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Ingram urges farmers to support new rural zones

The Member for Gippsland East, Craig Ingram, said today that the move to protect prime agricultural land from subdivisions and conflicting developments is one that all farmers should support.

By Craig Ingram - 17th March 2004 - Back to News

In his submission to the discussion paper on the proposed new rural zones, Mr Ingram gave in principle support to draft changes as contained in the discussion paper and the recent changes announced by the Minister, but has made further recommendations to ensure the concerns expressed from Gippsland are addressed.

"The creation of additional rural zones to clearer describe and define the current and potential future land usage is necessary as there are many anomalies and inconsistencies in the application of subdivisions and building applications on "Rural 1a" zoned areas," Mr Ingram said.

"The combination of impact of the ongoing drought, poor international markets and the value of the Australian dollar and government regulations, when combined with the increased influx of "lifestyle choice" settlers and alternative land users, has caused property market value escalations and direct conflicts with the traditional farming activities making farming difficult and economically marginal in many areas.

"Therefore, in my submission I have proposed that the following recommendations to be adopted before the new zone restrictions are implemented:

• That funds be made available to rural councils to conduct a compete planning reassessment and public consultation process to enable them to implement the new zones;
•  That land capability assessments and productivity assessments be undertaken for all areas that will be subject to the proposed new zones and that assessment be used to assist the new planning schemes;
• That the government implements a new farm rating system based on the productive value of the land for those areas contained in the new farm zone to offset the opportunity loss to farmers under the new zoning system;
• That the government immediately removes the as-of-right entitlement in the state Grants Commission Act to enable rural councils to manage better their infrastructure costs;
• That special consideration be given to properties with a large portion of retained native vegetation;
• That councils have the right to implement or not the new zones depending on their region’s needs; and
• That there is no deadline for implementation.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com

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