Campaspe Shire is awaiting a decision by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) in regard to its giving the conditional green light to a land development on an Echuca site, which was reportedly under water in October last year.
After a three-hour hearing the tribunal is considering whether or not the objectors to the development have grounds on which to make their objection under planning rules.
The shire has launched its own investigation into the conditional approval of the permit as claims have been made by the 15 objectors that the shire’s planning department failed to follow proper process in giving conditional approval to the development.
The Bowen St development at the centre of an article by The Sunday Age newspaper’s Bianca Hall is for 16 townhouses.
The Sunday Age article details the decision of the council, way back in February this year, to issue a notice of decision to grant a permit.
Plans for the project, designed by Echuca architectural firm Denham Designs, were submitted to council two months before the floods.
The permit was subject to the Echuca-based developer resubmitting the application to include plans for the dimensions, landscape and drainage discharge.
There were also conditions added to the permit that design work should life the floor height of the townhouses beyond the one-in-100-year flood height.
Objections to the planned development, at 166 Bowen St, came from a group of Echuca residents, along with the North Central Catchment Management Authority.
The eye-catching headline in The Age read “Last year, this block was underwater. Now a developer wants to build homes on it” and drew a response from the shire chief executive officer Pauline Gordon.
In a statement to The Age, Ms Gordon said the council would conduct an internal investigation into claims its officers failed to follow procedural fairness.
“Campaspe Shire Council takes allegations of procedural fairness and lack of transparency of process very seriously,” the statement read.
“Internally we are investigating the allegations made, however, the Bowen St development is the subject of a VCAT hearing, and we will not be making further comment at this stage.”
In The Sunday Age article Hall wrote: “Residents claim the council failed to follow due process in advertising and giving conditional approval to the development, and gave them two weeks to object to the development in November — while their homes were still inundated by flooding.’’
The article also quoted resident David Ujimoto, who told VCAT tribunal member Susan Whitney he felt like Darryl Kerrigan from hit Australian movie The Castle, representing himself and a group of residents objecting to the development because they could not afford legal representation.
“We’ve got our properties (that) were behind the levee wall that we are fixing up, and a lot of our money is going into fixing our homes,” Mr Ujimoto said.
“That’s why we’re self represented.”
VCAT is not examining the process by which Campaspe Shire Council gave conditional approval.
– It is a challenging time for the council as it has only just re-shuffled the deck chairs and appointed five new members of its executive team.
Long-time Campaspe shire planning department manager, Andrew Fletcher, was among those who had held acting executive roles — before the recent announcement of Ms Gordon’s new “dream team”.
Mr Fletcher had been in the acting director community role since October last year before the new appointments were made. Prior to that he was the shire’s planning chief for 12 years.
He, along with acting director corporate Matthew McPherson and acting director infrastructure Kate Lemon spent an extended period in the interim roles before Mr McPherson and Ms Lemon were appointed full-time to the corporate and infrastructure roles.
The new full-time director community position went to Jo Bradshaw.
The remaining two members of the new executive are director emergency management Shannon Maynard and director sustainability Michael Sharp.
Mr Fletcher was also a member of the Kyabram District Health Service board until recently. He started at Campape Shire in 2010, having previously worked in the City of Boroondara and Bayside City Council planning departments.