In February this year Clarence Valley Council resolved to accept the Maclean Local Environmental Plan 2001 (West Yamba Amendment) and sent this planning instrument down to the NSW Minister for Planning Kristina Keneally for her consent.
But was Clarence Valley Council completely honest with the Minister?
Nowhere in the West Yamba Amendment and accompanying documents does Council point out that most of the land directly below Sullivan's Lane in West Yamba is now privately owned land and has been since the late 1990s.
Clarence Valley Council is always at pains to refer to this land as "Other land, owned by Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council and land subject to a Land Claim, south of Sullivan's Road is not included in the Draft LEP" and words to that effect in other parts of the documents.
However, these documents also show that Council expects to funnel natural drainage/storm water/flood waters, displaced by West Yamba development landfill, onto this privately-owned environmentally sensitive land "south of Sullivan's Road" via a designated unfilled floodway/drainage corridor with a relatively narrow end point.
Thereby potentially increasing the amount of such water flowing across this land and possibly causing more damage than might naturally occur.
Section of the Draft West Yamba LEP Map showing the floodway/drainage corridor
The Clarence Valley Council map shown here clearly shows the floodway/drainage corridor (used to mitigate required landfill in the proposed large-scale development) is intended to deposit water onto Lot 201 DP729134, a 229.6ha lot owned outright by Birrigan Gargle Local Aboriginal Land Council.
Indeed if Council's own documents are to be believed, the development of West Yamba could not go ahead unless Yaegl land is used as a dumping ground for drainage and flooding problems associated with this proposed development.
The last time I noticed, Australian law still allowed a property owner to sue state and/or local government for that kind of arbitrary action.
Which may explain why Clarence Valley Council appears to be attempting to massage the facts in order to obscure ownership details in documents before the Minister.
Sometimes being that cute can backfire - especially when the ghost of Rylands v Fletcher still roams court corridors in Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment