How annoying are draft documents?
“I’ve heard that people don’t understand why many are annoyed with draft documents” says Nicole Small. Story by Nicole Small – ed by Nulu
Some perspective… The “Go Jindabyne initiative”, now re-branded and is included in a number of “Special Activation Precincts” and is often jokingly referred to as the SAP on the Monaro.
The SAP initiative is a push to upgrade the Eastern corridore with a number of projects called SAPs between the northern and southern borders of Queensland and Victoria. They are… Wagga Wagga, Moree, Williamtown, Parks and the Snowy mountains. Within this scope, Jindabyne hopes to utilise its share from the overall $4.2 Billion Snowy Hydro legasy fund to expand its surrounds and create a new international city of Jindabyne ASAP.
So if that sounds difficult and confusing, well it is…. 4.2 to the power of 9 divided by 5 equals 840 million. that means we have a remaining budget of $840 million from which our bureaucrats have eaten into already. To underpin the SAP strategy, investors will need to be encouraged and engage in the Monaro region.
Enter the E-zone debacle which is mentioned in a previous article..
Nicole Small is part of a group known as SMR Farmers and Landholders Group ….. in her observations, this is what she had to say…
Article by Nicole Small…
Why are you concerned? The Strategies are just Strategies, it will be fine.’
If you are like me, you’ve heard words to the same effect, many times when talking with people about the Draft Rural Land Use Strategy and the Draft Settlements Strategy.
Or you have heard something like – we have consulted with the community so we know what they want/ need and we’ve listened.
The reason I am concerned goes right back to the beginning. Back when the “community” was “consulted” on the Planning and Land Use Discussion Paper, in early 2019. It was this document which included a few graphics suggesting that “Environmental Protection Zones” might be considered for areas in the Snowy Monaro Region and provided some information suggesting an increase in minimum lot size to 250 hectares for RU1 – Primary Production land.
For anyone who remembers going to or hearing about these consultations (you’d be one of approx. 300 people), Council went to 11 towns and villages.
Council published documents they called “What we heard – survey” and “Listening Paper – What you told us” following these sessions. And you know what? The issues raised now, are still the same issues from then – 2 years ago.
After the “Discussion Paper”, Council produced the Draft Local Strategic Planning Statement (LSPS). The LSPS was publicly exhibited in 2020 – the beginning of 2020, when the pandemic started and shut us down. Community sessions started as face-to-face then changed to online, via Zoom. How many people had heard of ‘Zoom’ before the pandemic? And how many had used it? There were 12 sessions all up; 6 face-to-face on location, and 6 over Zoom (according to the Final LSPS).
In reality, it was Michelago who had a face-to-face consultation, 2 others were scheduled but cancelled, and there were 3 drop in sessions in Cooma, Jindabyne and East Jindabyne.
The broader community could have been lulled into a false sense of relief about what changes would happen. The term “Environmental Protection Zone” was only mentioned twice in a document of 104 pages and only when discussing the Tinderry to Nimmitabel and Numeralla corridor. The minimum lot size increase for rural land was not mentioned, except to say “utilising different/place based approaches to land use and minimum lot size for fringe agricultural land or land of varying agricultural quality.” It appeared that the proposal had been amended!
There was no real detail about the changes to allowable development, including dwellings, or how the introduction of these zones would affect general day-to-day business, or what the impacts would be to living in the area. But landholders still raised their concerns, over and over again.
Yet, they claim to promote rural related development and value add agriculture. How much development when there’s a proposed increase of minimum lot size of up 50 times in some areas?
This is a quote from the LSPS, “The use of Environmental Protection Zones in accordance with the Rural Lands Study and Biodiversity Study will be considered to better protect the biodiversity value and link the corridor.”
What does that quote suggest to you? To me it says further investigation and consultation is needed before Council suggests any potential re-zoning.
The consultants conducting the above studies clearly state that additional work is required to ascertain the true environmental value of areas not validated, or even looked at, because of constraints in the data provided and the scope of the study requested by Council. The consultants didn’t even confirm that the data sets they were provided were correct – they assumed that SMRC provided correct data.
So what did Council do next? They drafted the Rural Land Use Strategy and Settlements Strategy.
These documents are large. You almost need a Government sanctioned thesaurus, complete with what the acronyms mean. Plain English and proofed community documents have gone out the window.
Council have stated that they have received “over 300 formal submissions” and “a significant amount of verbal and written feedback” on the Draft Rural Land Use Strategy and Draft Settlements Strategy. SMRC go on to say: “Your comments are currently being considered in the finalisation of the Strategies and we will be notified of the outcome.” Sufficient enough?
A further important note made is that these are just Strategies and not a draft Local Environmental Plan (LEP). This is differentiated by the Strategies not holding any legal weight, however landholders should still remain concerned. Thoughts, concerns and suggestions have, after all, been made to SMRC before.
SMRC are gearing up to say we have consulted and listened and we have incorporated feedback into the amended Strategies. But, can we really trust that? Have they really shown us that this time will be any different?
If we don’t get this right, why would people want to settle here, farm here, invest here. They’ll go to Queanbeyan-Palerang, or Yass Valley, or Hilltops, or Eurobodalla, where they can buy property more suitable with dwelling entitlements – and where they aren’t as restricted.
The Eurobodalla Shire Council’s whole LEP process took years and 16 amendments to finalise. They engaged with the community by creating a community steering committee, to canvas ideas and ensure landholders and farmers were able to provide their views on what their futures held.
The studies and supporting documentation that the The Eurobodalla Shire Council used were comprehensive and showed the true impacts – including how many new houses could be built under the new plan. Each amendment needed a new proposal and Ministerial Approval, a community consultation period, amendments, and public authority and organisation consultation. They actually listened to concerns and made choices based on feedback received.
I am not suggesting that our LEP process will take this long, or require that many amendments – but it could be a long drawn out process. More like a marathon, than a sprint.
Even if the Draft Rural Land Use Strategy and the Draft Settlements Strategy are amended in the favour of landholders, SMRC has shown their hand, over and over again – what’s to say they won’t try again when it comes to the planning proposal for the LEP.
Most importantly… We are in a local government election year. So when talking to potential candidates, Work out if they actually understand the Strategies, the content, and the implications – and not just what they’ve been told, but from their own personal reading and perspective.
Also try and get a sense from the potential candidates about where they stand on this issue. It should play an important role in their campaign…. Find out if they have been vocal in presenting their views to date with their communities, and to Council…. Ask if they have made submissions… Insist they support their community, our community and the future of the Snowy Monaro.
