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Glenaroua farming land a concern in council debate

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A multi-lot subdivision of a 624-hectare parcel of land at Glenaroua will not proceed despite support from one Mitchell Shire councillor at this month’s meeting.

All councillors except David Lowe rejected the proposal to divide seven existing blocks at 360 The Bridle Track, Glenaroua into 15 blocks, following the recommendation of council officers.

Officers opposed the subdivision as they said it would result in the loss of productive farm land and set a precedent for the area in which large lots of farming zoned land could be subdivided into 40-hectare lots.

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Officers also expressed concerns the proposed 15 lots could be further subdivided through a dwelling excision provision in the Mitchell Planning Scheme, leading to what they called ‘the complete fragmentation of agricultural land’.

Other concerns included the need for additional access roads and impacts on biodiversity.

But Cr Lowe spoke in support of the proposal, calling some of the grounds for refusal listed in the officers’ report ‘disturbing’.

“The most disturbing is the fact that this proposal is not consistent with the draft Rural Land and Activities Review. It’s disturbing because that is no more than a proposal … and therefore not a guiding document,” he said.

“All of the other issues that the staff have raised as a reason for refusal could be incorporated as terms and conditions in the approval of this motion.

“A lot of the argument is that it is considered that 40-hectare lots are not a sufficiently large block of land to farm effectively. I would point out that in Europe, a 40-hectare block is regarded as a large farm. The average size of farms in Spain and France are significantly less than 40 hectares.

“I therefore think this motion is suboptimal in terms of its achievements. It could have divided this land up into 15 blocks that could have been adequately farmed in a number of ways that would have contributed arguably more to the development of the society.”

Cr Rhonda Sanderson said the draft Rural Land and Activities Review was only a small part of the officers’ recommendation to refuse the subdivision.

“Four out of the five grounds for refusal are that it is not compliant with our current planning scheme,” she said.

“It will cause fragmentation of agricultural land and it is inconsistent with the native vegetation removal policy.”

Cr Fiona Stevens said council was open to continuing to work with the landowners.

“Hopefully there might be some way forward with further discussions to see if it is possible to have some sort of subdivision that is more palatable and more consistent with the standards that we currently have,” she said.

“The main things would be [for] the block sizes to be reconsidered. There are still problems with the access road in [and] the expectations of the community in relation to that with regard to excess traffic.”

Mayor Bill Chisholm voted against the proposal but said he understood Cr Lowe’s position.

“It’s all about balance, and I can understand why [there was] that recommendation to support agriculture. We need agriculture in this country. It supports a lot of industry,” he said.

“I can definitely understand where Cr Lowe was coming from. There are viable farms in Europe at 100 acres, but here you probably need more.

“There needs to be a comprehensive study done on how people make money out of farming [and] the transition structure of farms. There’s an older generation of farmers out there and you need new blood in the industry.”

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