By ERWIN CHLANDA
The Development Consent Authority (DCA) has now posted online its rejection of the controversial project.
The DCA stated that “the storage of transportable buildings” – as it was applied for – did not meet the transport terminal requirement of being for the “loading, discharge or storage of goods in the course of the transport”.
It said it did not “consider that the ordinary meaning of the term goods includes transportable buildings”.
What the applicants Masterplan NT, behalf of NT Link and Tony Smith, were seeking was consistent with the definition of “industry” – not permitted on the land.
Transportable buildings were the “ongoing infrastructure by which the business of hiring them is conducted … they are not merchandise for sale but form part of the ‘fixed’ assets of the business”.
Proposals for landscaping … could not address the visual amenity issues raised by the number of transportable structures.
Further reasons for the rejection were:–
• Safety hazard / nuisance of wide load trucks driving along Ilparpa Road and manoeuvring to and from the driveway to the site.
• Visual appearance of trucks and demountable structures (numbers and proximity to boundaries).
• Lack of landscape screening.
• Noise (hours of operation and sound levels).
• Soil degradation and dust nuisance emanating from activities on the site ; and
• The land use being inappropriate for the locality in terms of scale of site area, goods being stored on site and vehicle movements.
I’m sure my old mate can sell off his block/s and snap up a better one somewhere else that can be zoned for his purposes.
A victory for common sense and the application of the spirit of the rural zoning.
Now, what happens about all the other rural blocks where casual observation and common sense is enough to tell us they are being used industrially?
Unfortunately most folk in our community are not familiar with enough of the facts about our Planning Scheme. One in particular (that may well apply in some other zonings), is the legislated minimum lot size for the three Rural Zones.
Rural Residential, the least common in Alice Springs, is 0.4 ha (1 acre);
Rural Living, the most common in Alice Springs, is 2 ha (5 acres);
Rural (which applies to the lot in question) is 40 ha (100 acres) in Alice Springs and Tennant Ck, and 8 ha (20 acres) in the Top End, presumably to recognise the better rainfall and vegetation densities in that climate.
Most of the lots in the Ilparpa Subdivision were allowed to be created at half size (around 1 ha, 2.5 acres) and most of the lots in the Wanngardi Subdivision at White Gums were allowed to be created at 8 ha – this lot in question 12 ha.
In any zoning, if you have lots well undersize from that legislated by the Planning Scheme, and still carrying the same suite of permitted and discretionary uses as legislated for the legislated size, there will be problems. Overstocking is often fairly obvious, and in this instance, so is the proposed and actual activity.
The NT Government has to take some responsibility for this situation, and while it would be impractical to change pre existing undersize lots, it can help reduce the issues from arising with the help of the DCA and/or the Planning Minister, depending on the application.
This is what the DCA has done in this instance.
It is in the interests of everyone – including the proponent – to have such facilities situated in the vicinity of the cattle yards or Brewer.
The mining companies do this already and a cursory look at the geography show that we are a the intersection of three major national highways, North South, East west and soon NW to SE via the Tanami.
The outback way could easily have a diversion for heavy traffic from Gemtree thus satisfying the need of the local shire to speed up their tourism ambitions in the East Macs and partly alleviate the pressure on The Gap by arriving South of The Gap.
Add to that a cross nation railway and an internationally accredited airport with direct access to Asia and it would be a dream come true for a transport operator and a financial bonanza for those operators with a bit of foresight.
There is land available there as a few Local businesses have already discovered and the real estate values there will only rise as these facts are realised.
When the government was quizzed a few years on why land south of the airport was not used in place of Kilgariff there were a series of mealy mouthed reasons returned to me, non of which explained, why land publicly displayed as “Crown Land” was not available for the Crown to use.
I suspect that real estate interests had a say in that, and in the meantime the parking problems at the hospital only further make the point that the hospital (and the CBD) are now in the wrong place, and should be further south where the infrastructure, power and future water will have to be.
A commercial and housing hub there has to be the next obvious move. The early worms will most certainly get the very fat worm.
The proposal for Arumbera as an industrial zone is once more so short sighted with a rapidly growing market for short term walking / eco trails in many other areas, within cooee of the accommodation.