CAN you build a three-level, 8.5+ metre high, boundary-to-boundary, 50+ square house on a 600- square metre residential lot in a Bass Coast coastal hamlet which drastically impacts views to and from the coast at just 75 metres from the Phillip Island Foreshore Reserve?

If you have deep-enough pockets, you bet you can! 

Thanks to an impotent Bass Coast Planning Scheme, a weakly prepared and defended recommendation by Bass Coast Shire’s statutory planning team, a Bass Coast Shire Council which happily ignores 20+ local objections, doesn’t follow its own governance guidelines and doesn’t understand its own planning permit-related processes and you’re well on the way. Then just lawyer-up with a combative VCAT consultant combined with VCAT Planning rulings which declare the vast majority of the Bass Coast Planning Scheme’s residential development provisions “irrelevant” and overwhelmingly rules in favour of development, and you’re home!

It’s a massive slap-down for the majority of folk who choose to live on Phillip Island largely for its low scale character and respectful sharing of its unique natural environment and is a very concerning precedent for a development free-for-all!

Surely it’s not unreasonable for long-suffering ratepayers to expect that an effective Council can achieve better value from the $3.5M+ statutory planning annual spend, stand up a Planning Scheme which “is relevant”, has sufficient teeth to effectively defend against blatantly inappropriate residential development and supports recommendations which withstand subsequent VCAT scrutiny.

Manfred Decker, Cape Woolamai