Smiths Beach Alert!

A developer wants to put a town on a beach hillside

vs

The community wants to conserve the scenic rural coastline

An aerial view of the vegetated proposed development site. If you wait a few moments, orientation labels will download and can be seen by rolling your mouse over the picture.

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Developer - Canal Rocks PTY LTD

Canal Rocks Pty Ltd re-presented a modified development plan for the coastal hillside at Smiths Beach. The Busselton Shire Council rejected the modified plan on December 17, 2008.

Earlier, in August 2008, before the council could complete the report on the submission process, which included an independent audit of over 8000 public submissions, the developer decided to threaten to take the plan to the State Administrative Tribunal.

The threat was perceived by the community to be a tactic to avoid the local shire council decision and can be seen as an attempt to evade the 88% public opposition to the plan as reported in the independent audit of public submissions.

The developer was directed by the State Administrative Tribunal to undergo mediation with the shire planners and re-present another modified development plan. That is, a modification to the inappropriate plan that was rejected by council in December 2008.

In mid 2009 the Busselton Shire Council voted to accept the modified plan that resulted from mediation between the council planners and the developer.

The Smiths Beach Action Group spoke at that meeting about planning noncompliance concerns expressed by the community in public submissions that still persist in the mediated outcome.

In part, the decision by council to accept the mediated modified plan was not fully based on the plan's compliance with planning laws, but seems, to some extent, to have been made under duress with the councillors wanting to avoid (the costs of) the State Administration Tribunal hearing.

See how this developer tried to manipulate their development proposal through by methods investigated by the Western Australian Crime and Corruption Commission.

Remember, bad things happen when good [people] remain silent*.

(*quote attributed to: Ian Chappell, former Australian cricket captain; most likely an interpretation of Edmund Burke)

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