“Embarrassing” – rural land merry-go-round
IT took three motions and a roundabout debate before Bass Coast Shire councillors made a decision last Wednesday about its controversial Rural Land Use Strategy.
“This is embarrassing for us as a council. We’ve had three motions (tonight) and we’ve been all over the place,” declared Cr Phil Wright.
He’d moved one of the three motions but his wasn’t the successful one.
Neither was one put by Cr Andrew Phillips which, according to Rural Engagement Group (REG) member Len McRae, was the one favoured by that group’s members.
Mr McRae said the decision that was finally made would devalue large scale farming blocks in the shire.
The debate was lengthy, scrambled and left those on the press desk with spinning brains.
Deputy mayor Cr Neil Rankine took the chair because mayor Cr Clare Le Serve declared a pecuniary interest and left the chamber.
Cr Rankine was the one whose motion was eventually passed. This did not please a member of the public gallery who stormed out of the chamber and slammed the door behind him.
The gallery was packed with farmers.
Officers recommended adoption of the strategy, incorporating changes following the deferment of the matter from the July council meeting.
Cr Jordan Crugnale pointed out the strategy was not law, hadn’t gone to the Minister for Planning (Matthew Guy) for approval and hadn’t been included in the shire planning scheme.
“It’s a preamble. I see it as protecting our agriculture and reducing (land) fragmentation.”
But Cr Phil Wright declared he wasn’t in favour of the motion because the new REG needed to comment on it. Adopting the strategy would, he said, “be against the process of community consultation”.
“We’re here to communicate with the community.
“I think we’ve turned the corner. We have come together as a community. We have to find a spot we all agree on.”
Voices in the gallery delivered a loud “hear, hear” and “well spoken”.
Another reason he didn’t like the motion was because “council needs to take leadership and give officers direction”.
Cr Andrew Phillips wanted some changes and moved a motion accordingly, while Cr Kimberley Brown agreed with him but wasn’t sure about the Rural Land Use Strategy as a whole. She was keen to endorse minimum hectare lot figures suggested by Cr Phillips and take the rest of the strategy back to the REG.
“Hear, hear,” chimed the gallery.
Cr Rankine said, “I think really it is our job to lead and I believe we want to protect large scale farming land.
“We have a very subdivided shire already. The idea is to protect these large blocks and we need to protect farming into the future.”
Planning and environment director Hannah Duncan-Jones told the room it was not possible to adopt just part of the strategy.
“It needs to be a clear decision otherwise use of our resources is very ineffective and we are not giving ratepayers a good return.”
Cr Phillips’ motion was lost.
Cr Wright moved deferring adoption of the strategy until the November council meeting.
“I think we’ve got more work to do. This decision around land use strategy is the biggest since the 1800s.”
Cr Crugnale didn’t support deferring and neither did Cr Phillips, saying the matter had been going on for four years and he couldn’t see another three more months making any difference.
Cr Wright repeated his wish for council to show leadership. His motion was lost too.
It came back to Cr Rankine, who moved the officer’s recommendation, with the exception of one figure. That was to reduce the minimum lot size for which no permit is required for a dwelling in precinct one from 100 hectares to 40 hectares.
There are two other precincts under the strategy, each with similar minimum lot sizes to precinct one.
Cr Rankine’s reasoning was this, “I believe protecting potential uses of farm zoned land is desperately needed to protect the few large lots in the shire. And we do need to limit subdivision size.”
Having gone around in circles for some time, his colleagues agreed – with the exception of Cr Wright.
Full details of the strategy are available on the council’s website.
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