Over the nearly fifty years of AIDA’s existence, community surveys have indicated remarkable constancy of opinion on the importance of preservation of our natural environment and the desirability of retaining and conserving the special rural-coastal character of our settlements and their environs.
In response to this robust and consistent community feedback the Surf Coast Shire has developed planning tools such as local provisions and neighbourhood character overlays, which in conjunction with current zoning regulations are the standards against which new applications for residential buildings or commercial developments are judged.
AIDA monitors new permit applications once they are published on the shire’s website and submit objections to the shire’s planning officers in cases that fail significantly to meet the current guidelines. Click here for further details of the monitoring process.
Happily most residential planning applications in our district conform with the guidelines. The results of AIDA’s deliberations on new applications were tabulated over a 6 month period in 2013. Of the 24 new applications in that period, AIDA raised no objections in 22 cases. Of these 12 fully met all planning guidelines and 10 largely met the guidelines, there being only minor variations from published guidelines on setbacks, building envelopes, plot ratios or maximum building heights. In the two cases where AIDA submitted an objection, significant problems with the applications included “Front setback proposed is 4.5 at one corner and 6m at the other, rather than the 9m of the guidelines” and “Proposal significantly exceeds allowable hard surface coverage and building site coverage”.