Cr Hassan Awada said he's been unfairly maligned by 'innuendo'

‘‘I’m not a property developer,’’ he said. ‘‘I haven’t built anything apart from childcare centres and my houses.’’

He owns and operates childcare centres at Bexley North and Bardwell Valley.

He said the only development application he had submitted was for three adjoining properties he owns on Seaview Street, Cronulla, which he bought before being elected to the council.

The proposed rezoning of these properties, two houses and a block of four flats, was highlighted when allegations the council was doing favours for developers were reported by Fairfax Media in 2013.

ICAC examined this and other matters and decided against a formal inquiry, saying the allegations were speculative.

Cr Awada said on Monday that he would ‘‘probably never build’’ on the Seaview Street site.

‘‘It’s an investment property but people keep saying I’m a property developer,’’ he said.

Cr Awada said a DA he lodged was approved under delegated authority in late 2011 or early 2012, before he was elected to council. He hadn’t proceeded with the development and the DA was about to expire. He said he declared a pecuniary interest and absented himself from the meeting when the council considered rezoning the area in the new local environmental plan.

The area had been ‘‘marginally’’ upsized in the first LEP draft from a floor space ratio of 1:1 to 1:1.2, he said.

Cr Awada said the floor space ratio was increased to 1:1.5 in Cr Kent Johns’s controversial mayoral minute before being dropped back to 1:1.2 in the final plan.

He said the Electoral Funding Authority examined donations he made to the Liberal Party and found there was nothing untoward.

Cr Awada said his son bought a house on Dianella Street, Caringbah, which was rezoned for high-rise development, after the first draft of the LEP was exhibited.

HASSAN AWADA

Hassan Awada, 48, is married with four children, 11 to 23, and lives at Bexley. He said since coming to Australia in 1988, he had lived ‘‘90 per cent of the time in Sutherland Shire’’.

‘‘Family circumstances’’ led to his move to Bexley in 2012 but he planned to return.

‘‘My heart is in the shire,’’ he said. ‘‘My first job in Australia was as a hairdresser at Miranda Fair [Westfield Miranda] and my first home was at Menai. I was a hairdresser at Cronulla for 17 years.’’

Cr Awada is president of the Liberal Party’s Miranda-Kingsway branch and vice-president of the Cook electoral council.

Other councillors say he wields a great deal of power in branch politics where he is a member of the moderates faction.