The Broulee Mossy Point Community Association and Broulee Mossy Point residents are furious to see the developer's barricades being erected around the community land on the corner of Clarke St and Broulee Rd earlier this week.
Community association members quickly contacted Council staff, Councillors and even spoke with the demolition contractors to ensure that there would be no clearing outside of the developers land.
A member of the Broulee Mossy Point Community Association said this morning (June 25th 2021) :
"We were given this assurance from council staff that this would not happen but unfortunately in an act of deceit or incompetence by Council staff, the bulldozers were given permission to leave the bounds of the private land and clear 24m into community land."
"I know many people are upset to see the council endorsed clear-felling of every mature tree on the developers land. But to have this clearing include all vegetation on adjoining community land is a disgrace." "The Council planning department is now saying the clearing of community land was permitted due to a bushfire Asset Protection Zone which presumably enables the developer to sell blocks that don’t require the builders to conform to higher bushfire regulations. "If in fact, the APZ is a requirement to build on those blocks, why can't that 24m come out of the developers land? They could easily leave a 24m buffer zone around the edge of their land. But the Council Planning Department have shown yet another deceitful decision that favours developers profits over community interest." The Broulee Mossy Point Community Association ask: "What do you think? Should the developer be allowed to clear community land or should any buffer zone come from within their development? "What do you think? Should council staff be held accountable to provide truthful, clear, accurate and unbiased information? "What do you think? Should a Council Planning department work to maximise Developer profits at all costs? or should they make balanced decisions to enable developments with consideration to the community and the environment? A quick history of this land. "Clarke Street originally was a straight road but this resulted in a ‘Y’ intersection with Broulee Rd. To make a safer ‘T’ intersection they introduced the current bend many years ago. This resulted in the previous unformed road reserve where the old road went straight ahead. In 2003 a council decision was made to “close” this unformed road and assign this community land - this decision is documented clearly in Council minutes at the time. The land was officially allocated as a landcare site and council erected signs to confirm this. Rewind a few weeks and Council tried to sell this land and finally council staff confirmed that they had “forgotten” to update their systems and the planning departments mapping systems still showed this bush as a “Road reserve”. An active investigation by members of the Commercial Services team was seeing why this was not done. But rather than complete this investigation and correct their mistake they have doubled down and cleared this community land." Councillor Anthony Mayne has sent an urgent Question on Notice to the General Manager having received the following email from The Beagle this morning: Councillors, I have visited the the Broulee site and the recent clearing and ask the following as matter of urgency
Exactly who gave permission for clearing? Was an environmental impact study of the trees carried out? Was there an assessment of wildlife before the trees were removed?
If so can you please provide a copy and evidence.
Based on what I have seen and based on the communication and promises made to the Broulee community over the development of this land I have grave concerns for what lies ahead in Dalmeny.
Can you please advise what processes, checks and balances Council intends to put in place to ensure the decimation being witnessed in Broulee will not be repeated.
It appears that the community are ill informed of the extent of environmental impact of these developments and given the minimum allowable sizes and the justification of tree removal in proximity to a house and allowable APZ , the reality appears that this is what we can come to expect in Rosedale, Mossy Point, Dalmeny and any of our coastal zones identified for Urban Expansion.
#allkindsofnatural ?? #naturecoast ??? #allkindofclearinginthenameofprogress more like.
I do hope this issue might be raised as a Question on Notice so that the community can better appreciate that while we seek to increase our population we are equally destroying the very reason we live here.
