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Hundreds voice Macedon Ranges planning concerns

Macedon Ranges Residents' Association

(17/9/04)

About 300 people turned up at a public meeting in Woodend, in central Victoria, last night in an angry protest against planning controls in the Macedon Ranges Shire.

There is concern development is out of control and the character of the region is being destroyed.

The Macedon Ranges Residents Association's Christine Pruneau says people are demanding an interim protection order on the shire until a proper strategy is implemented.

She says the Victorian Government is not listening.

"What do you do when you've got a Government saying on the one hand, 'we're promising to protect you', and on the other hand, it seemed to come out last night from [Macedon MLA] Joanne Duncan's speech, that they've got us targeted for growth [and] we're going to become an extension of Melbourne...where do you go with something like that?" she said.

The State Government says it will continue to work closely with the Macedon Ranges Shire to further protect the natural and rural amenity of the area. Planning Minister Mary Delahunty has approved an amendment to the council's planning scheme which allows more control of residential development. She says the Government wants to protect the Macedon Ranges and water catchments and is working with council on a planning framework.

"What we are trying to achieve is less planning applications ending up in VCAT [Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal] because there is a strong local planning policy and planning scheme which clearly indicates both to residents and investors where it is appropriate to have more housing and what are no go zones," she said.

Meeting calls for limited Macedon Ranges development

Macedon Ranges Seeing Red

(23/11/04)

A public meeting at Gisborne has vowed to continue to pressure the Victorian Government to protect the Macedon Ranges against high density development.

About 80 people attended a working party last night to harness community concern about the rapid rate of development in the area.

Councillor Deb Dunn says the Government has to recognise the region is not a growth corridor.

"We're being treated basically the same as Melbourne...we're a relatively low density town, we've got a lot of our streets just around the core of the town, we don't have kerb and channelling, we've got rural roads everywhere right in the heart of our towns and the developers are picking them off," she said.