The Wallace St facility, owned by AAGANA, was all set and ready to go, requiring only final compliance certificates, however with a price tag of $45,286, this was a step too far for managing director David Ney.

"I feel absolutely gutted - here we have this purpose-built facility, which was providing nine local jobs and had thus far put close to a million dollars into the local economy and we are stymied because of money."

He said the sticking point was in the interpretation of the definition of a group home, which he said was a single household (a view supported by a report from an independent planner commissioned by him).

"But the council has levied their charges based on a boarding house, which is able to accommodate many more people than we are intending to have here."

In his report however the council's Daniel Walsh, Manager Development and Environment, said the applicant had not taken into account the proposed group home was not an average residential dwelling house.

"The proposed group home has accommodation for up to 12 men. The average number of people per household in NSW is 2.6 people. Given that a standard ET (Equivalent Tenements) is based off average state-wide data, it is not considered appropriate to classify the group home as a single household as suggested by the applicant," Mr Walsh wrote.

Mr Walsh then went into details about why the decision was not in breach of the Local Environment Plan (see page 38 of the linked document), as Mr Ney contended.

Mr Ney said it had been heartbreaking to send clients, who were half way through their 12-step program, to other facilities in the region.

"I have got this started entirely at my own expense, however we simply have not got the sort of money they are asking at this point - so we are closing our doors."

He said although residents usually came from out of town, they volunteered locally "and if they were here now, they would be out helping with the fire cleanup."

"Plus we have the parents and partners of locals who are in other facilities, ringing us and asking us what to do when their loved ones come home ... we offer a vital community service - who is going to do that now?"

Having voted in favour of the facility in September, the final hurdle of deciding the amount of contributions payable, now sees the project brought to a halt.

Voting in favour of the motion that contributions payable remained at $45,286 were Councillors Ainsworth, Reed, Wilson and Hoban. Crs Ballangarry, Jones and Jenvey voted against the motion. Cr Anne Smyth was absent.

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