Meeting between Surf Coast Shire staff, the Isis Planning consultant and representatives from ANGAIR and AIDA on changes to the planning scheme resulting from bushfire legislation.
Trying to keep up with planning in Victoria is a nightmare, yet planning has significant implications for our community. Recently AIDA was informed that the Surf Coast Shire has commissioned a review of its Planning Scheme. The review by Isis Planning will examine overlay controls and policies that are inconsistent with current state bushfire planning provisions. It will ‘develop options to balance vegetation and character issues in the overlay/policy controls to better integrate with the bushfire planning provisions’.
So where has this initiative come from? Recommendations of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission were translated into Amendment VC83, which introduced new bushfire planning provisions into the Victoria Planning Provisions and all Victorian planning schemes. Therefore, our shire must modify its current scheme to align with the new state legislation.
One of the tasks of the review is to examine the replanting requirements of our scheme’s overlays and policies. This includes overlays dealing with significant landscape and neighbourhood character as well as policies directed at streetscapes and coastal development. Depending on what is recommended by the review and adopted by the shire, we can expect changes to what is an acceptable vegetation plan for new applications, what is acceptable vegetation on nature strips and what changes are needed to better protect our settlements.
AIDA was one of four local organisations invited to take part in a consultation workshop on 19 September, but only AIDA and Angair attended.
Gary Johnson and Barb Fletcher