- green wedge, public lands and urban planning backlash groups unite in protest
green wedge, landholder, public lands and urban planning backlash groups unite in protest:
MEDIA RELEASE 27 April 2004
GOVERNMENT HOLDS THE LINE ON GREEN WEDGE ZONES
- environment and community groups back Bracks Government completion of task
The Green Wedges Coalition congratulates the Premier, Mr Bracks, and the Planning Minister, Ms Delahunty on their continuing leadership, courage and vision shown in today’s finalisation of the new green wedge zones. This is a welcome final step in a process to protect Melbourne’s Green Wedges for future generations.
By replacing all of the existing non-urban zones with the new green wedge and rural conservation zones, Ms Delahunty has held the line on behalf of the vast majority of citizens who love and value their green open spaces against a small minority of vested interests seeking to achieve windfall gains by carving up the Green Wedges for real estate subdivision and inappropriate developments.
In the 18 months since the green wedge protection package was launched in September 2002, our coalition of more than 156 environment and community groups has called on government to hold the line drawn at that time and to shore up its gaps. In this time, the government has received and considered a wide range of submissions from Councils, interested parties and concerned individuals and community groups including ours. We have regretted some of the compromises, but we face the fact that the art of compromise is integral to the democratic process.
In that time, some developers and landholders and their friends on councils have orchestrated a campaign to undermine and defeat the green wedge protection package and to exploit loopholes.. We are satisfied that the action taken by Minister Delahunty last week to call in an application for a broiler farm at Rockbank, which would have ruined the amenity of existing green wedge landholders, signals that she will hold the line in cases where green wedge amenity is threatened.
The final consultation with Councils has produced some sensible amendments, eg to clarify the position of green wedge landholders so that prior rights to build on undersized allotments will be maintained. The new zones will bring the certainty for which Councils, landholders and communities have all been calling.
We call on Councils to hold the green wedge line locally and council planners to balance their more obvious role of facilitating development with an awareness of the significance of green wedges for the amenity of local residents, the community at large and future generations, not for the minority of landholders who bought cheap rural land and hope to achieve windfall gains by selling it for development. Melton Council provides a good example by its support for the Rockbank landholders’ opposition to broiler farms.
We have not had time to examine the detail of the amended zone provisions, but we are confident they are strong enough to deter developers who have in recent years spent large sums employing clever consultants to get around the green wedge provisions. More importantly, we are confident that this Minister will provide any necessary further interpretations necessary to block such attempts for instance to introduce de facto residential development
into green wedges in the guise of residential hotels or group accommodation.
Developers should now turn their endeavours to the urban moonscapes and extensive growth corridor land where their efforts will be welcome and necessary if they work to increase the density of new developments in activity
centres and respect the claims of heritage, environment and amenity of existing resident.
We honor the memory of Sir Rupert Hamer, whose Liberal Government first established the Green Wedges in 1971 and who was a supporter of green wedges to the day of his death, when some of our members spoke to him at Parliament House and thanked him for his most valuable contribution. We hope his Liberal successors maintain his vision and assist us to hold the line against inappropriate green wedge development.
I was shocked to see the article "Green Wedges face the chop" and interview with Matthew Guy. (Sunday Herald Sun, 23/1)
It looks as though the "new" developments he is talking about are all inside the new expanded Urban Growth Boundary put through by Brumby and Madden with Coalition support, but I am concerned that Matthew seems to think they need more green wedge land land to be rezoned for urban development to bring house prices down.
Your graph shows that rezoning 43,600 ha last year did not halt the rise in house-lot prices. Clearly other factors are at work, such as land-banking by developers. If Matthew seriously wants to bring house prices down, he needs to tell the developers he wants to see results from last year's rezoning in the form of lower prices. And that they cannot expect an endless supply of
land for suburban sprawl.
Unfortunately it looks like he is just looking for ways to justify allowing a developer free-for-all in the green wedges and maybe the suburbs too. As Peter Rolfe pointed out, the new government also has to ensure Melbourne's urban expansion does not destroy the character, environment and liveability of our city.
The Coalition should remember that an important reason for the Brumby and Kennett Government's downfall was that they put developer profits ahead of community interests. Failure to learn from this piece of history could mean repeating it.
Rosemary West
Environmental and green wedge groups call on Government to stop green wedge land grab.
The development of this land could also put many hundreds of new houses at risk of bushfire: see attached photos showing timber framed houses under construction in the forest at Eynesbury, near Melton.
- green wedge, public lands and urban planning backlash groups unite in protest
Joyce and Simon Welsh, owners of the historic Westerfield property in the Green Wedge south of Frankston were notified last week that 2.656 ha of the pristine remnant bushland on their property will be acquired by the Victorian Government this Thursday 10/12 to make way for the Frankston Bypass. Westerfield is on Robinsons Road, Fig 7g on the attached Biosis map.
Main area or issues of interest:
NB As a coalition, we are principally involved with supporting our member groups and resident and environmental groups that form ad hoc around specific threats to green wedges. However, many of our individual and group members are directly involved personally and collectively in resisting threats to remnant flora and fauna in urban areas and growth corridors and in a more general sense, across the whole State.
We accept the Government policy of protecting green wedges but allowing development in growth corridors and hence have not opposed some UGB changes relating to growth corridors. But our support for development in growth corridors has been conditional on undertakings we had initially from Planning Minister Delahunty, backed by the Smart Growth Committee reports, that environmentally significant sites and waterways would be protected in the growth corridors. Hence we are particularly concerned when we hear of research by Dr Sarah Beckassy of RMIT and others that indicates that environmentally significant sites and threatened species habitat are threatened in the growth corridors.
Our major concerns about the health of the natural environment/biodiversity
i) In our area:
The continuing loss of remnant flora and fauna habitat on public and private land in green wedges, urban areas and growth corridors through inappropriate land use and/or development, including inappropriate urban, commercial and tourist over-development in the green wedges and the failure of the Native Vegetation Framework to protect remnant vegetation on urban, green wedge and growth corridor sites.
Native vegetation across Greater Melbourne, including the green wedges and within the urban-growth boundary, is critical for biodiversity conservation and environmental sustainability within our region, and from a state-wide and national perspective. It maintains the livability of our metropolis, and provides a link between urban communities and the natural environment.
Greater Melbourne is naturally bio-diverse, lying at the confluence of several bioregions. Few large cities in the world still have temperate native grasslands close by. Despite being very heavily cleared, with only a small percentage remaining, greater Melbourne still supports remnants of a diverse range of vegetation types across private and urban land as well as the larger public land blocks. These include some of the most threatened ecosystems in Australia, such as Basalt Plains Grassland and Plains Grassy Woodland.
Unfortunately sites of important and irreplaceable biodiversity are now under threat. Over half of the remnants of Melbourne’s endangered grasslands, for instance, have been lost during the last 20 years, a substantial proportion of that loss since 2000. When remnants are cleared, we lose more of Melbourne’s natural biodiversity and the long-term future of threatened ecosystems and species becomes even more precarious as regional populations and areas of habitat are reduced.
It is clear from our own experience and from attending seminars on the Native Vegetation Framework run by the Environmental Defenders Office and a DSE briefing by Matt White that the excellent Net Gain policy is not working because of the lack of operation guidelines and other provisions to give due weight to the policy in the planning scheme. This may be part of the reason why VCAT is inappropriately approving many cases involving the removal of native vegetation. (Please consult EDO for details). However in our experience, VCAT has failed to give due weight to State and local policies to protect green wedges as well as to the Net Gain policy requirements to give priority to the need to avoid the removal of native vegetation.
Specific examples involving the loss of remnant vegetation with which our members have been involved include:
• The Bundanoon, near Sunbury (see description of environmental values and development threats, in the attached report by Andrew Booth);
• Eynesbury Estate (see GWC submission to Minister Thwaites - attached).
• Mount Eliza bluff re-subdivision application (see A Booth report & GWC threats list.)
• Laverton Grasslands ( not in green wedge - see Andrew Booth report)
• McLears Hill Holiday Park (see GWC threats list, which gives a brief description but this application, approved by VCAT, did involve the removal of native vegetation.)
• Christmas Hills re-subdivision application (see GWC threats list),
• Application for a housing estate on Austin Rd., Seaford, adjacent to Seaford Wetlands and S-E Green Wedge (VCAT approval P 2974-8/2003; P266/2004, P973/2004.
• Eastlink (Scoresby) freeway involved the loss of environmentally significant EVCs in the S-E Green Wedge (see GWC submission).
• The proposed Frankston Bypass is likely to do similar damage to the Southern Brown bandicoot habitat in the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve.
• Moran application to log 90 ha of native forest was refused by Yarra Ranges Shire Council but approved by VCAT under an exemption for logging. (EDO has details.)
NB This list includes only current threats and approved applications known to involve the substantial loss of remnant vegetation or threats to environmentally significant remnant vegetation on adjacent sites. There may well be other relevant sites on the GWC threats list, but where we do not have details of vegetation removal. VCAT reference numbers are included in the GWC threats list in case you need to follow up any of these examples.
? Loss of agricultural land through inappropriate land use and/or development, including old and inappropriate subdivisions, re-subdivisions, inappropriate urban, commercial and tourist over-development in green wedges.
Specific examples with which our members have been involved include:
• Eynesbury Estate (as above).
• Mount Eliza bluff ( as above)
• McLears Hill Holiday Park
• Din San application to rezone their former nursery site in the green wedge at Dingley (see GWC threats list.)
• Wyndham Cove application for a 224-unit housing development and 1000 berth marina on the coast 1.5 K from the Werribee River mouth and Werribee South township. (See GWC threats list.)
• The Port of Hastings development will require a strip of mostly agricultural green wedge land alongside the Westernport Highway from Hastings to Lyndhurst (see attached GWC submission)
• Eastlink (Scoresby) freeway involved the loss of substantial agricultural land in the S-E Green Wedge. (see GWC submission)
• Application for subdivision of 165 ha of farmland at Kangaroo Ground into 20 lots of 8 ha. (VCAT pending - see GWC threats list).
• Application for a two-lot subdivision at Diggers Rest, approved by Melton Council, January 2006.
? Loss of land set aside for landscape value, recreation and other appropriate green wedge uses through inappropriate land use and/or development, including residential re-subdivision, and inappropriate urban, commercial and tourist over-development.
• Beaconhills Golf Club application for re-subdivision of three landlocked allotments. (see GWC threats list)
• Plus all or most of the above examples also involve landscape value.
? Loss of marine biodiversity through inappropriate and unsustainable developments such as:
• the Wyndham Cove Marina project ( see attached GWC threats list.)
• The Port of Hastings development
? Threats to green wedges directly impact on all of the above. (Please see attached list of threats to green wedges, most of which impact on one or more of the above.)
“The green wedges include the lands of the Wurundjeri, Bunurung and Wathurong traditional owners. Within their boundaries, substantial areas of environmentally significant indigenous grasslands, forests, remnant vegetation and wildlife habitat corridors have been protected. Within their boundaries, some of the most fertile land in the state has been conserved for agricultural purposes. Close to the city, market gardens are more sustainable, requiring less irrigation and lowering transport costs and greenhouse gas emissions. “ (GWC Charter.)
The green wedge protection legislation and planning provisions introduced by State Government in 2003-4, including the Urban Growth Boundary, provide a protective shield around most of the remnant vegetation in the Greater Metropolitan Area ( according to a DSE presentation by Matt White, 18/10/2006.) Hence any threat to weaken those provisions or to move the Urban Growth Boundary to permit urban development to encroach into green wedges will in time lead to further losses of remnant flora and fauna, agricultural land and land set a side for recreation and other appropriate green wedge uses.
As a Coalition, our experience and expertise is related to protecting green wedges, hence we would define the green wedges and the outer green belt that connects them as “our area.” However many of our members and for instance the environmental coalitions that are our delegates in some green wedges, have broader environmental concerns in the urban and rural areas and growth corridors. As a Coalition, we defend sustainable agriculture as well as environmental conservation since both are in our view the primary purposes of green wedges.
As we state in our charter (attached):
“ This vision for Melbourne, handed down by our parents’ generation, has helped make ours into one of the most livable cities in the world. At a time of unrivalled prosperity, rising community awareness and appreciation of the value of green city spaces to our personal wellbeing, we regard maintaining the green wedges for future generations as a yardstick for our generation’s commitment to developing a sustainable city in a sustainable world. “
Before the 1999 election, the future Labor Government promised to give ``local municipalities greater power to protect the heritage and amenity of local communities’’, but some Councils did not exercise this power to protect residents’ wishes and interests in maintaining green wedges. Instead they facilitated developers’ proposals to alienate our green wedges.
Labor also promised to ``put the protection and enhancement of the natural and urban environment at the forefront of planning decision-making,’’ to control ``the carve up of agricultural land areas near Melbourne,’’ and to ``introduce effective legislation to control the ad hoc subdivision and inappropriate development of Melbourne’s green belts….’’ But with the devolution of planning powers to local government, the erosion of Melbourne’s parks, open spaces and green wedges continued.
The Government’s green wedge protection provisions have largely protected the green wedges from the residential and industrial subdivision threats of 2002. Only one housing development has been approved, as part of a marina development at Wyndham Cove. However, loopholes have emerged, partly through pressure from tourism and industry on the post-election submission process, lax administration and VCAT decisions which ignored the green wedge protection provisions. These loopholes have permitted the approval of some inappropriate applications and the continuing threats of others, (see GWC threats list) including:
• inappropriate commercial and industrial approvals such as a sawmill, concrete batching plant and concrete crusher,
• overdevelopment of tourist uses, e.g. where a residential hotel is combined with group accommodation, restaurant, conference centre etc on small green wedge blocks, and where “in conjunction with agriculture” provisions are exploited.
• de facto residential development in the form of caravan parks offering cabins on small sites for sale on 99-year-lease
• Residential development on lots under 40 Ha.
A significant threat to green wedges in future is likely to be the push to put houses on small lots - eg the 600 vacant lots in Nillumbik and no doubt as many that we don’t know about in other wedges – in some cases by relocating the boundaries (cf Norman Lodge & Beaconhills). Not to mention the thousands of houses that could be put on the small-lot excisions if this were to be permitted.
Other threats are related to:
• the failure of most councils to adopt Green Wedge Management Plans.
• Allowing Real Estate agents to advertise GWZ property with inferences that it can be used for industrial purposes, if not now, then in the future, creating speculative sales which push land value beyond sustainable Green Wedge uses.
ii) Across the state:
? Loss of remnant flora and fauna habitat on public and private land through inappropriate land use and/or development on urban and rural zones and small lot excisions (in rural zones). This includes the logging of native forests for unsustainable purposes such as wood-chipping, particularly where this involves the logging of catchments.
Victoria is the most cleared state in Australia. We’ve lost about 70% of our native vegetation through land clearing, 44% of our native plants and 30% of our native animals are under threat. Current Native Vegetation controls in Victoria continue to allow clearing under almost any circumstances by those who want to do it (we’re still clearing endangered species habitat such as the Buloke habitat for our Commonwealth Games emblem, the Red Tailed Black Cockatoo). It is up to State and Local Government to make sure such incremental losses don’t wipe out the little indigenous vegetation remaining.
Particular concerns include:
• ecologically valuable remnants with over 75% weed cover can be assigned a low conservation significance and cleared without an offset;
• re-growth native vegetation in plantations can be cleared without an offset, e.g. re-growth of high conservation value Strzelecki wet forests.
? Loss of agricultural land through inappropriate land use and/or development in the rural zones.
? Loss of land set aside for landscape value, recreation and other appropriate uses through inappropriate land use and/or development in the rural zones.
? Loss of marine and riverine biodiversity through inappropriate and unsustainable developments such as current proposals to radically deepen the shipping channels and inappropriate development that leads to urban and agricultural storm-water run-off into waterways and into the sea.
The major barriers to addressing these issues
i) In our area:
Some of the solutions, such as reducing land clearing, sound simple, but are not working because of the lack of operational guidelines with proper weight in the planning scheme.
Barriers include:
? Loopholes in the otherwise excellent Green Wedge legislative and planning protection provisions,
? A lack of prescription in the planning scheme,
? A planning tribunal (VCAT) that is unduly biased towards developers and against the interests of residents, the community and the environment on green wedge and remnant vegetation cases, (See our attached submission on VCAT)
? Councils that are too close to developers and unmindful of the need to protect green wedges and/or remnant vegetation,
? Council and State planning bureaucrats that favor development at the expense of green wedges and remnant vegetation,
? Weak, ineffective State and Local Government policy and planning tools to protect and preserve native flora and fauna, eg
• The lack and/or inadequate enforcement of existing Native Vegetation Framework, which is supported only by a handful of practice notes and DSE internal guidelines that carry little if any weight.
• In the statewide clearing controls (clause 52.17 of the Victorian Planning Provisions) only weak, general principles for avoiding and minimising clearing have been included, yet this is a part of the planning scheme that carries weight in planning decisions. Absent from clause 52.17 are important principles to set a limit on clearing, which were included in the draft Operational Guidelines. That document interpreted the Framework’s policy of "clearing generally not permitted" (applying to medium and higher significance vegetation) to mean that any clearing should be of a very limited scale relative to other native vegetation on the property. Otherwise exceptional circumstances were spelt out to mean unavoidable clearing for a project of statewide economic significance or critical regional infrastructure.
• In February 2006, the Government abandoned the NVF operational guidelines and replaced them with a handful of ineffective practice notes which everyone at the time realised would not carry any weight in the planning scheme. (Environment groups had advice to this effect from the EDO. Since then our members have attended workshops run by the Environmental Defender’s Office at which it has been documented that numerous VCAT cases involving the protection of native vegetation have been lost since the dumping of the operational guidelines and the introduction of the “new approach” to native vegetation protection .
? The Net Gain policy is not working: in part because of a tendency for Councils, VCAT and DSE to ignore the first two steps requiring applicants to “avoid” and “minimise” the removal of native vegetation. DSE officers have in some instances assisted Councils and developers to remove native vegetation by suggesting exemptions and offsets to justify removals for extraneous reasons. A senior DSE officer said that in such a case “we would try to be helpful.” (Pers. Comm.) Hence, applicants are too easily allowed to take the third option of providing offsets or are offered exemptions. Problems include:
• Allowing public land as a location for offset is likely to be a further driver for clearing and cost-shifting, and will result in a net loss;
• Allowing offsets to be provided on public land makes it too easy for Councils, Parks Victoria to augment (or replace) their resources for managing Council or State reserves by permitting the removal of native vegetation and requiring offsets.
• Similarly Greening Australia and other new industries being established in response to the demand for offsets may, via providing consultancy services to developers and other applicants, tacitly encourage the removal of remnant native vegetation in order to generate funds and custom for their own businesses.
• Offsets on private land may also be insecure, especially those on the same property as the clearing, or when developers make a payment in lieu of finding an offset;
? A lack of any provision (as far as we know) for the ongoing independent monitoring of any of the trade-off schemes that are supposed to be ensuring Net Gain (cf the provision of Net Gain offsets, Bush Broker, Bush Tender.)
? Lack of across-government support for protection of green wedges and native vegetation and fauna.
? A lack of funding (eg via a rollover or low-interest loan fund) for agencies like Trust for Nature, Bush Heritage and municipal Councils to acquire threatened environmentally significant remnant vegetation sites that cannot be protected by planning or other tools.
? Lack of funding for measures to support and encourage green wedge farmers and conservation landholders, eg Bush Tender.
? Current native vegetation exemptions allow clearing without a permit, effectively nullifying the Native Vegetation Management Framework with its admirable principles of avoiding clearing as far as possible, minimising the impacts of any clearing and requiring net gain including by off-sets for any clearing. At present, clearing under exemptions is not supervised. Consequently net loss of our vegetation occurs without consideration of impacts or whether rare and endangered species and communities are involved. An example is the Moran logging case. No offsets or replacement planting is required. This must change.
ii) Across the state:
We believe that many ( and know that some) of the barriers to addressing these concerns in green wedges probably apply equally to the rest of the State, for instance with regard to the weaknesses of VCAT, the Native Vegetation Framework and Net Gain provisions and the lack of funding for the valuable schemes and agencies that are now effectively working for the protection of land health and biodiversity eg Trust for Nature, Bush Heritage Fund, Bush Tender and (some) municipal Councils.
For an example of the impact of lack of across-government support for the protection of native vegetation and fauna, conservation landowners are discriminated against compared with primary producers.
• A number of Councils grant rate rebates for agricultural properties not for conservation properties. Though some eg Macedon Ranges SC provide both conservation and agriculture rebates.
• Land used for conservation is treated as vacant land (at least by some councils) with the result that an agricultural landowner may build sheds and other buildings to support farming activities on their land, but a conservation landholder may not. A GWC member who has a Trust for Nature covenanted property has been required to remove the lock-up shed, water tank and toilet he has built to support camping visits necessary to carry out covenanted management tasks, unless he obtains a permit for and builds a house there.
Some solutions
1. Consistency, certainty, sustainability: Government departments, including DSE, DOI and DPI, as well as all councils and government agencies such as the Catchment Management Authorities understand, demonstrate, champion and enforce government policy to protect native vegetation and green wedges, marine, riverine and terrestrial, rural and urban biodiversity and sustainability, including consistent, appropriate strategies for managing water and for combating and adapting to climate change.
2. Green Wedge Protection: for present and future governments to stem the development pressures on the city’s remaining green wedges, to:
? coordinate policy to protect the green wedges across transport, roads, housing, population policy, agriculture and local government portfolios as well as planning and environment;
? reform rural subsidy and rating policies so that green wedge councils receive pro rata rural subsidies to be passed on as agricultural and conservation rate rebates to protect green wedge landholders from excessive rates and to compensate them for conservation costs;
? review the impact of all State and municipal infrastructure projects on the integrity and purpose of the green wedges, consider alternatives before such projects can proceed and refrain where impacts would be adverse;
? continue the principle of green wedge protection by developing linear parks along watercourses and preserving and extending adjacent wetlands all the way to the sea;
? encourage better transport planning based on European models for improving public transport and existing road systems, instead of freeways which attract new residential and industrial development to the green wedges;
? review the performance and coordination of current infrastructure and planning authorities.
For the State Government to continue and strengthen their commitment to green wedge protection by:
? maintaining and strengthening existing green wedge protection provisions and Urban Growth Boundary;
? refusing any further residential or industrial proposals in breach of existing green wedge provisions;
? closing the loopholes in the green wedge planning provisions which permit inappropriate and over development, as outlined in the Green Wedges
? requiring Councils to introduce Green Wedge Management Plans that comply with State green wedge protection provisions to provide for local variation and to control construction on small lots and in old and inappropriate subdivisions
3. . We support rate rebates, bush tender and other measures to assist farmers who want to farm (& landholders who want to practise conservation). We also support social security reform for retired and other farmers who are currently asset-tested out of pensions or other social security benefits to which they would otherwise be entitled. Farmers should be income- but not asset-tested for pensions provided they are leasing the agricultural parts of their land, apart from their home and curtilege.
We do not support assisting the pro-subdivision landholders to fragment their land with small-lot excisions or other inappropriate developments that degrade the land.
There are two kinds of green wedge landholders – those who want to farm and/or or to conserve the natural values of their land and those who want to subdivide or sell out for residential or industrial development, who are more accurately described as speculators. The green wedge protection provisions do not allow this, and any weakening or back-down on these provisions – e.g. by reintroducing small-lot excisions or by varying the Urban Growth Boundary outside the designated growth corridors - will cause further fragmentation of the green wedges and degradation of land health and biodiversity. The pro-subdivision landholders, backed by developers and land-bankers, are noisier, but in most green wedges, we find at least half of the landowners want the green wedges preserved because they want to go on farming or they like the rural/natural ambience. And for this they need their neighbours to be stopped from fragmenting or inappropriately developing their land.
We do not believe it is useful to propose to provide compensation for farmers’ development rights (as the Port Phillip and Westernport CMA proposal, at least until more work is done to establish precisely what rights are to be compensated and how. Farmers in Australia do not have the same unlimited development rights in Australia as they do in America, where there is no centralised town and country planning. Such a compensation scheme would be extremely unwieldy, expensive to administer and difficult to make equitable. Farmers in Australia do not even have the right to sell off spare lots on multi-lot properties with any assumption that the purchasers will be able to build on them. Responsible Councils like Mornington Peninsula Shire Council, are proposing policies in their Green Wedge Management Plans for the consolidation of multiple lots – should their farmers receive less compensation because of this?
Even compensating farmers for refraining from clearing native vegetation is fraught, as such clearing is – or should be – not permitted.
Far better to compensate farmers for retaining and managing their remnant native vegetation, which may involve refraining from the “right” to graze animals or to conduct agriculture or for providing or fencing off wildlife corridors, by means of Bush Tender or by subsidising Trust for Nature to assist them to put covenants on their properties.
We agree with the Port Phillip and Westernport Catchment Management Authority’s proposal for an environmental infrastructure levy on developers in the growth corridors and urban areas, such as the levy which was put in place by Planning Minister Hulls when announcing the growth corridor UGB changes in November 2005, only to be removed in October 2006.
However we feel the proceeds of such a levy should be used on constructive measures to support genuine farmers and conservation landholders and - most significantly - to acquire some of the environmentally significant remnant vegetation before it is all gone, possibly via direct purchase by Parks Victoria, a rolling fund for Trust for Nature and/or by making interest-free loans available for Councils to purchase significant sites.
4. Native Vegetation: While the Native Vegetation Framework and the Net Gain policy are not working, they are better than what we had before and should be strengthened. It is at this stage very important not to throw the Net Gain baby out with the offset bathwater. For Net Gain to mean anything, the Government needs to strengthen the first and second step requirements to avoid and minimise clearing and to impose more stringent monitoring requirements on the provision of offsets to ensure they are fully paid for by the developer and are effective and enduring.
It must be acknowledged that offsets are a vastly inferior substitute for the retention of remnant native vegetation, which in fact can never be replicated. Retention and natural regeneration provide native vegetation of higher integrity and at lower cost than offsets. All offsets should be approved and managed by DSE funded by a levy on the developer purchasing the offset.
For Net Gain to mean anything, the Government urgently needs to:
? Incorporate the key provisions for defining and implementing “clearing generally not permitted”, “exceptional circumstances”, and for “avoid and minimize” as set out in the Exposure Draft of the Operational Guidelines, should be written into the Victorian Planning Provisions (esp. clause 52.17) to give them weight in decision making.. These further essential revisions can be made in conjunction with the much-needed tightening of the current range of exemptions from clearing controls, currently under review.
? Release the DSE internal guide for implementing the Native Vegetation Management Framework for public comment, ensure that it is strong enough to achieve Net Gain and incorporate or reference it in the planning scheme.
? Provide funds for the acquisition of threatened remnants (e.g. through Trust for Nature, Bush Tender or targeted public purchase) and for other bush management tools equivalent to the $100 million recently made available in NSW.
? Review the operation of the Native Vegetation Management Framework in two years’ time to ensure that we are achieving a Net Gain of native vegetation.
As well:
? Any offsets on public land, should be strictly limited to land categories that are not normally managed for conservation purposes, nor for multiple uses that include conservation – such as State Forest. Tightly defined procedures and the true cost of offsets need to be set out, to ensure offset payments from developers result in an offset meeting the Framework’s criteria. A 10 year management plan, with regular reports and monitoring should be required for all offsets.
? Thresholds for defining native vegetation (e.g. native species cover / richness) should be ecologically appropriate and ensure that valuable remnants, even if they are weed invaded, are not excluded from the assessment, protection and offset requirements of the Framework. For this purpose the threshold of 10% native under-storey cover, as set out in the draft Operational Guidelines, should be used, with modifications for species poor secondary grassland. At the very least the ecological appropriateness of any proposed thresholds should be reviewed a working group of ecologists from within and outside DSE.
? Wildlife corridors should be encouraged by means of Landcare and Bush Tender projects.
? Exemptions need to be reviewed in the light of the need to minimise the removal of native vegetation. Anomalies such as logging in bush-land not formerly part of a logging area (such as in the Moran case) should be removed.
5. Biodiversity policies need to cover urban parks, nature strips, roadsides, private farms and gardens and country roadsides as well as acknowledged areas of native bushland, wetland and grassland. For example street tree strategies and VicRoads roadside vegetation policies need to be reviewed to give priority to biodiversity strategies. If trees are considered to be a safety risk, they should be fenced rather than removed or restricted to varieties that do not suit the locale.
Other issues we would like to see the White Paper address
Climate Change and how the Government plans to influence outcomes, specifying actions and expected results.
On 2 May 2007, the Legislative Council established a 7 Member all-party select committee to inquire into the use and development of public land and open space in Victoria.
The Committee is required to table its report by 30 June 2008 and may table interim reports during the course of the inquiry. Full report is at http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/council/publicland/default.htm
The Green Wedges Coalition submission is attached
Today was crunch time, not just for Melbourne's green wedges and the environmental and community groups that have been fighting to protect them from the Brumby Government's plans to replace 43,600 ha of Melbourne's green wedges with suburban sprawl. Today the State Government and Opposition joined forces to ratify Planning Scheme Amendment VC68.
It was also crunch time for Planning Minister Madden and the Brumby Government that has so blatantly betrayed the Green Wedge Protection policy on which the predecessor Bracks government was elected in 2002 and 2006.
A crunch also for the Liberals, whose election candidates like their ALP opponents before the last election pledged to protect Melbourne's green wedges within their existing boundaries. Particularly since green wedges were a Liberal legacy of the Hamer-Hunt government and are still warmly supported by many Liberal Party members.
And for the National MPs, who voted to replace the South-east foodbowl, and its market gardeners using recycled water from the Eastern Treatment Plant, with suburban sprawl, against the staunch opposition of the Casey Council and against any notion of sustainable agriculture.
When Parliament voted to approve VC68 today, only the Greens MLCs, who have been consistent in their support for green wedges and for green wedge landholders, spoke against it.
Planning Minister Madden told a Housing Industry breakfast last week that he would split the previous PSA VC67 in two in order to get it passed by the Legislative Council, where there is an Opposition parties majority. Minister Madden predicted that Greens MPs will support increased urban density provisions, which he will now introduce as a separate planning scheme amendment.
This planning disaster signifies a catastrophe for Melbourne - our city will be changed irrevocably forever with green wedges of rural land replaced by suburban sprawl and many rural properties acquired for the Outer Metropolitan Ring Road and E6 freeways. This State Government plan will unleash unprecedented environmental, agricultural and landscape destruction in the green wedges. It will take 43,600 ha
out of the western, northern and Cranbourne south green wedges for housing development, freeways and freight terminals.
The UGB expansion will clear for urban development: 5000 ha of environmentally significant Western Basalt Plains grasslands; the grassy woodlands of the Maribyrnong and Merri Creek catchments, with their giant red gums; and 4000 ha of the South East food-bowl, where highly productive market gardens using recycled water double as Southern Brown Bandicoot habitat. (Please see details below and
attached.)
It will also destroy the certainty on which green wedge protection is based. The developers who will profit from speculative purchases of green wedge land to be rezoned by VC68 amendments will now go looking for more spec purchases outside the next UGB.
The Coalition parties had said they would oppose the E6 freeway, which is close to the existing parallel Craigieburn Freeway, and the amendments to Clause 12, which provides for increased urban density. But while Matthew Guy spoke against the E6, when it came to the crunch, his party did not vote against it.
Before the 2006 election, Liberal, ALP and Greens MPs surveyed by the Green Wedges Coalition all supported the current Government policy to protect green wedges "including the present boundaries." Only the Greens have stood by their election policy and have consistently opposed the UGB expansion.
The plans also run counter to a report released in May into sustainable agribusiness from a parliamentary committee representing all parties. The report describes the green wedges as area as "a diverse and dynamic farming region" which produces 16 per cent of the Victoria's agricultural wealth from less than four per cent of the state's farmland. It recommended "That Melbourne's Urban Growth Boundary be stabilised to provide certainty to land-holders and agribusiness."
The Government has claimed it needs the extra land to house our rapidly growing population, yet both PM Julia Gillard and Premier Brumby have acknowledged the need to re-think "Big Australia" policies. They should also re-think the need for these planning scheme amendments and for the green wedge destruction.
For comment from Green Wedges Coalition: Rosemary West, joint coordinator & author of this release
Media Release
WILL TED THROW OUT GREEN WEDGE BABY WITH M2030 BATHWATER?
Now that the Liberal Party has tossed the leadership baton to its planning spokesperson, Ted Baillieu, what will happen to the Hamer Liberal vision of green wedges?
Baillieu’s recently-released planning policy reflects Liberal support for green wedges as does his opposition to a proposed resort overdevelopment at Main Ridge in the Mornington Peninsula Green Wedge. Welcome also is his plan to purchase green wedge parkland, particularly if this includes endangered remnant native flora and fauna habitat such as the Bundanoon near Sunbury and the Kilsyth spider orchid site.
However 90 per cent of green wedge land is privately owned. Baillieu’s proposal to dump Melbourne 2030 could see the demise of green wedges, beyond the relatively small proportion that could be acquired. To encourage sustainable agriculture in green wedges requires incentives like rate rebates rather than compensation for farmers, which would set a disturbing precedent.
The policy is to uphold the state planning policy framework, but to dump clause 12, which defines Melbourne 2030. However this includes positive policies such high capacity public transport, protecting green wedges, promoting regional cities and
towns, promoting cultural identity & neighbourhood character, long-term protection of public open space and improving the environmental health of the bays & catchments.
The Liberal Party would be better off to identify the faulty elements of Melbourne 2030 and work how to fix them and to properly implement those policies with which we all agree.
His proposal to reduce the state intervention designed to protect green wedges, such as the ministerial approval required for preparation of planning scheme amendments and parliamentary approval for Urban Growth Boundary changes is also ominous.
Most councils cannot stand up to developer pressure: this was why State Government needed to legislate and introduce new planning provisions to protect green wedges. Loopholes in those provisions require more – not less – ministerial intervention or the green wedges will be gone forever, as the current Minister did with a recent Keysborough golf course housing estate application.