Archive: Amendment C49 (Riddells Creek Business Zone)
Last Updated 28/4/06
Amendment C49 in Riddells Creek Bites The Dust
(17/2/07 - P) Council formally abandons the amendment after a Panel found it had no strategic basis
At last Wednesday's Planning Committee meeting, Council walked away from Amendment C49, which attempted to rezone a Business 3 zone in Riddells Creek to a Residential zone. The independent Panel's report found the rezoning proposal was premature and should only be contemplated following, and if in concert with findings of, a full strategic planning assessment of Riddells Creek.
Council Almost Goes With Illegal Move On Amendments C47 and C49
(23/7/06 - P) Claims that Department of Sustainability and Environment agreed to recommendations not allowed by Act
At the 12 July Council Planning Committee meeting, Macedon Ranges Council had before it recommendations to send elements of these planning scheme amendments to the Minister for Planning for approval, despite there being submissions objecting to and calling for changes to the amendments. Under the Planning and Environment Act, a Council has only three options for dealing with submissions asking for changes to an amendment: it can make the requested change, it can abandon the amendment or it can send the amendment to an independent Panel. The recommendations before Council represented a fourth option: ignore submissions (and the Act). Someone seems to have confused an amendment process with a planning permit process, and recommendations to forward parts of the amendments to the Minister seemed to have been based on an assumption that there wasn't a lot of opposition, so just approve it (which perhaps gives an insight into how Council views objections to development proposals). On the night, the Council planning officer present seemed to verbally advise Council that the Department of Sustainability and Environment [DSE] originally supported the 'to the Minister' recommendations but now did not support doing that. Only two Councillors spoke on C49: Cr. Rob Guthrie (South ward) read section 23 of the Planning and Environment Act to his fellow councillors, and advised that the recommendation before Council was illegal. He then moved (seconded Cr. Tom Gyorffy (West)) that the amendment be sent to an independent panel (carried unopposed). Cr. Noel Harvey (West) advised near the end of the C49 agenda item he had just noticed that Parks Victoria submitted to the amendment and he may have an interest in the matter as he had recently been appointed to the Parks Victoria Board. The only change in how Council dealt with C47 was that Cr. John Letchford (South) seconded the motion to also move that amendment to a Panel.
Note: The C47 amendment proposes various changes, several initiated by individuals looking for site specific rezoning to support future development proposals (including introduction of the Mixed Use zone into the Macedon Ranges planning scheme), while the C49 amendment would rezone a business zone in Riddells Creek to a residential zone to support a residential subdivision proposal. There were some 33 submissions to C49, and 12 to C47.
MRRA Says:
It would be a matter of immense concern if DSE had in fact condoned such a deviation from the Planning and Environment Act's requirements, as represented by the recommendations before Council for these amendments. It is also of concern that submissions seem to have been misplaced by Council (two were 'found' on the night), that not all submitters seem to have been told about meetings or about the amendments coming before Council, and that no-one from the community addressed Council on agenda items as usually happens at these Planning Committee meetings (the Mayor advised the meeting he did not have a list of speakers). But the greatest concern of all is that one way or another, poor processes and breaching the Act almost got through the approvals system. That's not an acceptable situation.
Embarrassment As Minister Hulls Approves Exhibition of "Abandoned" Amendments C47 and C49
(5/4/06 - P) Latest in a series of Department of Sustainability and Environment blunders disadvantages Macedon Ranges yet again! Isn't it time for an inquiry into departmental operations?
DSE's done it again. In yet another blunder that disadvantages Macedon Ranges, an absence of quality control at DSE has seen the Minister for Planning, Rob Hulls, approve exhibition of Amendments C47 and C49. Both of these amendments claim they are justified because the changes they propose were included in Amendment C8: the disastrous - and abandoned - amendment that tried to put the Residential and Industrial Land Review into Macedon Ranges planning scheme. Obviously DSE either didn't read, or ignored, the report of the Ministerial Advisory Committee (appointed by then Planning Minister Mary Delahunty) which said:
"After considering the amendment against the Terms of Reference and Strategic Assessment Guidelines, the Committee concluded that the proposals contained in the amendment should not proceed" and that "strategic justification is inadequate".
The Committee recommended "That Amendment C8, a variation of it, or any individual element of it, should not be included in the Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme..."
MRRA Says:
So how come parts of this failed amendment are now being 'recycled' as Amendments C47 and C49? And why are Macedon Ranges' ratepayers having to waste time, energy and money on amendments that can't and won't be approved just because the Department can't get its act together?