Moyne Shire Council to refer controversial Port Fairy planning decision to government panel

The C75 amendment would rezone seven hectares of land on Port Fairy's northern fringe from farming zone to residential zone and subdivide the site into 75 lots, primed for development.

Councillors will vote at the monthly council meeting on July 25 on whether to accept the council officer advice to handball the decision to an expert planning panel because of the complexity of the amendment and dozens of objections to the proposal that couldn't be resolved.

The council first received a planning application for the proposed Rivers Run development in June 2020, but the scale of the proposal and planning difficulties posed by the site meant it would have to amend the Moyne Shire planning scheme for the development to go ahead.

The proposed C75 amendment was publicly exhibited in December 2021 and January 2022, alongside the C69 planning amendment, which sought to rezone other areas throughout Port Fairy and determine appropriate flood overlays for the town.

The public exhibition period had drawn 89 submissions, including from the Environment Protection Authority, Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority and adjacent Sun Pharmaceuticals plant.

The council tried to deal with both amendments simultaneously, but then decided it would be better to settle the questions in C69 before deciding on the Rivers Run amendment, so C75 was put on hold until February 2022.

The C69 amendment was sent to a planning panel, which identified several issues for Rivers Run, the key obstacles being flooding overlays and a development buffer zone around the Sun Pharma plant, both of which could circumscribe the land available for development.

The developer applied for a special post-COVID Development Facilitation Program in March 2023 that would have fast-tracked the application by handing it directly to the Planning Minister for sign off, but the government denied the request.

The decision by the C69 planning panel to select 0.8 metres rather than 1.2 metres as its sea level rise scenario for Port Fairy has kept the development alive.

Under the 1.2 metre scenario a large section of the site would have been within the Floodway Overlay, in which it is essentially impossible to get development approval.

A world-leading environmental economist conducting a sea level rise report for the Victorian government said he had been stunned by the planning panel decision on C69.

Professor Tom Kompas said the 0.8 metre benchmark was more than a decade old and the latest sea level rise data suggested 1.2 metres was much more likely.

His report on the likely financial damage from flooding in Victoria in the next 80 years was released in July and predicts "profound damages" for coastal areas like Port Fairy.

The Glenelg Hopkins CMA declined to provide an opinion on the development until C69 is finalised by the Planning Minister, but previously gave cautious support to the development if a range of strict conditions were met.

The main issues were raising the internal roads and floor levels of the proposed houses in the development to the necessary heights above sea level, and how this could be achieved whilst abiding by the "cut and fill" rules mandated in the planning scheme.

For the council the Rivers Run proposal has demanded a careful balance between the competing desires to provide new housing in a critically tight market, and approve development that is environmentally responsible and avoids future flood risks.

Several submissions to the amendment have raised doubts about whether the dwellings produced from the development will improve housing availability in Port Fairy or be affordable for the average buyer.

The developer has allocated one of the 75 lots in the development for "social housing", which would be the only affordable housing in the proposal.

Census data shows two thirds of Port Fairy is one to two person households, but three quarters of houses are three or four bedrooms, suggesting a need for many more one or two-bedroom houses. The Rivers Run development would contain 70 per cent three to four-bedroom houses.