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Mt Arapiles Planning Issue call for comment 6-Feb-2015 At 9:52:34 AM kieranl

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The Horsham Rural City Council is calling for comment on its draft Municipal Strategic Statement.

"The Municipal Strategic Statement (MSS) sets out the vision, objectives and strategies for managing
the use and development of land within the municipality. It provides the basis for the application of the local policies, zones and overlays and other provisions in the Horsham Planning Scheme."

This sounds really boring so why should climbers be interested? It matters because it outlines the Council's objectives and strategies relating to Mt Arapiles.

First the good news, the draft statement essentially continues the current situation : tourism development for Arapiles will be centred on Natimuk with no development adjacent to Arapiles.
I'll publish the relevant bits of the statement further down.

OK so no need to worry then? Wrong.

The word is that the final statement might be significantly different. The statement might change to recommend re-zoning the area around the mount from farming to tourism and to promote tourist developments adjacent to Arapiles.

The changes would occur after the public consultation period so would not be subject to public comment.

Hang on, how could this be done? How could the publicly distributed draft just be re-written without consultation?

My guess would be that a pretty bland draft document maintaining the status-quo isn't going to excite a lot of comment. So if the council were to receive some detailed submissions supporting re-zoning around Arapiles and no submissions supporting the status-quo then the draft statement could be changed in light of public submissions.

Maybe rumour has it all wrong but I wouldn't want to bet on it.

What can you do?

Send a brief submission to the council saying that you support the existing strategy 3.1 for Natimuk and strategy 1.2 for Tourism.
As it says in the draft statement : "Mt Arapiles is located in a productive farming area and it is considered appropriate that development associated with this outstanding feature should be located in nearby Natimuk to protect agricultural activity, the local environment, and support the sustainability of services in Natimuk."

Written comments can be forwarded to Tony Bawden, Director Planning and Economic, HRCC, P.O. Box 511, Horsham, 3402, or email tony.bawden@hrcc.vic.gov.au .
Comments should be received by Friday 27th February.

Th full document can be obtained here :

http://hrcc.vic.gov.au/images/Haveyoursay/DraftHorsham_Municipal_Strategic_Statement_for_discussion.pdf