Meeting with Minister Day 27Aug09 - 07.09.2009

On 27th August 2009 members of FOMRE and GCA, met with the Minister for Planning, two of his staff and two senior Department of Planning and Industry (DPI) staff members to discuss his recent announcement that the government would permit a 2000 lot residential development on the south side of the Moore River near Guilderton.

Mr Day said his government had inherited a planning deadlock which was holding up development within the Shire of Gingin. His main point was that a decision had to be made that was fair to the developer. Apparently the government was concerned that the developer should not be deprived of the value which was added to the land by the re-zoning in 1995, notwithstanding that it had not, since then, obtained approval for sub-division.

Mr. Day, who has not visited Moore River, indicated that he understood the land in question to be degraded agricultural land.  He made it clear at the outset that the primary question as to whether the development should happen was not open for discussion. He would not undo the original decision to re-zone the land from Rural to Urban Development, irrespective of its merits.

Mr. Day also voiced the opinion that the Gingin Shire Council would be in favour of the proposal when it came before it. The Gingin Coastal Structure Plan, would become defunct when a new plan, the Wheatbelt Regions Structure Plan, is launched next year.  It is assumed that this will show the Plunkett land zoned as Urban Development. Departmental staff confirmed that there are presently no State planning policy documents supporting development of the land.

Discussions ensued regarding the possibility of a land buy-back, Guilderton’s expansion requirements, the legal and moral issues of rezoning the land to rural and developer compensation. For a full report of the entire meeting visit our web site. (www.savemooreriver.org)

At the end of the meeting the Minister was left with a set of questions and a dossier of some of the more flagrant misuses of consultation procedures of the past 15 years.

FOMRE and GCA made clear our aim was and would remain to bring the land into public ownership for the benefit of all future generations of Western Australians.

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