ONE Gippsland continues to encourage the State Government to provide Gippsland councils with the support they need to reduce Victoria’s housing shortage, South Gippsland Shire councillor Nathan Hersey again stressing the importance of required infrastructure to enable development to occur.
He did so at Wednesday’s council meeting, being the Chair of One Gippsland.
Following last month’s One Gippsland delegation visit to Canberra advocating to Federal Government, representatives of One Gippsland recently met with ministers, shadow ministers and others at State level.
Cr Hersey noted there were extensive discussions with Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny and expressed confidence she will take up an invitation to visit Nyora to see some of the planning challenges there.
“There were plenty of discussions about our region and supporting the State Government in what it is that they’re trying to do with the housing targets; we need to have the State Government support us to support them,” he said.
Cr Hersey insisted it is not reasonable to expect the housing needs for the state to be provided at a local government level without the necessary infrastructure.
“It’s one thing to expect local government to support housing through the planning process, but when you’re doing a new development in a rural area for new housing supply, it’s not the same as doing a new development in a metropolitan area where all the services are,” Cr Hersey told the Sentinel-Times recently.
“We have to start from scratch with expensive things such as underground works, electricity, water, sewerage, footpaths, kerb and channel, the whole works and all that costs a lot of money.”
With Nyora seen as a place of significant growth, it seems an ideal spot for Minister Kilkenny to visit to get a clearer picture of the kind of infrastructure support required.
