Planning obstacles are “anti-business”

Developers of a major regional saleyards at Longwarry have criticised Baw Baw Shire’s planning processes, saying ongoing obstacles had sent them an anti-business message.

Longwarry Saleyards Pty Ltd representatives Frank Hernadi and Neil Darby said they could not stay silent after a “frustrating” couple of years.

They believe other developers and community members are dealing with similar difficulties.

Mr Hernadi said from their experience, the planning processes were unprofessional and did not provide a service that ratepayers and the business community expected.

“Longwarry Saleyards Pty Ltd is a $15 million plus project and will inject $190 million into the local economy annually.

“Right from the start we said to the shire, you tell us what you want us to do and we will do it provided it’s nothing ridiculous.

“We weren’t asking for special treatment, we just wanted to comply,” he said.

Mr Hernadi said he was aware of an “avalanche of complaints” within the development community.

He said the current chief executive officer Mark Dupe and councillors had inherited a problem and it was time they stood up and addressed the problems.

Council’s planning department has been under the careful watch of directors and councillors for some time as planning service benchmarks continue to decrease.

Know Your Council figures for the 2019/20 year showed only 54 per cent of planning applications were decided within the required timeframes – compared to 74 per cent for other municipalities.

The figures also showed council took 99 days to decide on a planning application compared to 65 days for all other councils.

At the end of May, figures provided to The Gazette by council showed 40.8 per cent of applications were decided within 60 days and the median for processing applications was 103 days.

In this year’s budget, council allocated funds to employ additional planning staff to meet increasing demands on planning and building services.

And as recently as June this year, officers dismissed a suggestion from Cr Joe Gauci that a dedicated planning committee could help to resolve council’s planning “deadlock.”

Despite one councillor admitting community members regularly complained about the “under-performance” of council’s planning department, officers said external review and benchmarking would assess how council’s planning processes could improve.

But Mr Hernadi and Mr Darby said a recent Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal hearing for “operational matters” relating to the saleyards’ development was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

On the final day of a fourday VCAT hearing, Mr Hernadi said there was no council staff representation, leaving council’s barrister unable to negotiate potential outcomes with saleyards representatives.

Mr Hernadi said he accepted the staff member was on leave but no-one else “filled in.”.

Frustrated and “fed up” with the processes, Mr Hernadi wrote to Mr Dupe and mayor Danny Goss.

He said they had acknowledged receipt of the email and Mr Dupe indicated he would provide a formal response last week. That response had not been received on Friday.

“Once again we complain about the dysfunctional Baw Baw planning department as we have done over the past three years.

“We have spent hundreds and thousands of dollars to resolve these issues and once again your planning department could not even login to a Zoom meeting or arrange another person from your department to login,” the email stated.

Mr Darby said three planners had dealt with their application throughout the process, and every time someone left the organisation they had to begin again.

Mr Hernadi said attempts to resolve seven operational issues within the planning permit had been costly to the developers.

One of the concerns related to culverts.

“Through our solicitors we finally organised a site meeting with Baw Baw engineers and after spending $29,000 with expert consultants the shire withdrew/deleted the condition at VCAT.

“This was a VicRoads issue and a Melbourne Water issue and you did not have to be an engineer to see the problem was not the culverts but the drains which had not been cleaned for 30 years,” he said.

Mr Darby said when local agents worked with Lardner Park to create a temporary calf and dairy market arrangement at Lardner Park, they faced more planning obstacles.

“The planners put us through hell out there. Again they couldn’t even help the farming community but they are happy to take their rates.

“On one occasion a staff member requested an onsite meeting. When we arrived she asked questions about things that were in the application.

“We asked if she had read the application and she said no I had a quick flick through it this morning,” he said.

In December, Cr Goss acknowledged council’s poor performance in planning and said council needed to improve its response time for responding to planning applications.

“With a very experienced planning director joining the team this month, I expect we’ll make some headway in this space over the next 12 months,” he said

That planning director, James Reid, announced his resignation two weeks ago, after only nine months in the job.

But again, Cr Goss remained optimistic, last week saying “we have a great planning and development team in place.”