Housing objectors go online It’s out of site

Andrew Mathieson
OBJECTORS to a proposed residential development on Lara’s rural fringe have formed a facebook group that attracted more than 650 members in its first five days.
Save Serendip Lara – No Residential Rezone has proven a hit on the social network site since resident Kim Conway created the group last Friday.
The site followed a public rally five days earlier against plans to re-zone land off Caddys Road for several hundred new homes.
Mrs Conway said most members demanded that Lara’s northern outskirts remain rural, citing concerns about homes built on floodplains and the impact on wildlife at adjacent Serendip Sanctuary.
“We’re trying to show to the people in charge that it needs to be stopped, that Lara is saying it doesn’t want this and that their voices need to be heard,” she said.
Township of Lara Care Group spokesperson Sheryl Goatman urged the facebook group to keep the debate clean.
She believed the community was united in opposition.
A petition with more than 2400 signatures against the proposal had gone to state parliament and council, Mrs Goatman said.
L Bisinella Developments spokesperson Richard Bisinella said he had been unaware of the facebook group but respected the right of residents to object.
“But we can only respond through the planning system,” he said.
Mr Bisinella believed that councillors should disregard facebook posts when considering whether to send the proposal to an independent panel.
The company would be happy for a panel to consider the plan, he said.
“It’s my opinion that, the more contentious it is, the more reason why it should go to a panel.”
Mr Bisinella said the development would have to include a 50-metre vegetation buffer between homes and the sanctuary to earn planning approval.