Heads plan turns back on strategy

Andrew Mathison
A DEVELOPMENT objector has accused Geelong’s council of walking away from its own rural land use strategy in plans to push Barwon Heads’ town boundaries further west.
Victorian Landscape Guardians president Randall Bell said the City had acknowledged that the Bellarine Peninsula had “significant landscape values” after adopting a rural conservation zone under the strategy.
“What really surprises me is that we already have a strategy, which says a number of things in that Barwon Heads cannot advance beyond its town boundaries,” he said.
Barwon Heads councillor Peter McMullin had proposed changes to the town’s structure plan to sanction further residential and commercial development.
Cr McMullin welcomed community feedback on the new draft plan.
But a week later Barwon Heads Association overwhelmingly voted to fight the amendments that would also pave the way for a land swap between a private landowner and Barwon Heads Golf Club.
“He is dumping this in the community’s lap with no guarantee that this council will listen to the community,” Mr Bell said.
City planners are expecting increases in Bellarine growth corridors over the next 15 years, including 10,000 residents at Ocean Grove and 8000 at Drysdale and Clifton Springs.
Council expects a new suburb at Armstrong Creek, near Mt Duneed, to reach 55,000.
The new Barwon Heads’ proposal calls for an additional 150 blocks at the Seabank estate, 250 on private land and 150 along 13th Beach.
Mr Bell predicted at least 1000 more residents from the new or proposed developments would put the landscape and environment under threat.
Barwon Heads has a population of about 2500.
“This is in a township that is not in a growth area,” Mr Bell said.
“It mocks the whole notion of having a strategic plan.”
But Mr Bell was confident Minister for Planning Justin Madden would intervene after previously discouraging “golf coursestyle subdivisions”.