The future of conservation zones in the Ballina Shire could be left to private landowners in a council vote expected this week.
Conservative Independent Councillor Eva Ramsey, who ran on Mayor Sharon Cadwallader’s election ticket alongside Crs Rodney Bruem and Nigel Buchanan, has submitted the proposal for this month’s ordinary council meeting.
Agenda notes on Monday showed Cr Ramsey’s motion was in response to the council’s deferred vote on a review of conservation zones throughout the shire proposed more than a decade ago.
Pressure on the council to make a final decision has intensified thanks partly to a controversial development application for an over-fifty-fives’ resort-living estate on ecologically sensitive West Ballina wetland.
First the NSW Land and Environment Court rejected an initial case from developer Gemlife, citing environmental concerns.
Then the state’s planning department rejected a request from the Ballina Shire Council for more time to decide whether to recommend the land be zoned as C2 Environmental Conservation.
Councillors agreed unanimously in July to apply for state approval to carry out the new C2 zoning, with a department decision yet to be confirmed.
The application is the first for C2 zoning in the shire despite the change in planning regulations having been introduced under the former coalition state government eleven years ago.
The council was expected to vote on the proposed map of C2 zones later this year.
But an ideological difference between stakeholders on the social licence of conservation zoning continues to stall conversations on where in the shire it is most important to protect ecologically sensitive land.
Conservative councillors sceptical of conservation zones
Cr Buchanen told a meeting earlier this year C2 Zones scared ‘the hell’ out of him while Cr Bruem said either you respect property rights or you don’t.
Mayor Cadwallader said a recent council staff briefing for councillors and members of the public about conservation zoning had been informative but questions over landowner rights remained.
She said property owners were worried about rights to fire trails and water tanks if subjected to C2 Zoning.
The mayor also questioned potential costs of development applications that would become mandatory if they wanted to proceed with infrastructure projects on C2 Zoned land.
The introduction of conservation zoning into local government areas wasn’t mandatory, Cr Cadwallader told The Echo last week.
The Kyogle Shire Council had voted for an opt-in model whereby individual landowners could choose to apply for C2 Zoning instead of the council deciding what land to protect, Cr Cadwallader said, and the Ballina Shire Council could consider the same model.
Cr Ramsey laments Council resources invested in conservation zoning
This week’s agenda showed Cr Ramsay moving on the idea of an opt-in C2 Zoning model.
‘I move that in respect to the Deferred Matters Review (BSCPP 21/004), as it relates to conservation zones, Council adopts a policy position to include conservation zones on private property only where a written request from a landholder is submitted to and accepted by Council,’ Cr Ramsey’s motion read.
Cr Ramsey included nine points outlining her argument, featuring several references to the time and efforts already undertaken by Council staff on the proposal for conservation zones.
‘Time would be better put towards other works (eg DA assessment),’ Cr Ramsey wrote.
She said the recent Council staff presentation ‘didn’t provide any resolutions’ and there were ‘no answers to landowner questions in discussions’.
An ‘opt-in system should be adopted,’ Cr Ramsey wrote.
As for the map of proposed C2 Zones left in pencil for the past eleven years, Ballina Council should ‘immediately apply RU1 and RU2 zonings to properties currently targeted’, Cr Ramsey wrote.
Opt-in model lacks transparency, staff say
Ultimately, staff said the Department of Planning could decide not to agree with the recommended approach of Council regardless of the final decision of Council on the planning proposal.
Council staff recommended against the proposal in their notes on the agenda item.
‘An opt in approach, without a supporting report, lacks a degree of transparency,’ staff wrote, ‘and limits Council’s ability to make planning decisions based on the characteristics and attributes of land, and overall planning objectives framed in the long-term public interest’.
The deferred matters review planning proposal, which included the map, had been publicly exhibited, Council staff said.
Ballina Council had received 167 submissions in response, with staff saying some landholders made more than one submission.
Most submissions – 118 – objected to the planning proposal, staff said, but were mostly in relation to particulars associated with individual properties.
The planning proposal was currently in the submissions review phase, staff said.
They recommended councillors allow staff to finish reviewing submissions on the proposal and report back.
Staff also referred to the West Ballina land, if not by name, saying there were ‘considerations around whether the current planning proposal could progress based on the existing Gateway determination’.
They said that question included whether a new determination would be necessary and whether further public exhibition would then be required.
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