We saw this article on Tasmanian Times ( HERE ) and thought it was important to provide a response. Our first reaction to the article was concern that we clearly haven’t got something right. It was not our intention for the ‘Zoning Framework’ to be inconsistent with the rest of the Strategy (and for the record the ‘Zoning Framework’ was indeed written by our small Project Team who also wrote the rest of the Strategy).
The Southern Tasmania Regional Land Use Strategy is a draft document that has been put out for public consultation (starting on 27 October 2010). It has been produced through the Southern Tasmania Regional Planning Project which is a joint initiative of both State and Local Government. While our project is a one-off initiative, both State and Local Government through the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding that established our project recognised that the success of regional planning required on ongoing governance system into the future, models for which are currently being examined by the State Government.
We emphasis the word draft because we do not believe that the document is perfect and there will be changes to the Strategy as a result of the consultation and submissions received. For example as a result of this article and re-examining some of the submissions that we already have (we started picking up a theme!) we realised that we had unfortunately created a confusing situation, particularly through the use of ‘conceptual’ maps which are scattered throughout the draft Strategy.
Map 4 in the draft Strategy shows the key agricultural production areas in the region divided into five sub-districts. In the draft A4 document this map is labelled ‘Significant Agricultural Land in Southern Tasmania’. While it was our original intention that this map would indeed represent the land which is likely (with blurred boundaries) to be defined as ‘Significant Agricultural Land’ as per the State Policy on the Protection of Agricultural Land; at the time that we were finalising the map we were having difficulties in accessing the specific GIS data to support this map. The map was therefore changed so that it showed the key areas in which agricultural production is happening based upon the analysis in the background report (Background Report No. 7 Productive Resources).
The problem was however created by my oversight (mea culpa!). The name of the map was changed on the A3 versions available at the Council displays and on the website, but I forgot to change the name of the map on the A4 versions.
Therefore if you look at this map and then read the Zoning Framework you will get the impression that most of the private land in the Huon Valley will be zoned Significant Agriculture when in fact most of the land will be zoned Rural Resource with some specific areas that are already rural residential being zoned Rural Living.
So we (particularly I) take this opportunity to apologise; however it does demonstrate the value of public consultation, because in the end the Strategy should be able to be easily read and understood.
We also apologise if we are repetitive and it is too wordy (some may even say gobbledigook!). We will work on this in the final version. There are also lots of other things we will work on to improve.
But what we do need you to do is to contact us directly if you see something that needs to be improved or changed. We are open to all suggestions and we can promise everyone that we will be taking all submissions into account. In the end we want to improve the planning system not make it worse.
A consultation report will be made publicly available early in 2011 and the revised final version of the Strategy will still need to go through an endorsement process with each Council prior to the expected commencement of the formal endorsement process by the Minister for Planning.
We also note that the draft Planning Schemes arising from this Strategy will also be put out for public consultation in the second half of 2011. This will provide the public with a further opportunity to comment on the specific provisions and zoning maps before the formal process under the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 commences.
For those of you who do want to contact us or put in a submission, Damian Mackey and myself (as the Joint Project Managers) can be contacted on [email protected] or on (03) 6270 2242. As a further sign that we are serious about being happy to talk to as many people as we can my mobile number to contact me directly on is 0409 787 715.
Emma Riley
Joint Project Manager
Southern Tasmania Regional Planning Project
Southern Tasmanian Councils Authority
www.stca.tas.gov.au/rpp
