Planning concerns

ON August 24 The Courier reported on five development applications that went to the Council Assessment Panel (CAP) on August 17.

A representative of the Mt Barker & Districts Residents Association attended this four-hour meeting.

Our main concern was to oppose the location of the child care centre on the corner of Memorial Drive and Bollen Road. We opposed it because it is in a residential area and local amenity will be impacted.

Traffic will increase, car parking is virtually non-existent, there is risk of flooding and risk to the Bollen Road verge trees, many of which are historic and significant.

The CAP agenda and papers were 1565 pages long and are only available online three ‘clear days’ before the meeting as per the requirements.

All applications had written and verbal representations from either individuals or community groups opposing them.

In most cases those opposing were immediate or near neighbors of the proposed developments, whose daily lives will be negatively impacted.

The CAP approved these development applications because they were ‘not seriously at variance with the provisions of the Planning and Design Code’. The State Planning and Design Act and Code, under which these developments were approved, clearly favors developers and development over the community.

Developers have access to resources to build detailed, data driven applications and access to lawyers, planners and other experts who can interpret the Code in detail. On the other hand, the community relies on individual and collective resources, mostly voluntary and with limited knowledge, to challenge these claims. This is an example that community consultation and input to these developments is not occurring in a meaningful way.

This must change through amendment to the Act and Code which is currently under review by an expert panel.

We urge all concerned community members to provide feedback to this Code as without changes to the Code, the CAP will continue to make these decisions to the detriment of the community.

Dianne van Eck, Chairperson, Mt Barker & District Residents’ Association