Waverley Municipal Council

Suburbs and localities in the local government area

Suburbs serviced by Waverley Council are:

These localities are also serviced by Waverley Council:

Note: On 6 October 1944, the recommendation to remove the Mill Hill area (37 acres) from the Randwick LGA and include it in the Waverley LGA was proclaimed in the NSW Government Gazette. The recommendation was the result of a 1941 NSW Local Government Department Commission of Inquiry.

Demographics

At the 2011 census, there were 63,487 people in the Waverley LGA, of these 49.2% were male and 50.8% were female. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 0.4% of the population. The median age of people in the Municipality of Waverley was 35 years. Children aged 0 – 14 years made up 15.4% of the population and people aged 65 years and over made up 12.0% of the population. Of people in the area aged 15 years and over, 37.4% were married and 10.0% were either divorced or separated.

Population growth in the Municipality of Waverley between the 2001 Census and the 2006 Census was 3.31%; and in the subsequent five years to the 2011 Census, population growth was 4.57%. When compared with total population growth of Australia for the same periods, being 5.78% and 8.32% respectively, population growth in the Waverley local government area was a little over half the national average. The median weekly income for residents within the Municipality of Waverley was more than 1.5 times the national average.

The proportion of residents in Waverley LGA who stated their ancestry was Jewish was three times the New South Wales and national averages. The proportion of households where Russian is spoken at home is thirteen times the state and national averages; and of all households where Hebrew is spoken in New South Wales, one third are located in the Municipality of Waverley, and in Australia, one tenth of households where Hebrew is spoken are located in Waverley LGA. The proportion of residents who stated an affiliation with Judaism was in excess of twenty–eight times the state and national averages.

Current composition and election method

Waverley Municipal Council is composed of twelve Councillors elected proportionally from the four separate wards, each electing three Councillors. All Councillors are elected for a fixed four-year term of office. The Mayor is elected by the Councillors at the first meeting of the Council. The most recent election was held on 8 September 2012, and the makeup of the Council is as follows:

The current Council, elected in 2012, in order of election by ward, is:

History

On 11 November 1858, a petition for the incorporation of the Municipality of Waverley was presented to the Governor-General and Governor-in-Chief of the Colony of NSW, Sir William Thomas Denison; a second petition was presented to Sir Denison on 17 May 1859. Sir Denison approved the proclamation establishing the Municipality of Waverley on 13 June 1859, and it was subsequently published on 16 June 1859 as a fourth supplement to the NSW Government Gazette of 14 June 1859. The legislation that enabled the Municipality of Waverley to be established is the Municipalities Act of 1858 (22 Vic. No. 13).

On 15 June 1859, the first returning officer for the Municipality of Waverley, Charles St. Julian, Esquire of Paddington was proclaimed by Sir Denison. Sir Denison also stated that the first meeting of the Municipality of Waverley was to be held at midday on 14 July 1859.

The first Council meeting was held on 16 June 1859, but there was no permanent office for the conduct of Council duties some early meetings were held in the Charing Cross Hotel and others in the old School of Arts building in Bronte Road.

In December, 1860 the Council accepted an offer from Francis O'Brien of a site for a Council Chambers, free of cost, in Bondi Road. The cost of building was to be limited to ₤500, although approximately £700 was eventually spent. The foundation stone was laid in 1861, and a first meeting of Council was held there on 21 November 1861, the first Council building erected by any municipality under the Municipalities Act of 1858. Discussions were held during the early 1900s over the need for new Council Chambers, and in 1913 a portion of the north-west corner of Waverley Park was dedicated as the site for a new building. A report of the same year stated that the original building was too small for the staff, and had poor ventilation and lighting. It was later sold for £1,600. The new building was completed by the end of 1913, and on 6 January 1914 the Council met for the first time in the new chambers.

Parts of the 1913 chambers still form the shell of the present Council Chambers, although extensive alterations in 1962, and further development in 1976 and 1977 have altered its appearance considerably. There is clear evidence - in the form of significant Aboriginal rock carvings in particular - that Aboriginal people occupied sites in the area now known as Waverley in the period before European settlement. A number of place names within Waverley Municipal Council area, most famously Bondi, have been based on words derived from Aboriginal languages of the Sydney region.

Proposed amalgamation

A 2015 review of local government boundaries recommended that the Municipality of Waverley merge with the Woollahra and Randwick councils to form a new council with an area of 58 square kilometres (22 sq mi) and support a population of approximately 274,000. Following an independent review, in May 2016 the NSW Government sought to dismiss the Council and force its amalgamation with Woollahra and Randwick councils. Woollahra Council instigated legal action claiming that there was procedural unfairness and that a KPMG report at the centre of merger proposals had been "misleading". The matter was heard before the NSW Court of Appeal who, in December 2016, unanimously dismissed Woollahra Council's appeal, finding no merit in its arguments that the proposed merger with Waverley and Randwick councils was invalid.