Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig has refused to get involved after a call from Ourimbah residents asking for State Government support to get land returned to the community.
The Minister was obliged to respond after a petition from more than 500 residents was lodged with the State Parliament.
The petition called on the State Government to call on Central Coast Council to take possession of University land on behalf of the community.
The residents want the University of Newcastle to return to the community the land at 1A Jacques St, Ourimbah, which was home until recently of The Hangar.
Mr Hoenig said the future of the land was exclusively a matter for the university as the landholder and he noted it was in conversation with Central Coast Council.
He said as the Local Government Minister he did not have wide-ranging powers to intervene in the affairs of individual councils.
“The Act also does not provide me the power to direct a council to acquire or dispose of land holdings,” Mr Hoenig said in his response, made public on July 13.
“Councils are largely independent and self-governing bodies with discretions, rights and powers conferred by law,” he said.
Mr Hoenig said he had written to the administrator of Council, Rik Hart, advising him of the petition.
“As the tier closest to the community, councils are responsible for deciding how best to spend resources to best meet the current and future needs of their local community,” Mr Hoenig said.
Newcastle university demolished the Nissen Hut, called the Hangar, recently but public toilets are still there.
The community donated the land to the university in the 1990s.
But the university stopped using the Hangar years ago and recently decided it no longer needed the land and wanted to sell it.
It was intended to dismantle the Nissen Hut but earlier this year it was deemed unsalvageable and it was demolished.
Ourimbah Region Residents Association campaigned to save the Nissen Hut and now want the land returned to the community.
Earlier this year the association said it believed the university had a moral obligation to return the land to the community.
