"Devon North suitable for turbines" - says Terry

Yarram Standard News
Wednesday 22/11/2006, Page: 5

WIND turbines should be erected on the site proposed for the Devon North wind farm as the property is zoned rural, according to renewable energy supporter, Terry Willmott.

And the Devon North resident believes objecting neighbours have no case against the wind farm as many of their properties are also zoned rural.

"It astounds me given that these people bought properties in a rural zone. What else do they expect?" Mr Willmott said. "These people are not full time farmers but they live in a rural zone. The only property out there used for rural activities is the site proposed for the wind farm.

"The other people out there bought properties for a country lifestyle in a rural zone. The council should not have allowed them to do so" Mr Willmott said rural zonings are comparable to industrial zonings in a metropolitan area: 'They would have no rights to object to a factory being built next door to them in an industrial zone in a metropolitan area.

"Many of the houses in question are old farm houses but they're not zoned rural residential. They're zoned rural. I don't know how the shire has allowed things to get where they are" Wellington Shire Council's director of community and development, Steve Dickson, confirmed most objectors to the wind farm lived on land zoned rural.

"People are saying that wind farms would detract from their rural lifestyle. At the end of the day, people living in a rural zone have a right to raise a matter that affects them;' he said.

"But that does not mean that someone else has no rights." Mr Dickson said he did not believe objectors' properties should have been re-zoned to rural residential. "At Devon North, some areas are targeted to be changed to rural residential under council's residential and rural residential review.

"Under State Government changes that are now in place, a lot of rural land will be changed to a new farming zone to discourage people from living in farming areas if they are hobby farmers, and instead live in a rural living zone" Mr Dickson said that zoning would cater for people wishing to live on a small parcel of land without impacting on farming activities.

People living on lot sizes under 40ha must now prove to council they are farming on the property. Mr Willmott said people relocating to properties zoned rural should expect land uses such as wind farms to be proposed for such locations. 'What if pine trees were put on this property instead of the wind farm?" he said.

Wellington councillors overturned planning officers' recommendation to approve the wind farm. The company proposing the wind farm has now taken council's objection to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

Mr Dickson said council expects to receive a date for the VCAT hearing by Christmas. Mr Willmott said councillors should have followed planners' advice.

"Once again we have the council paying the wages of these professional planning people to advise the councillors on this, but the councillors do not have expertise in these matters and still they ignore the planners;' he said.

Mr Willmott said council had set a precedent for hobby farmers' views to take priority over proposals by neighbouring full-time farmers.

He also queried tactics adopted by wind farm opponents. "One minute these people are saying their views would be obstructed and the next they're saying a bit of compensation would help;' Mr Willmott said. "They say how useless wind farms are but now they're saying they're all for wind farms but not in a residential area. They keep changing their arguments.

"If the 20 objectors want these lovely rolling hills to be maintained as they are, then why don't they form a co-operative and give the money to the people who own the wind farm site, to have it maintained in the manner in which they want it maintained"