I refer to my family’s personal dilemma regarding the major threat a nearby plantation has posed to our dwelling over the last 20 years. See my article on the Tasmanian Times at:
http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php?/article/thisis-our-humble-abode/
Quoting from the article: “The tiny U-shaped clearing in the centre of this image is where our house is. What was once pasture is now monoculture industrial plantation. The Council rezoned the land from rural residential to rural industrial only 4 years after our home was built. I left a message with the OSEM today (last week) to try to get some assurance that the harvesting will happen before this summer and I’m awaiting a return call. The Waratah-Wynyard Council have dismissed my concerns saying that a 50 metre buffer meets ‘guidelines’. Though I requested my email be incorporated into the minutes of an upcoming Council meeting this was not done.
On reading the Draft Planning Directive No 5.1 Bushfire-Prone Areas Code I find that there are a number of statements that are very clear and must surely relate to our predicament. They are: “The purpose of this code is to ensure that use and development is appropriatelydesigned, located, serviced, and constructed, to reduce the risk to human life and property, and the cost to the community, caused by bushfires.” And this code is said to apply to: “a use, on land that is located within, or partially within, a bushfire-prone area, that is a vulnerable use or hazardous use.” Okay. The code certainly applies to the area our house is located in and it says the purpose of the Directive is to provide adequate protection for our lives and property. Great! Referring to Section E1.4 it’s clear that the plantation that has been stuck up almost against our house is not exempt from this Directive. What a relief!
Section E1.5.1 says that “That vulnerable uses are located on land within a bushfire-prone area only in exceptional circumstances.” Those ‘exceptional circumstances don’t apply to our dwelling because when we constructed our dwelling we did it in an environment surrounded by pasture. The plantation did not exist next door. It was a ‘lower-risk site’ at the time. But FEA moved in, did not provide any notification of their intention to plant 50 metres away and declined to respond to all correspondence over the 20 year period the trees continued to grow. I have been constantly seeking humane and ethical responses from the TFS, the local council, Tasmanian Ministers. I’ve appealed to the press to publish our concerns and an article was published in the Mercury and Advocate about the extreme fire threat. Still no responses were forthcoming from local and state government.
But now we are again in a very dangerous predicament with the RMS plantation company now planning to replant 50 metres away from our house after they have harvested the FEA trees.
We are particularly vulnerable. We cannot evacuate in an emergency as the West Calder Road to the south has native trees growing immediately beside the road. To the north there is easy access to a designated safe place in the event of a fire. So we have begun preparations to build a bunker behind our house.
Further on in the Directive I was alarmed to read that “no performance criteria” is needed for “A bushfire hazard management plan that contains appropriate bushfire protection measures that is certified by the TFS or an accredited person.” Nor for an “emergency plan that is approved by the TFS”. This is alarming in the context of the TFS’s past behaviour, its refusal to provide any safety for our family. The TFS has consistently failed to provide fire risk assessment for our house and persons when requested repeatedly. The TFS has never made any suggestions as to what we should do in case of an emergency and in fact has failed to have an officer turn up to provide public provision of advice on how to make our home safer.
The Draft Planning Directive talks about subdivision requirements but no mention is made of the great danger of existing narrow subdivisions like ours, where there is insufficient space available to be allocated between our house and our properties boundary to provide protection. Our dwelling is only about 10-15 metres away from the boundary.
the Planning Directive does not deal with the behaviour of plantation companies who move their trees close to residences. This is totally inadequate. It’s an omission that has huge ramifications for ourselves and many, many households in the northern rural areas of Tasmania in particular.
As this document stands it provides no reassurance nor clarity for endangered households. No protection is evident at all.
The Planning Directive therefore fails in its stated objective.
Brenda Rosser, West Calder
