Local resident and Katoomba Chamber member Marie Wood persists with her campaign for street trees in Lurline Street. The Council commissions a plan for tree planting along Lurline Street from Waratah to Merriwa Streets as a template for the street.

Lurline Street Katoomba (Waratah to Merriwa Street) Landscape & Street Tree Planting Plan by landscape design and planning consultants Craig Burton and Ron Powell supports and elaborates the recommendations of the 2009 Feasibility Study. They scope the entire project.

They suggest that the Council consider turning this first block of the project, at the bottom of the town centre, into a shared vehicle and pedestrian zone called ‘Lurline Plaza’. They also suggest native Kurrajong trees be considered as feature trees outside the RSL Club due to their significance to both ANZAC and indigenous heritage.

The Katoomba Chamber of Commerce & Community and Katoomba RSL Club are invited to provide feedback as ‘stakeholders’.

Burton and Powell’s Final Report urges Council to undertake “a comprehensive improvement of Lurline Street as a matter of the highest priority”.

In 2018, Katoomba resident, writer and artist Lowell Tarling revives the push for street trees on Lurline with a poster, letters, and conversations. This ripples out and draws together local councillors, residents, businesses and community groups including those involved in the earlier advocacy and commissioned work for Lurline Street. Landscape architect Ron Powell is able to update everyone on existing City Council studies and plans including the 2015 plan he and Craig Burton provided for Council.

In January 2019, the team adopts the name Treeline Lurline and formally organises under the auspice of the Katoomba Chamber of Commerce & Community.

The team’s early activities include a website, facebook page, public forum, street stalls, fliers, banner, petition and letters to relevant ministers. Their campaign is greatly assisted by two watercolours provided by artist and architectural illustrator David Wardman that envisage a treelined Lurline Street. These artworks become central to Treeline Lurline promotions.

Councillors Kerry Brown and Kevin Schreiber work represent the community push to integrate the project as a priority in Council’s twenty-year Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS).

Blue Mountains 2040 Living Sustainably: Local Strategic Planning Statement 2020 is approved at the March 2020 Council meeting. This includes Lurline Street as a priority for streetscape enhancement and active transport (walking and cycling).

The LSPS also confirms Katoomba’s designation by the State government as a Strategic Regional Centre. As such, Katoomba is prioritised at all levels of government for investment to improve liveability,  public spaces, street life, active transport facilities and economic activity. The Treeline Lurline project is a perfect fit.

“Local Planning Priority 7 Actions: Sustaining a healthy local economy, including a focus on Katoomba as our strategic centre…..7.8 Council will investigate opportunities for active transport connections and public space/ streetscape enhancement between town centres and significant tourism destinations, with an initial focus on Lurline Street in Katoomba.” Local Strategic Planning Statement 2020, p.116.

A detailed scope of works and business case for the project is completed by the Treeline Lurline Team with the assistance of a network of pro bono design and construction professionals drawn together by landscape architect Ron Powell.

Bendigo Community Bank Katoomba donates seed money to assist with some of the project technical investigations. Letters of support are provided by a growing number of local community groups and businesses and by Government bureaucrats and ministers.

Two bushfire recovery grant applications are prepared under the auspice of Katoomba Chamber of Commerce & Community. As the public landowner, the Council endorses the applications.

Bendigo Community Bank provide funding for a community information day and concert at Hinkler Park. Planet Ark donates 250 tree seedlings to give away at the event. Local artists and school students volunteer to perform. The event in the park is repeatedly postponed because of COVID lockdowns.

In February 2022, the Katoomba Chamber is awarded $4,004,275 by the Australian Government’s Black Summer Bushfires Grant Program to complete Stage One of the Treeline Lurline Project. The grant covers the investigations, approvals and concept design costs for the entire project above and below ground and completion of the first block along Lurline from Waratah to Merriwa Streets.

The Katoomba Chamber and the Blue Mountains City Council sign a Memorandum of Understanding to implement the grant. The Treeline Lurline team is confirmed as the Steering Committee with the addition of two council executives and the Project Manager. A smaller joint Project Control Group is appointed from the Steering Committee to oversee detailed logistics.

Chartered engineer Mark Liebman is contracted as the Project Manager. Detailed investigations and workshops commence.

The National Trust (NSW) Blue Mountains branch convene a Treeline Lurline Heritage Advisory Committee to assist with development of the Art & Heritage Walk along Lurline Street. Members of the public with knowledge and experience in local history are invited to nominate for the committee.