Coastal developers, take note

A piece hidden away in The Sydney Morning Herald (Tuesday 19 August 2008) should be compulsory reading for all persons associated with local government, and especially those in coastal areas of Australia.

The Herald reports:

Sea levels thwart new homes
A decision by Victoria's Civil and Administrative Tribunal to overturn a South Gippsland Shire approval for six new homes because of the potential effect of rising sea levels could have ramifications for coastal areas around Australia. The tribunal found a "reasonably forseeable risk" of inundation, which it deemed unacceptable.

EnviroInfo has this to say about the decision:

Environment Defenders Office Victorian Principal Solicitor, Brendan Sydes, says the tribunal’s decision that the likelihood of sea level rises should be considered by councils when making planning decisions could have significance within Victoria and nationally.

Mr Sydes says VCAT’s decision may be an indication of the approach planning tribunals nationally could take when considering planning decisions made in coastal areas.

The case before VCAT involved the assessment of six planing permits granted by the regional South Gippsland Shire Council for dwellings located in a farming zone close to the coast.

In making its decision to overturn the council’s planning approval of the dwellings, VCAT considered the potential impact of sea level rises caused by climate change on the proposed developments.

To this end, the tribunal found increases in the severity of storm events and rising sea levels would create a “reasonably foreseeable risk” of inundation of the land and proposed dwellings, which VCAT deemed to be “unacceptable”.

While the tribunal noted the relevance of climate change considerations to planning decision-making processes is presently in an “evolutionary phase”, it concluded that sea level rise and the risk of coastal inundation are “relevant matters to consider in appropriate circumstances”.

The tribunal said climate change would lead to extreme weather conditions beyond the historical record that planners rely on when assessing the potential future impact on proposed developments.

Read the VCAT’s decision here.

Little Brennie unleashes the values police, but gets nabbed himself for supporting snedgers

Everytime I switch on the radio or open a newspaper these days, it seems that the thought and values police are setting the dogs on someone.
Yesterday was Little Brennie Nelson's turn, as he suddenly decided that Labor's candidate for the Gippsland by-election (caused by a former Howard Government minister deciding that the money we pay isn't good enough for him to hang around and do the job for which he was elected) was a B-A-D man when he promoted a musical as director of a Gippsland cultural festival.

Fer gawd's sake Brendan, mate. Fancy saying stuff like; "(Mr McCubbin) has been promoting a show which is sexually explicit, would offend the vast majority of Australians and is inconsistent with the sort of values we would want to see represented in a candidate for the federal parliament.", when you personally support strange snedgers in your own party.

Need I remind you, that you went on the record less than a month ago.
"FEDERAL Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson says the chair-sniffing Western Australian Liberal Leader has his "full support and confidence".
Troy Buswell, WA's Opposition Leader, yesterday admitted to sniffing a female Liberal staffer's chair in 2005.
He broke down at a press conference yesterday as he confirmed the woman's account but said he would not be standing down.
Dr Nelson said Mr Buswell was apologetic and still had his backing."

Know whose character I would be backing here and it wouldn't be the snedger over the musical featuring a blowup doll.

And Glen Milne loses it because he thinks he IS the values police

Glen Milne in The Australian yesterday.

"And just as Rudd's failings are beginning to make an impression nationally, along comes Darren McCubbin, the ALP candidate for Gippsland. McCubbin, you'll remember, was shoehorned into Gippsland by Labor's Melbourne head office over the local branch's preferred candidate, David Wilson, a veteran party member.
McCubbin, a local mayor, only joined up as a true believer on the day of his preselection. It was apparently enough to satisfy the moral conscience of a once great movement.
Labor's Victorian headquarters is in West Melbourne, spitting distance from the inner-city theatre district. Which might explain McCubbin's tastes. And his enthusiastic party endorsement. He is, you see, among other things, a director of the local Gippsland cultural festival, Water, Water, whatever that means.
In fact, we do know what it means, in part because McCubbin, as a director of the festival last year, chose to include and promote a lovely little act called the Beautiful Losers in his local show in the regional city of Sale, slap in the middle of the conservative rural electorate.
Listen up. According to a laudatory review in Melbourne's InPress magazine the Beautiful Losers consists "of three men, a piano and a guitar, not to mention some very wrong and rather amusing lyrics about all manner of depravity".