Fawcett Hall

A retrospective planning permit application for a dwelling at Fawcett is being made to the Murrindindi Council meeting to be held at Yea on Wednesday (Jan. 22).

C. Neal is applying for the “use and development of land for the purpose of a dwelling” at 500 Spring Creek Rd, Fawcett.

This report recommends that Council refuses to grant a Planning Permit.

“The proposal creates a rural residential lot in an area which is predominately agricultural which is inconsistent with the objectives of the Murrindindi Planning Scheme,” says an officer’s report to Councillors.

Possible grounds for refusing the permit include that the proposal does not comply with the requirements of a clause in the Council’s strategic Direction:
• Protecting rural land for productive agricultural uses and compatible rural uses
• Ensuring that the use and development of rural land protects and enhances agricultural potential and the productive capacity of the land and surrounding land
• Ensuring that agricultural land is not developed for primarily residential purposes.

“The approval of the dwelling would also raise the likelihood that other small lots owned by the current owner would be subject to applications for dwellings on lots where significant agricultural activities would be limited by the small areas of these lots.

“Dwellings on these lots would not be able to be any more than hobby farms and their approval would reduce the overall productivity of agriculture in the area. This kind of development will inflate the land values beyond that of their agricultural value.

“This means that larger more legitimate agricultural properties would not be able to be expanded in areas where the planning scheme requires that they are supported,” the report said.

“While the small lots have already been created and are a legacy of older inappropriate subdivisions and boundary realignments, approval on small lots is still responsible for fragmentation of the land.

“:Where the small lots are in common ownership the lots are generally managed as a whole farm. When inappropriate development of dwellings on small lots are approved a perceived precedent can be set and expectations around development changed.

“Within close proximity of the subject site, there is another landowner with a large holding of land made up by numerous lots smaller than 40ha. Approval of a dwelling at the subject site would suggest that dwellings would also be appropriate on each of those lots.

“A quick review of the mapping in the area of the subject site indicates that there could be as many at 15 lots which could be considered for dwellings which are currently held by two landowners and which are currently actively farmed.”