Submissions cover sheet Post your submission with this cover sheet to: Submissions 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission GPO Box 4358, Melbourne VIC 3001 Email your submission with this cover sheet to: [email protected] Title: Mr First Name: David Surname: Maughan / Organisation represented by your submission (if applicable): I Private submission Email address: Postal address: Telephone: IXI Policy, preparation and planning of governments, emergency services Buildings Preparation and planning by communities and households I3 Insurance Response to the bushfires Other (please state): Dangers of wind turbines in bushfire prone areas. $ 1 McHarg Ranges, Tooborac, Central Victoria I Please provide a general description of what materials you are providing as part of your submission I (eg. Letter; document; DVD, photos. Please do not send originals): I Letter, documents already in Commissions hands. I 1 Letter from Department of Planning & Community Dev. I Confidentiality The Commission will consider all requests for confidentiality. Should you wish for your submission, or parts of your submission, to be treated as confidential, please clearly state the reason in the space provided below. If you require more room, please attach a separate page and provide together with your submission. Should the Commission consider the request for confidentiality not to be appropriate you will be provided with an opportunity to withdraw your submission or re-submit it in a form suitable for publication. Please select one of the following options IX] I acknowledge that my submission will be treated as a public document and may be published, quoted or summarised by the Commission. I request that my submission, or parts of my submission, be treated as confidential, and not published quoted or summarised by the Commission, for the reasons stated here: Acknowledgements I understand that: I can be contacted by the Royal Commission in relation to my submission. Anonymous submissions will not be accepted. The name and town or suburb of each submitter will be identified as part of every published submission. Other contact details will be removed before publishing. The Commission will not publish submissions if it believes that the submission material is or could be n or anti-vilification legislation or is outside the scope Or if sending electronically please&onfinn your acknowledgment by ticking this box Date 11.4.201 0 Department of Planning and Community Development I Spr~ngStreet , 5 Melbourne Victoria 3000 GPO Box 2392 Melboume Victoria 300 1 Our Ref: CMINO1785'2 Australia File: PL-PW05/0153 Telephone: (03) 9208 3333 Facsimile (03) 9208 3680 www.dpcd.vic.gov.au Mr Peter McLaughlin 0 1 APR 2010 Dear Mr McLaughlin WIND ENERGY FACILITY - MCHARG RANGES Thank you for the correspondence tabled at our meeting on 26 February 2010 with Justin Madden MLC, Minister for Planning, Mr Ben Hardman NIP, Mr David Maughan and Mr Ian Rhode, which raises a number of matters relating to the development of a Wind Energy Facility ("WEF") in the McHarg Ranges. In considering your comments I have confined my response to the planning issues that have been raised. Amendment C32 to the Mitchell Planning Scheme was prepared by Mitchell Shire Council at the request of the CFA. A public information session was held in January 2005, at the CFA station in Seymour, and CFA officers also took part in a number of meetings with landowners on selected properties. I can advise that prior to Amendment C32, only the western and Seymour areas of the shire were affected by the Wildfire Management Overlay (WMO), as the Overlay was previously only in the former McIvor and Seymour Planning Schemes that are now incorporated in the new format Mitchell Scheme. This is because the Shire of Mitchell (which was created in November 1994) comprises parts of the former Rural City of Seymour and areas of the former Shires of Broadford and McIvor, and all of the former Shires of Pyalong and Kilmore. Only the former Rural City of Seymour and the former Shire of McIvor had identified fire prone areas in their planning scheme maps. A Planning Panel was appointed in June 2005 to consider and hear submissions and prepare a report on the amendment. In discussing the WMO Site Selection Criteria the Panel noted that the WMO was "based on criteria considered valid at the time of its introduction but is inconsistent with that currently in use, and which would not satisJL present day assessment methodology. ,, Privacy Statement Any persor~oliiformatiorr abotrt yo11 or. a tlrird party 01 yoto. correspondence will be protected tmder the pravisioru of' the Information Privacy Act 2000. It will only be rued or disclosed to appropriate Ministerial, Stahltory The PlaceTo Be A~rtlrority,or depnrtrner~talstaff in regard to tlre p~rrposefor wliiclr it war provided, rinless required or a~rfl~orbedby law. Enqtriries about access to inforntatiorl abotit yo11 held by t11e Department sl1011ldbe directed to the Manager- Privacy, Department ofP1annirrg and Con~n~rrr~i@Developnter~t, PO Box 500, Eart Melbolirne, 3002. Overall, Amendment C32 increased the areas to which the Wildfire Management Overlay applied, with particular areas affected being the Tallarook area, Wandong area, land west of Beveridge, land south of Pyalong, land north of Tooborac and the Strathbogie Ranges area in the northeast. In relation to your comments regarding the New South Wales Parliament's General Purpose Standing Committee Number 5 ("the Committee") into rural wind farms, it is noted that the report of the Committee was tabled on 16 December 2009 and that the NSW Government is yet to provide a response to the recommendations. Executive Director Planning Services & Development Facilitation .