VICTORIAN AND ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL DIVISION LIST P1789/2016 5201665 CATCHWORDS Application under section 77 of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 – to review the refusal to grant a permit. APPLICANT Australian Community Support Organisation Ltd Moira Shire Council Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority Country Fire Authority, Action Group, Alison Greenwood, Cliff Watters SUBJECT LAND 104 Watters Road NUMURKAH WHERE HELD Melbourne BEFORE Laurie Hewet, Senior Member Ann Keddie, Member HEARING TYPE Hearing DATE OF HEARING 20, 21, 22, 23,24 & 25 February 2017 6 March 2017 DATE OF ORDER 28 July 2017 CITATION Australian Community Support Organisation Ltd v Moira SC (No.2) [2017] VCAT 1133 Permit granted In application P1789/2016 the decision of the responsible authority is set aside. Numurkah
regulatory authorities expressing some concern about the impact of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre on prospects of obtaining approval for the cultivation of those crops. In a more general sense, the residential component of the proposed use raises fundamental issues about the impact of the use on the operation and expansion of adjoining and nearby agricultural uses. Local policy specifically discourages residential uses in the Farming Zone because prospective agricultural investment is jeopardised, deterred, or completely lost by land uses and developments that have the potential to compromise the scale and location of such investment. In particular, agricultural investment is far less likely where land is already fragmented in ownership with housing dispersed throughout. The Farming Zone is not the appropriate location to establish a use that is reliant on tranquillity and serenity as part of the rehabilitation program. In the Farming Zone generally, and in this location specifically residents will be confronted with the reality of working on nearby properties on which crop spraying and the use of heavy machinery is to be expected. The planning scheme provides no policy basis to support the location of a use of this type in a Farming Zone generally and there is no locational imperative for the proposal to be located on this site. Both the Council and objectors referred us to and relied on Tribunal decisions in which applications for non-agricultural uses in the Farming Zone had been rejected. In the cases referred to us, the Tribunal held that for reasons applying in those cases, the intrusion of the non-agricultural uses proposed in those applications, would have an adverse impact and would not be compatible with the policies and objectives for agricultural areas. We agree with the Council and the objectors that the planning scheme does establish a relatively stringent policy context in which applications for uses in the Farming Zone are to be assessed. We acknowledge that the intrusion of non-agricultural uses into agricultural areas does have the potential to undermine the viability and operational integrity of agricultural areas and to prejudice ongoing investment in agricultural production. We also acknowledge that care must be taken with the assessment of each individual application because often, it is the cumulative impact of many individual decisions that ultimately lead to the degradation of individual agricultural uses and the viability of an agricultural area more generally. As we have discussed there is however, a discretion to grant a permit for this use in the Farming Zone. The responsible authority and on review the Tribunal must decide whether the proposal will produce acceptable outcomes in terms of the State Planning Policy Framework, the Local Planning Policy Framework, the purpose and decision guidelines of the