The state’s planning department has approved Ballina’s first conservation zone, although it’s unclear how the land will stay protected given the council’s recent vote for an ‘opt-in’ policy.
The land at 550 -578 River Street West Ballina is more commonly referred to as being on Burns Point Ferry Road, near the junction of Emigrant Creek and the Richmond River.
A 2021 Land and Environment Court (L&EC) ruling found parts of the land needed protection from development owing to ecological sensitives, including endangered communities.
The ruling had the support of at least eight expert ecological reports.
The land was split between two zones at the time, called R2 Low Density Residential andRU2 Rural Landscape.
Expensive legal battles and protracted politics delay environmental protection
The L&EC case happened after developer GemLife decided to legally fight the Ballina Shire Council when it refused a development application for a seniors’ housing estate on site.
Council staff this year advised the council to rezone the land as a C2 Environmental Conservation, a move that would make it Ballina’s first official conservation zone, eleven years after the former coalition state government introduced them into planning regulations.
But the Ballina Shire Council appeared reluctant to follow the staff advice, deferring debate on the matter until the state’s planning department declined a request for an extension on a final decision.
Councillors at July’s ordinary council meeting found themselves obliged to end a period of regulatory zoning at odds with legal and scientific findings that had lasted eighteen months.
Council meetings had heard, in that time, of residential complaints the land was being mistreated via slashing in an apparent attempt to degrade its ecological value.
Ultimately councillors voted unanimously to seek the land’s zoning as C2 Environmental Conservation, only for conservative councillors to return in September with a new approach.
Millions of ratepayers’ dollars at risk, says Cr Johnson
Cr Eva Ramsey, elected to the council as part of Mayor Sharon Cadwallader’s team, proposed an opt-in model of conservation zoning to councillors in September.
The approach, adopted by the nearby Kyogle Shire Council, would allow rural landowners to volunteer their land for conservation zoning and wouldn’t allow the council to apply it without their consent.
The mayor had already suggested the model during earlier debate and used her casting vote to pass an amended version of the motion from another of her successful election team candidates, Cr Rodney Bruem.
Cr Bruem called for objecting landowners to have their land re-zoned according to regulations from the 1980’s.
Staff at the time advised the opt-in approach lacked transparency without a supporting report.
They noted how it would limit the 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’.
Ultimately, staff said, it would be up to the state’s planning department to approve an opt-in model.
Independent Cr Jeff Johnson has recently said the move could cost ratepayers millions of dollars defending inappropriate development.
He told The Echo opt-in conservation zoning could lead to large scale development on the flood plain.
The Burns Point Ferry Road land is on the flood plain and is so susceptible to flooding that GemLife’s latest estate designs included an evacuation helipad.
Conservation at West Ballina officially approved but court case continues
Cr Johnson said the planning department had written to the council saying the opt-in model put at risk conservation zoning on the site, despite the fact it wasn’t included in areas councillors were seeking to make opt-in.
By then, the department had approved rezoning of the West Ballina land in a decision published last week, at around the same time the Northern Region Planning Panel refused the latest modified proposal from GemLife for its housing estate.
GemLife is still pursuing the council in court, arguing a right to develop under previous zoning regulations.
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