Objection to the Golden Plains Shire Planning Amendment No C67 as it Relates to Barrabool Hills Localities Significant Landscape
Summary
Basis of the Objection
The planned Overlay is :
Impractical
Inexplicable
Inappropriate
Illogical
Ill-conceived
Unnecessary
History
The proposed planning amendment seeks to insert an overlay on land in the far south east of the Shire located on the South Side of the Hamilton Highway between Burnside Road and Merrawarp Road such that views of the Barrabool Hills from the Highway may not be obscured from travellers approaching Geelong from the West
The amendment arises from work done by the Urban planning group Planisphere on behalf of the Victorian State Government
This team generated a study known as the South West Victorian Landscape Assessment Study in 2013 and covered the region from the You Yangs to the South Australian border covering all or part of 14 Shires and covering almost 25% of Victoria. In all that area the study team found 37 significant landscapes and in all of Golden Plains only 3 locations and they totally missed the most photographed location in the Shire, the one location known across the world by image – The Dog Rocks at Batesford
Objection in detail
Impractical
The object of the overlay in trying to protect the views of the Barrabool Hills as seen from the Hamilton Highway is impractical as the object of the view “the Barrabool Hills” is not within the Golden Plains Shire. Furthermore the Surf Coast Shire, the municipality in which the Barrabool Hills are in, has no overlays or protections of the “Hills” as regards views near or far. As such no effort of the Golden Plains Shire council can put in place can stop landscape degradation plans on the Hills.
So far the State Government has seen fit to build the Geelong Ring Road (a four carriage expressway) through the hills with no regard to the landscape or the view from the Hamilton Highway One s has in mind to reafforestate his section of the Hills and has planted thousands of trees and covered over 100 acres of the Hills with trees that were never previously there has individually changed the vista of the Hills and is continuing to do so
Further the councils o together with the State Government tried to develop a world class motor racing facility on the north slopes of the hills facing the subject area and to this were prepared to commit millions of dollars of public funds. They cared not for the landscape.
Proposals have already been made to develop wind farms along the top of the Barrabool Hills though these and Coal Seam Gas exploration have so far been resisted by the residents there, all of these give scant regard to the Landscape
Add to this the zoning of the Surf Coast Shire on the “Hills” is that of FZ – Farm Zone under which the minimum sized allotment required on which to build a dwelling is 40 hectares although in locations where houses have existed in the past the Shire has seen fit to issue building permits for areas of lesser size, ie as now evidenced in Merrawarp Road and Barrabool Road in Ceres
Further the area of the Hills closest to Geelong has over recent years been closely developed as residential land. So successful has been this development that soon it is likely that pressure will be brought in that City to expand residential development all the way to the Surf Coast Shire boundary and Ceres, and should this happen a large section of the object of the overlay would no longer exist, there would be no Hills just houses.
Inexplicable
Clause 12.04-2 Landscapes states that “The objective of this clause is to protect landscapes and significant open spaces that contribute to character, identity and sustainable environment and recognise the natural landscape for its aesthetic value and ensure key natural features are protected and enhanced.”
Even if you felt that this particular view was a landscape with “aesthetic” value no overlay imposition in Golden Plains Shire will protect this landscape as the object, the natural feature of it, the Hills, exists wholly with another municipality.
The open spaces within this view are not unique and are already protected by existing planning rules in the same as in other of Golden Plains Shires rural areas
The areas of Golden Plains Shire within the nominated view have no permanency nor can the Shires planners be expected to be able to ensure that the natural features as exist today remain static, trees grow, farmers sow different crops, different animals roam different paddocks, pastures are grazed or fallowed, farmers age and change, vehicles and machines alter with time.
Unless the Shire is prepared to pay residents to cease changing the way that they live and to become a museum any application of such an overlay is impossible and inexplicable
Inappropriate
It would appear that the residents of the South Eastern corner of the Golden Plains Shire have been earmarked for abuse, in the past 20 years the area has seen many odd ball planning issues arise, these range from a gas fired power station – in Hamilton Highway a convention centre in a marquee – in Dears Lane a desire to make the entire area an industrial zone in order to attract a container break down facility a quarry – which now exists in Hamilton Highway north of the subject site a tip - associated with the above quarry above is currently under application with the Shire
In this area in the past 20 years the landholders have embraced the Landcare philosophy greatly and when I came to the district on my site of 60 ha there was one tree between the highway and the Hills, and that has since died. Since then my wife and I have planted some 5,000 trees, improving the property, saving the planet and obstructing the view of the Hills from the Highway.
Similarly my neighbours have in the past five years planted some 2,000 odd trees, many with a subsidy from CCMA and with Landcare receiving many accolades for their efforts and inadvertently obstructing the views of the Hills from the highway. Other residents have planted trees to benefit their properties, to improve the aesthetics, the local climate and block the view from the road
In fact if you travel the nominated section of Hamilton Highway from Burnside Road to Merrawarp Road much of the aspect of the Hills is blocked by trees and more obliteration will follow as property owners plant trees and raise rock and soil mounds as they try and attempt to block the increasing noise and views of the highway from their residences
Ill-conceived
The study report refers to the Barrabool Hills as a landscape of Regional Significance, in its description it states
“display a varied topography that gently rises from the surrounding volcanic plain” excuse me the area in question according to Geelong Geological Survey maps is basalt plain, no variety here
“The steeply incised Baron River Valley is visible as a drop in the landscape that is lined with vegetation” excuse me but you cannot see any drop, you cannot see a valley and cannot see a river from the Hamilton highway, you can see a faint line of green being perhaps the top of some trees
In fact the Moorabool Valley, where viewing is possible as at Clyde Park winery, is a much better vista than any on the Barwon and so on this basis one could argue that the area east of the Midland Highway should suffer a similar overlay imposition as the drop to the Moorabool is there but cannot be seen before you see to forever more
“A flat grassy fore-ground is often punctuated with piles of rocks dug from paddocks and edged with low dry stone walls” excuse me but previously we said that the land was “gently rising” and the rock heaps in the paddocks are of recent farming clearing efforts (in the past 10 years) and there are no low dry stone walls, there are some rubble fence lines remaining but much of the stone from the area has over the past 50 years, gone as ballast on the Corio Bay edges, gone as a marina in Leopold and gone as road ballast on the Geelong to Barwon Heads road. And if anyone wants the rocks that are in the paddocks now they will disappear too.
“Clear views are available across these paddocks towards the Hills from the Hamilton Highway” as mentioned previously because of trees planted on the roadside and in the adjacent paddocks there are only intermittent views available of the Hills and over time with additional plantings these views will become even less
“While the Barwon River valley is not a dominant feature of the view, there is a distinctive drop in the landscape before it rises up to join the smooth, rolling Barrabool Hills” excuse me but there is no view of the Barwon Valley or are we so esoteric in our concepts that we can feel the aesthetic of the valley absence even though we cannot see it, what rubbish is this
Finally in other references to the Barrabool Hills the report makes reference to the importance of the Hills to early works by the artist Eugen Von Guerard, and it should be noted that though the artist did execute a painting titled “View of Geelong” in 1856 this was painted FROM the Barrabool Hills and not OF the Barrabool Hills
Unnecessary
The overlay is unnecessary as current planning and development restrictions put in place all suitable development controls for the area just as it does for other parts of the Shire covered by the same Farming zoning
Should the State Government wish to build a prison, or an airport, should Disney Corporation wish to build a Disneyworld, should the Packer’s wish to build a casino then they would all need to go to council for the necessary exemptions to the existing planning controls, imposing another overlay and thereby isolating one group of Golden Plains farm residents from all the rest in the shire because of an ill-conceived idea from a poorly constituted study body is unnecessary, existing restrictions do the same thing
Closing Comment
It may be that the Planning Department of the Golden Plains Shire is severely over worked and that they have not been able to fully read the 80 odd page original report or physically travel all roads in the study area and the subsequent addendum and simply followed the route laid down for them in the Study Section 5 Landscape Protection & Management instructions
However to me this is very much a case of the parable of “The Kings Clothes” – because all around me say that this is significant then it must be so and only when common sense prevails does the truth come to light
Golden Plains has many wonderful vistas, the Golden Plains after which the Shire is named being one of them, but there are many others, the Dog Rocks, the railway via duct bridge at Batesford, the view over Boo Book from the Highway, the falls on the road to Winchelsea from Inverleigh, the view over Inverleigh from the western approach, the railway line on the road near Cressy and the list goes on and on.
These are all wonderful vistas and so too is the view of the Barrabool Hills from the Hamilton Highway but these are not in the league of views of Mount Elephant, or the view of the Melbourne skyline form the razorback enroute from Gisborne to Bacchus Marsh
The Planisphere organisation that prepared the study states on its own web site that it is an Urban Planner, the Project Team that generated this South West Victoria Landscape Assessment Study consisted of two gentlemen members of the Department of Planning and five ladies from Planisphere who from their portrait pictures on the Planisphere web site all look under 30
Planisphere also performed the complimentary Coastal Spaces Landscape Assessment Study in 2006, this study which included Surf Coast Shire totally neglected to mention the Barrabool Hills at all, let alone did they consider it as a significant area and this is confirmed on page 64 of the addendum under 1.13 Barrabool Hills where it states “This assessment includes the area of land between the Hamilton highway and the Surf Coast Shire boundary that is designated as part of this landscape, though was not included in the previous assessment”
Closing
We feel that the overlay is
Impractical
Inappropriate
Illogical
Ill-conceived
Unnecessary and is not required as existing planning controls perform the necessary function already