ALPINE Shire Council feel the region is left “exposed” following the Victorian Government’s announcement declaring the development of renewable energy facilities as Significant Economic Development projects, removing third-party appeals from the process.

The government's recent decision comes with the aim to facilitate meeting Victoria’s renewable energy target of net zero by 2045. 

Planning permits for renewable energy facilities, utility installations and associated subdivision will now be decided under a fast-track planning process, removing communities from the decision-making process.  

Local town planner, Cazz Redding, said the region may be at a disadvantage due to the lack of a comprehensive strategic landscape assessment.

 “A comprehensive strategic landscape assessment has not yet been undertaken for Victoria’s High Country and the alpine regions, which may place the region at a disadvantage as there is limited protection via planning policy for our significant alpine and rural landscapes across the region,” she said.

“This means the value of the landscape will need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis until this work is done.

“There has not been a region-wide assessment of strategically significant agricultural land, which also needs to be considered under the renewable energy planning provisions.

“Although some councils, including Towong, Indigo, Wodonga and Murrindindi have done this work and included protections for strategically significant agricultural land in the local planning scheme, the other councils in the region are yet to do the same.”

Ms Redding, together with local state MPs Tim McCurdy (MLA, Ovens Valley) and Annabelle Cleeland (MLA, Euroa), facilitated a meeting between councils around North East Victoria last week to discuss significant landscape overlays.

Alpine Shire chief executive officer, Will Jeremy, who attended the meeting, said council feels there is a gap in current planning controls.

“There’s a gap around significant landscape overlays and there’s recognition that other councils feel the same in our region,” he said.

“Because of this we are seeking a collaborative approach to seek funding or direct support from the State Government to address those gaps in our planning controls.

“We’ve got a relatively small area covered by significant landscape overlays and they were put in place around the 1960s or 70s and were based on the best practise at the time, which we feel are now out of date.

“We’re now looking through a lens of what the best practise will be to approach significant landscapes and how to protect them.

“It’s a beautiful place and many people visit and move here for the landscape so we want to protect that.

“We feel exposed by the lack of significant overlays and the fact the government is running a process to determine where things might be sited.

“Our planning controls at the moment don’t provide an adequate oversight of where significant landscapes are and our concern is a decision will be made in the absence of that information.

“We see a strong link in getting these overlays done and the transition into renewables.”

Mr Jeremy said Alpine Shire Council has put its hand up to coordinate the work towards overlays and engaging with the Victorian Government.

“We will lead that, collaborating with other councils and as a group we’ll pitch our position to the state government," he said.

“Nothing happens quickly in strategic planning but if you don’t start somewhere you won’t get anywhere so we’re currently gathering information and looking at who wants to partner with us before we finalise our pitch.

“We know there are concerns from the community.

“We’ve had quite a lot of engagement with the Friends of the Kiewa and Alpine Valleys who have been in to brief us on their concerns.

“Council has also been briefed by Mint Renewables, a proponent of one of the battery energy storage systems.

“We’ve since been in contact with the relevant Victorian Government minister to further this process of gathering information and ensuring the concerned parties have a direct voice into the minister.

“Overall we were impressed by the collaboration across North East councils; it was great to see them working together as then we have a larger voice than we do individually.

“It’s a credit to Cazz at Schemology who initiated the meeting and giving it the momentum.”