Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges

Yarra Ranges amendment C186 proposes to re-zone 361-365 Mt Dandenong Tourist Rd (three lots) from Green Wedge A zone to Commercial 1 zone due to a request from the land owner for a  commercial zoning to facilitate additional commercial uses.

The UYDRA regional planning authority investigated the region in 1981 and again in 1992 producing a multitude of technical reports including those on the landscape living and commercial areas of the Dandenong Ranges. The former Shire of Sherbrooke exhibited and adopted a planning scheme in a the late 80’s and the now Shire of Yarra Ranges has also exhibited and adopted a planning scheme that includes these sites.

The Green Wedge Coalition sees one of the major threats to the future of the Green Wedges as being a ‘death by a thousand cuts’. This refers to increasing evidence of planning applications that seek to enable uses that tip the balance from an open rural landscape to an urban built environment.

Each individual planning application may seem relatively innocuous but the cumulative impact of many similar planning decisions over time will see the loss of the Green Wedges.