Moyne Shire considers changes to stop wind farms on prime farmland

Joseph Conheady addressed the council's monthly meeting on July 25 to make the proposal as he fought a wind farm proposal that he said had thrown his dairy business into turmoil.

Mr Conheady had been blindsided in May, along with the council, when he discovered a new wind farm application had been lodged directly with the state Planning Minister without any prior community consultation.

The developer of the Swansons Lane Wind Farm said it had skipped pre-consultation for fears opponents would cynically obstruct the proposal, but the council and community viewed the move as disrespectful.

Mr Conheady said he had been planning to build accommodation for three of his five employees on a corner of his property but the proposed wind farm had suddenly complicated those plans because of an October 2021 amendment to Victoria's planning laws.

Amendment VC212 to the Victorian Planning Provisions changed the rules in the farming zone to forbid development anywhere within 1km of the boundary of any proposed wind farm in the zone. Mr Conheady's planning worker accommodation sits well within the buffer zone around the border of Swansons Lane.

He said he had enlisted a contractor to build his worker accommodation more than 18 months ago. "A deposit was paid and now $147,000 is due, however we no longer know if we'll be allowed to build this critical... accommodation on our own land," he said.

"Due to planning amendment VC212 my ability to build critical worker accommodation on our own land to support our business is now uncertain."

Mr Conheady said some of the government's recent amendments to the state planning provisions had been self-contradictory. He raised VC202, which encouraged the development of rural worker accommodation in the farming zone but had been apparently thwarted by the renewable energy zones.

"Despite the highest quality land being the most cost-efficient and most climate-efficient land to be growing our society's food, renewable energy projects are clearly being given priority," he said.

Mr Conheady said VC202 had emphasised the importance of worker accommodation to land and agricultural sustainability in farming areas, but suddenly that "didn't matter" once a wind farm was proposed nearby.

"I wish to petition the Moyne Shire Council to amend the Moyne planning scheme to identify prime agricultural land such as those supporting dairy farming within the farming zone (and) enshrine protections upon those particular areas from competing land uses," he said.

Chief executive officer Brett Davis said the council may be on a hiding to nothing trying to overcome the state government planning changes.

"We will take (the request) on board with our planning area," he said. "(But) there's state policy and there's local policy. State policy is set by the state and if the local policy goes against that grain the state policy trumps the local policy.

"VC212 is a state policy, we've had no say in it and it's part of the fact the state government has declared south-west Victoria a renewable energy zone."

Mr Davis said Mr Conheady had made a good point about the apparently conflicting designations of "prime renewable land" and "prime agricultural land" in the different planning amendments.

"You've identified something that's a little bit incongruous, so we will work with our officers and come back to the council to go through that," he said.

Mr Davis said Mr Conheady could also still apply to create worker accommodation within the 1km buffer zone, but would need to make allowance for the possible noise from wind turbines if the wind farm went ahead.

"The renewable energy operator will also have a say in that, but it doesn't rule it out," Mr Davis said.

Mr Conheady said the wind farm developer had a track record of objecting to worker accommodation in similar circumstances in other projects.

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