed forced mergers.

Planning and development

During the term of former Planning Minister, Frank Sartor, planning law reforms were passed that gave development approval to a panel and away from local government. These new laws were controversially implemented in Ku-ring-gai, with immense opposition from the local population who claim that their suburbs, with nationally recognised heritage values in both housing and original native forest, are being trashed by slab-sided apartment developments with no effective protection provided by either the Ku-ring-gai Council or the State Government. This has been termed "The Rape of Ku-ring-gai".
The laws are intended to take development approval power away from local councils and to the Planning NSW, via the development panels. Planning panels are about to be introduced across New South Wales under recently passed planning reforms. In 2005-06, Ku-ring-gai had the second highest reported total development value in the state - A$1.7 billion, more than Parramatta, second only to the City of Sydney.

Shire Clerks, Town Clerks and General Managers

Heritage listings

Ku-ring-gai Council has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: