A Statement of Significance for The Riddell Ranges Estate, commonly known as The Shone and Scholtz Land, Riddells Creek Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................... 3 2. Regional Context ................................................................................... 3 3. General Description and Land Capability .............................................. 4 4. Current Planning Controls ..................................................................... 5 5. Macedon Ranges Shire Policy................................................................ 6 6. Planning Background and History ......................................................... 8 7. Main Problems with the Restructure Overlay........................................ 9 8. Other Threats ...................................................................................... 11 9. Statement of Environmental and Cultural Significance – Riddell Ranges Estate......................................................................................................... 12 10. Recommendation ............................................................................. 17 11. Conclusion........................................................................................ 17 Prepared by Lachlan Milne and Russell Best for Riddells Creek Landcare, March 2005. Photography by Russell Best (Plant Identification Section) and Lachlan Milne (Landscape and Text Illustrations). Acknowledgements Thanks to Suzanne Zahra and Gill Best for editing, advice and encouragement. Thanks to the Riddells Creek Community for showing interest and support for this idea. Page 2 1. Introduction The story of this land links deeply with the history of land development in Victoria and our changing cultural attitudes to property development and environmental protection. Our use of natural resources since the non-indigenous settlement of Australia has been a process of learning and adaptation. In earlier times, our vast landscape seemed to offer unlimited resources and space for development. But relatively rapidly, natural limitations imposed themselves; ancient, erodable and infertile soils, a parched landscape and the challenges of providing infrastructure over vast distances. With the injection of investment provided by gold, our community faced these challenges and with the rise of industrial technologies, we have consolidated our position in this landscape. With increasing pressure on natural resources we have understood that that these resources are finite. Progressively we have voted for ever stronger environmental protections and planning regulations that seek to preserve the long-term sustainability of our natural systems and communities. But more than the pragmatic self-interest of protecting soil, air, water and biodiversity, we have grown to love and value this landscape for its intrinsic interest and beauty. The landscape, the climate, plants and animals contribute to the quality and nature of our community. Without these distinct features we would lack a way to define our community and ourselves. Just as Uluru and Hanging Rock are significant to the developing identity of Australia and our Shire, the Shone and Scholtz land is the backdrop for community life in Riddells Creek. It sets our tone, it is our scene. 2. Regional Context The Macedon Ranges Shire relies on our natural landscape to attract visitors. Our landscape is a tool we use to market and brand our regional products; it gives us distinctive features that separate us from other areas. Increasingly, the large urban communities to the south will look to the Macedon Ranges Shire for opportunities for them to connect with their landscape. Already urban schools are building partnerships with local groups to provide environmental education experiences in council reserves, such as Barringo Reserve. We can help meet this demand. For our health and wellbeing we need spaces for physical activity or quiet reflection. We need opportunities and places were we can learn about our environment and our place in it. We need natural places that are accessible to all ages and capabilities. The Shone and Scholtz land can provide this to Riddells Creek and beyond. Page 3 The Shone and Scholtz land provides a connection that links the reserves of the eastern Macedon Ranges together. The land is critical to threading together this landscape, bringing people in to allow them to experience and understand the symbols of our region. By providing tangible quality experiences we can lend credibility and quality perceptions to the products and services that we offer in this shire. 3. General Description and Land Capability The land on Gap Road three kilometres from Riddells Creek, commonly called Shone and Scholtz Land, is an inappropriate subdivision created in the 1890s and consisting of 162 lots. All of these lots are in private ownership. These individual lots cannot be developed under the current planning scheme. The Macedon Ranges Shire Council has before it the opportunity to take steps to secure this landscape for current and future generations. It can develop a program to provide a just outcome to the current title holders of the land who have few options to benefit from their investment. The Shone and Scholtz land can provide great benefits to the future of Riddells Creek and the broader Macedon Ranges Shire as a public reserve than it can as a residential development. If the Shone and Scholtz land is given over to residential development, only five land owners will benefit and a great community resource will be lost. This land is a part of the community, it must remain part of it. Situated north west of Riddells Creek, the Shone and Scholtz Land comprises wooded slopes leading up to Light Hill Ridge. The ridge forms part of the Robertson Range and the Macedon Range. It covers approximately 120 hectares, and consists of 162 individual titles. The land is bounded by private property on two sides, Gap Road and Conglomerate Gully Reserve. To the east, the land rises gently up from Gap Road for several hundred metres, before climbing steeply to the ridge. This ridge and its five crests form the backbone to Riddells Creek. The woodland leads the eye in from the broad plains up into the greater hills of the Macedon Massif. The Shone and Scholtz land forms a vital part of the landscape of Riddells Creek and Macedon Ranges Shire. The woodlands comprise two ecological vegetation types, Heathy Dry Forest and Grassy Dry Forest. As with most of the Macedon Ranges, the land has been harvested for timber, mostly for firewood or charcoal burning. However, the techniques used were gentle on the land resulting in little soil disturbance. The area seems never, or only lightly, to have been grazed. This low-level land use gives us the woodland we see today, open forest largely absent of weeds, with a vast diversity of ground cover plants. As the trees are mainly around fifty years old, there are few hollows and due to a lack of research little is known about the fauna found on the land, though many species are regularly seen. A large number of birds and insect species stand out if you spend time on the land over the seasons. Page 4 The underlying geology is a metamorphosed sandstone. That is, sandstone that has been altered by heat and pressure into a harder stone where the individual sand particles have become chemically bonded. These metamorphic sandstones are extremely hard and often have rounded river stones embedded in them, providing the regionally distinctive ‘conglomerate’ for which the adjacent Conglomerate Gully Reserve is named. Characteristic of this geology and the vegetation types is a high diversity of indigenous plant species. This range of species has adapted over millennia to low rainfall and infertile soils. The soils that cover the land can be described as yellow duplex soils, that is, soils with two distinctive layers. The topsoil is a grey loam approximately 20-30 cm deep, decreasing in depth towards the crests of the ridges. Below this is a yellow layer consisting of clay shales above bedrock. Again depth decreases towards the crest of the ridges. The yellow layer is highly dispersible, and greatly prone to tunnel and gully erosion. This was one of the key reasons for the lack of development of this land. The former Romsey Shire and the current Macedon Ranges Shire have consistently identified that the land capability is generally unsuitable for uses or development other than the existing natural system, which holds the hillside together. Current community values, policy and regulation value highly the protection of biodiversity. 4. Current Planning Controls The land is zoned Rural Use Zone 2 (RUZ2) with two overlays, Significant Landscape Overlay 1 (SLO1) and Restructure Overlay 7 (RO7). The RUZ2 provides two key restraints to the Shone and Scholtz Land – subdivision of lots must be no greater than 40 hectares and a planning permit is required to construct a dwelling on lots less than 40 hectares. SLO1 recognises the value of the landscape and requires permits for most developments, or clearing of vegetation. The Restructure overlay deals specifically with the Shone and Scholtz land and provides for the creation of five lots, consolidating the 162 that currently cannot be developed. RO7 has a requirement that a dwelling can only be constructed on land greater than 20 hectares. It is interesting to note that one of the restructure lots is 14.7 hectares, and therefore