Planning Apollo Bay's future - without the environment in mind
Apollo bay needs to change to accomodate more tourists, but not at the expense of its natural environment .
Any locals unconvinced that Apollo bay planning is out of control need only look at the foreshore on the Melbourne entrance - its a mess : And its a mess because development pressures have not been managed with the natural environment in mind .
-There are more and bigger pipes out to sea than there were ten years ago, when there should be less. -
-Public authorities now address the problems after they happen - throwing rocks onto the beachfront making it less and less easy for young surfers to learn the trade as the rocks break up and grate under their surfboards . ( see post below)
-Developers have been allowed to do what they like. How do they do it ? Simple ! They snow the council with fat technical environmental reports that few read and noone in the current system properly digests ( it wasn't always so) , so the projects eventually go ahead .
-With the sort of results on the ground that we have seen in the last few years , no wonder the State government are asked to step in . But then, their bureaucratic and reactive approach won't work either . Just like in Tassy ( 4corners last week) the big boys run even more expensive unproductive snow jobs with their EIS's and then come in later with a "we will fix it approach" ---sure they will fix it - after it fails . Not much help to us .
Planning is a mess because Council hasn't well resisted the pressure to balance complex issues . Its a mess because private interests now have a way of dominating over public interest . The State government have meddled and messed up department responsibilities so that environment planning is now " many departments responsibility" . Such nonsense is intolerable; - noone is reponsible when " everyone is responsible" .
Unless we all protest directly at the way the council and the state government duplicate responsibilities and allow huge gaps to develop in environment planning approaches - the hard stuff on good environment risk planning will just slip through - like it does now .
Any locals unconvinced that Apollo bay planning is out of control need only look at the foreshore on the Melbourne entrance - its a mess : And its a mess because development pressures have not been managed with the natural environment in mind .
-There are more and bigger pipes out to sea than there were ten years ago, when there should be less. -
-Public authorities now address the problems after they happen - throwing rocks onto the beachfront making it less and less easy for young surfers to learn the trade as the rocks break up and grate under their surfboards . ( see post below)
-Developers have been allowed to do what they like. How do they do it ? Simple ! They snow the council with fat technical environmental reports that few read and noone in the current system properly digests ( it wasn't always so) , so the projects eventually go ahead .
-With the sort of results on the ground that we have seen in the last few years , no wonder the State government are asked to step in . But then, their bureaucratic and reactive approach won't work either . Just like in Tassy ( 4corners last week) the big boys run even more expensive unproductive snow jobs with their EIS's and then come in later with a "we will fix it approach" ---sure they will fix it - after it fails . Not much help to us .
Planning is a mess because Council hasn't well resisted the pressure to balance complex issues . Its a mess because private interests now have a way of dominating over public interest . The State government have meddled and messed up department responsibilities so that environment planning is now " many departments responsibility" . Such nonsense is intolerable; - noone is reponsible when " everyone is responsible" .
Unless we all protest directly at the way the council and the state government duplicate responsibilities and allow huge gaps to develop in environment planning approaches - the hard stuff on good environment risk planning will just slip through - like it does now .
posted by Modi at 8:33 AM
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