Top Auburn council planner Glenn Francis also handed councillors coloured pencils and invited them to redraw the city's zoning protocols, the inquiry heard, with another councillor benefiting from the proposed changes.

The inquiry into the political home of Salim Mehajer is being overseen by Sydney silk Richard Beasley.

Council assisting the inquiry Paul Bolster said the inquiry would examine several controversial zoning decisions, disappearing council files, why "not one but two" fires struck a property connected to Mr Mehajer's family and "extraordinary largesse" shown to Mr Mehajer in a controversial deal involving a council car park.

But the most striking of the evidence of the day came after it was revealed Mr Francis alleged that cupboards in his home to the value of about $2000 were paid for by Auburn councillor and three-time former mayor Ronney Oueik, who had arranged tradesmen to remodel Mr Francis' kitchen.

"Mr Francis attempted to pay for the [cupboard carpentry] and he refused," Mr Bolster said. "He [Oueik] said to Mr Francis it was a gift and he wanted to help the family."

Other tradesmen were paid by Mr Francis, in cash, the inquiry was told.

Mr Francis, who reported the gift only this year, is at the centre of an ongoing issue relating to a building constructed by a company owned by Mr Oueik, BBC Developments.

Fairfax Media revealed the roof had blown off one of his buildings, on Water Street in Lidcombe, and that council had acted as certifier on the project.

Several hundred residents face an uncertain future and are locked in disputes with insurers about whether they will be compensated for storm damage and the role of building defects in the roof collapse.

The inquiry was told that an application in 2008 to modify the roof of that building had been approved by the council despite the fact that "no application for a construction certificate was ever made".

Mr Francis, now the executive manager of planning at the council, apparently attributed this oversight to his own error, Mr Bolster said.

Fairfax Media has recently revealed another of Mr Oueik's buildings was non-compliant and had many more three-bedroom properties than was approved by council.

The inquiry was told files relating to this approval, including a letter referring to it, had "been removed from council's records".

Mr Francis was at the centre of another planning matter at the centre of Tuesday's inquiry - the rezoning of the Berala Village Centre.

Council initially recommended that height limits in the area not be changed. But one year later, Mr Francis took councillors on a "retreat" to Bowral where the project was considered anew.

Councillors were given coloured pencils and a map and asked to colour in the way the area should be rezoned. Five councillors submitted drawings.

"Whether by coincidence, three councillors proposed a rezoning […] of York Street that happened to encompass property owned by Councillor Hicham Zraika," Mr Bolster said.

Mr Zraika abstained from the exercise.

In the end, a slightly watered-down version of that map became proposed council policy. "Staff proposed a draft rezoning that reflected the view of a minority of councillors," Mr Bolster said.

That rezoning would have added about seven storeys in height limit to houses in the street, potentially increasing their value several times. It has been put on hold after the council was suspended.

The council's new administrator, Viv May, a former top bureaucrat at Mosman Council, who moved quickly to cancel several controversial planning decisions said he had been advised by council staff to cancel a number of projects upon taking the job. He said staff seemed to have previously been concerned with "appeasing" councillors.

Mr Bolster said both Mr Francis and the council's former general manager Mark Brisby made trips to Mr Oueik's home to admire his renovations.

Mr Oueik was the Liberal candidate for the state seat of Auburn at the 2015 NSW election.