AIDA’s Planning Activities and Goals
One of AIDA’s major aims is to strongly support environmentally sensitive residential and commercial development by contributing to the formulation and upholding of the guidelines embodied in planning documents such as the Aireys Inlet to Eastern View Strategy and the Neighbourhood Character Overlay of the Surfcoast Planning Scheme.
To this end AIDA works on two levels:
– AIDA committee members examine any proposed changes to planning regulations and guidelines at the state or local government level and make submissions supporting or objecting to such changes on the basis of their likely effect on our area and on our community’s rights to determine our neighbourhood character.
– AIDA committee members monitor proposed residential and commercial development in our area and submit objections to the Surf Coast Shire planning officers in significant cases that do not conform with current guidelines. Where appropriate committee members attend site visit meetings with proposers and planning officers, and when necessary prepare submissions for and attend VCAT hearings.
In the case of residential development, AIDA aims only to challenge those plans that, knowingly or not, “push the envelope” by setting precedents that, if accepted, will alter forever the landscape of the area. For example, development in the area of the Lighthouse has a specified profile in the Neighbourhood Character Overlay. Other and very frequent forms of “pushing the envelope” involve height, side boundary and site coverage creep.
AIDA’s objections to commercial development are often not against the proposal per se, but because there has been no provision for customer parking and no forward planning by Council to provide the required parking spaces.
In all cases AIDA’s objections are made in an effort to ensure that future development does not undermine the very attributes that are uniquely “Aireys” and which are the very attraction which brings people to live here in the first place. We should all be able to share this uniqueness and enhance, not detract from, our particularly beautiful landscape character.
Here are two very relevant quotations from the 2011 Australian Coastal Councils Conference, organised by the National Sea Change Taskforce and hosted in Torquay by the Surf Coast Shire Council:
Ian Godfrey – AIDA member and invited panel member
‘A key element for the coastal hamlet of Aireys Inlet, which has finite boundaries defined by the sea and the national forest, is retention of character. A problem for us is that the planning scheme in Victoria assumes that our planning issues are the same as those in urban cities.’
Libby Mears – Aireys Inlet resident and at the time of the conference a local Councillor (and previously Mayor) of the Surf Coast Shire and Chair of the Victorian Coastal Council
‘Our council has worked hard on neighbourhood studies and planning overlays, but the problem of “one size fits all” in the planning scheme is a continued challenge.’