Living With the Bush

BUSHLAND areas could be turned into “moonscapes” when homeowners get more power to clear vegetation on their properties, local mayors fear.

New rules announced by the State Government today will allow residents in bushfire-prone areas to clear vegetation around their houses and fences without a council permit. Residents will also be allowed to collect firewood from roadside areas earmarked for fuel-reduction burns. Homeowners will be allowed to undertake the following clearing measures without a permit:

• Any vegetation, including trees, within 10 metres of their house.
• Lower-lying vegetation such as shrubs and “ground fuel” up to 30 metres from their house.
• Trees and other vegetation up to four metres either side of their fence lines, provided they have the consent of their neighbour

Yarra Ranges Mayor Len Cox said the new rules were an “overreaction” by the State Government, and allowing 10 metres of clearing would have a major impact on the local landscape, particularly the Dandenongs.

“I understand people’s nervousness, especially with the approaching fire season,” Cr Cox said. “The issue or allowing a 10m-clearance is that if this was taken up by residents over a great deal of our shire, especially the Dandenongs, you would end up with there being no trees at all.

“We would be removing the one thing that people come to live for in that area.” Cr Cox said he feared a repeat of landslip problems experienced in the Dandenong Ranges at the turn of last century.

“In the Dandenongs, if you go back a century, there were massive landslip problems. One of the reason for landslip problems was there weren’t many trees in the Dandenongs,” Cr Cox said.

Macedon Ranges Mayor John Letchford said new rules would “usurp the authority of councils with a very simplistic, one-size-fits-all formula, without any regard for site-specific areas”. “This is a jackboot authoritarian solution from the State Government to a very complex issue,” he said.

Cr Letchford said Mt Macedon was mostly privately owned and “in danger of looking like Queenstown in Tasmania, a moonscape, with rampant clearing”.

“All our discussions with Justin Madden on planning policy number eight and the strategic work we have spent hundreds of thousands on, as a requirement of government, has gone up in smoke,” Cr Letchford said. “It’s a carte blanche for anyone with a chainsaw to massacre remnant vegetation on property.”

But Nillumbik Mayor Bo Bendtsen said the rule allowing residents to clear vegetation around fencelines with the consent of their neighbour needed further explanation to cover instances when the council was the neighbour. He said the council would need to understand if it could withhold permission to residents who lived next to shire-owned land.

“Along many properties, council is the neighbour and we’ll need to understand if council can withhold permission,” Cr Bendtsen said.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Gavin Jennings said the government was working with local councils to address potential landslip and erosion problems. The amendments to the Victorian Planning Provision will also allow for planned roadside burns in high-risk areas. Residents will be allowed to collect firewood from roadside areas up to two weeks before each planned burn-off by the Country Fire Authority.

Planning Minister Justin Madden said planned burns would only apply to roadside reserves indentified by road management authorities, the CFA and DSE as “high risk”. He said firewood was to be collected for personal use only and could not be sold. The changes, to come into effect in coming weeks, will not apply in 20 metropolitan councils that are not on Melbourne’s outer-fringe.

Source: http://free-press-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/mayors-fear-chains...