By ERWIN CHLANDA
Independent Member for Araluen Robyn Lambley (pictured) says the misuse of rural residential land in Alice Springs has become “a free-for-all in terms of illegal business activities”.
She says in a letter to Lands Minister Dave Tollner that the Development Consent Authority (DCA) and the Department of Lands and Planning (DLP) are aware of these breaches but seem unwilling and or unable to do anything about it.
“If this problem continues to go unchecked I can see residents taking a class legal action against the NT Government for failing to regulate and uphold the RL zoning specifications,” she says.
“The alternative is to compensate RL residents and to open up the RL zones in Alice Springs to the business activity that is currently occurring. This would be a highly contentious change but in my view it is either one or the other.
“I am writing to the minister to ask him to make a decision,” she says.
FURTHER READING:
The Alice Springs News Online has reported extensively about planning issues, and the abuse of regulations, including in a comment piece about democracy, and an interview with Planning Commission chairman Gary Nairn.
Friday, April 19, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
There is no alternative. RL means RL. We have Brewer Estate and Industrial Area for these businesses.
Non of the planning here has taken account the geography of The Gap and the limitations placed on development because of this.
There is significant employment south of The Gap as anyone who lives and commutes in that areas knows only too well.
Industrialization of the RL zone is the result of this and poor forward thinking guided by vested interests and not the common good.
I have a complete road making business – five graders, road trains etc just across the road. They should have located in Cromwell Drive.
The situation will be far worse by the planned industrial estate behind the cemetery. Neither this nor Kilgariff will help the problem. Nor will the planned placement by Tesla the battery makers to put 500,000 electric cars a year on the roads by 2018.
No planning has been done for this also and in all respects we are many years behind, but unnoticed by Government or its planners.
Queensland is already building their solar highway. There are two solutions. One is to widen The Gap with all its political ramifications.
The better option is to make it worthwhile for people who want to live on their business premises to relocate to Brewer, with an associated commercial centre there.
This is so obviously where the Kilgarrif development should have been but the vested interests took over.
There is already significant employment south. This is just what happened in the Cameron St area with considerable success. There is very little commercial / industrial land left North of The Gap and it is expensive.
It is also most regrettable that the planners and Government failed to notice what has happened at Towoomba with their airport.
That could have happened here had Government and planners been on top of their game, and been the basis of a complete new commercial centre based around Brewer and the airport.
Queensland has also taken on two of our iconic plants from here, Solanum and spinifex, developed them and is about to reap substantial royalties from them while we built houses, many of them inappropriate to this environment, on land that we should have been devoted to that same purpose so that we could get the royalties.
They have lost my confidence and my vote. Dave Tollner, please come and live next to me!