Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

we are currently negotiating on three new sites hopefully we will be applying four a new permit soon. This time we will only be asking for a greenhouse.

I'm really sorry to hear about your dilemma Stuart. It really annoys me when regulations like this screw the little guy. Large companies can easily pay the costs involved and have dedicated people to wade through all the red tape. (In fact large companies often lobby for regulations to keep out smaller competition)
From modifying cars to running charities this kind of crap goes on all the time, in all sorts of industries.
You could bang your head against a wall for years then all of a sudden the govt will change it all to make it easier for business, or as you found out change it to make it almost impossible.
Generally though it gets harder, not easier.

I hope you can find a solution soon, maybe you can find a place where turning lanes etc are already in place (is another state feasible) ? Next door to another business and you can share their driveway ?
If you can get the media to apply pressure that might help..... I hope.

Good luck

On the over regulation that we are often subjected to we can agree SV.

Our strategy is to runaway and find another site. If the council was willing to fight with us we would have persevered but they were worse than useless.

We have one option to us that looks like it will work but it is actually significantly unsafe. I don't just mean not as good as our first sight which was safe (IMO) but is actually unsafe (again IMO). However, because of various bits of paper we could get it through.

what do you mean by safe and unsafe ?

Old site ~240m of straight line of sight to corner to the south (photo is max zoom).
~220m of straight line of sight to crest to the north (one photo zoomed the other obviously not).

Or in other words the entrance is centered roughly in the middle of a 450m straight.





The site where we have been advised we wouldn't need turning lanes has an entrance that is on a straight that is maybe 150m long which is bracketed by bends at the bottom of hills at either end. ie you come down a hill and as the hill finishes you come round the bend into the straight which is less than 150m long and then start going around the next bend up the next hill. 150m is generous it could be as little as 100m (I havn't measured it) but in any case even if it is 200m the sight distances are less than half that of the "unsafe" site since the entrance is in the middle of the straight. ie less than 75m either way.

I've got a really good zoom on my camera.

so what you are saying is the theory on why you need the turning lanes is completely backwards, makes absolutely no sense, and is just plain stupid ?

We don't need turning lanes on the alternative property because it already has planning permission for retail sales, a registered kitchen and a bunch of other stuff. Essentially we would only need permission to do "earth works greater than 300m2" in order to create a pad for the greenhouse.

This is what I really find annoying. The council is happy to follow the bureaucratic rules and allow us to go ahead at this alternative site but they are not happy to follow the rules and tell vicroads that they are being stupid and use their legal discretion to not include the turning lanes on the planning permit for the first site.

Ok.

I guess you could do several stages of 300m2 earthworks..?

This is the problem with these govt organisations. They have absolutely no incentive to adequately serve the customer (us). Unlike private industry, if they do a crap job so what ?
They don't go broke and they don't lose customers. If they cost people huge amounts of money/time/mental health they don't care either. There is no feedback mechanism.

On that we agree.

There are good reasons why you would have a regulation that requires oversight for earths works over a certain size so I have no problem with that. The thing is that beuracrats don't have any sense of why the regulations exist just that they do. The traffic regulations around planning are there, obviously, to ensure that road safety is not compromised so given that the regulations should be used so that you get a safer outcome not an outcome that is actually going to adversely effect road safety.

As you say they don't care. They are so worried about liability that they lose track of the purpose of their jobs.

What I don't get though is if they weild the regulatory intruments available to them such that they create an unsafe outcome wouldn't they still be liable? In fact wouldn't they be even more liable since they had the option to allow a safer option?

You are still trying to apply logic and common sense

They should be liable. But who runs the legal system ?
It does happen from time to time but in most cases the govt doesn't like prosecuting itself
Its kind of funny that the only possible safeguards against excessive state power is another state run system. Some judges (very few) do the right thing on occaision...

any progress/updates Stuart ?

Wow what a depressing and frustrating thread.
So sorry to hear of the problems Stuart.
Perhaps you should relocate to Thailand
Planning permission involves going the see the Village Head, giving him 20USD and home in time for a lunchtime beer.

You've been gone for a very long time haven't you? It's not really like that anymore.

Meeting with council today.

Not looking forward to it.

In order to get all the people that the council thought should be at this meeting there it had to be booked about 8 weeks in advance. Of the four officers who we were told needed to be there now only two are going to be present. Of the people who were holding those positions only one is still going to be there and he is the one we haven't met with at all yet. ie two officers are not there at all and those acting in their positions are not coming. The acting head of planning is going to be there but what we were told was going to be a site inspection of the new sites we have found is now going to be done in the office because she doesn't feel the need to do a site inspection at "this stage" of the planning process.

The thing I find most frustrating is that the council set up this meeting. This was going to be the meeting to sort everything out and choose a new site. We have waited weeks and weeks for what now seems to be just a chat around a table with two people who haven't had any previous dealings with our project.

Anyway that might be a good thing. So fingers crossed.