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I REFER to Neill Stevens' letter 'Smiths plan is open to public' where reference was made to the proposal for a single dwelling on the land was nothing more or less than every other landowner in the area had been granted and the proposal was very similar to approvals for nearby land recently issued by the shire.

I fail to see any shred of comparison.

Smiths Beach Location 413 is a large development site with an as yet ill-defined conservation component of vital importance.

Land in recognised conservation areas have in the past attracted an incentive promoted by the Shire of Busselton to rezone to conservation.

This incentive had offered the ability to create one additional lot depending on the size of the parcel and to erect one dwelling on that lot when the whole of the land is rezoned to conservation.

Under conservation zoning no further development would be allowed.

A number of land owners in the ‘conservation-reservation' areas of the Leeuwin-Naturaliste planning policy area have indeed taken up this incentive and are now zoned ‘conservation'.

These are generally smaller holdings with one additional lot and one dwelling involved.

For land owners who seek greater and more environmentally obtrusive development rights of land in a generally ‘conservation area' the above situation of allowing one house on an area of conservation would hardly apply in isolation to the development of the remaining land.

For Mr Stevens to draw precedence from these minor conservation-based transactions to apply to something as big as the Smiths Beach village proposal for which he is project manager seems incorrect.

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