SCENIC Ridge in Cannonvale is not looking quite so scenic following broadscale clearing.
Scenic Ridge residents are calling Whitsunday Regional Council to account over recent unannounced broadscale clearing around their properties.
Inspections of the site, and a meeting with council planners, delivered no assurance to residents, who say they have been impacted by runoff, noise, dust and high levels of distress and anxiety, as land they believed to be zoned for a level of ‘green’ protection, was bulldozed without warning around their boundaries.
Council was closed for 10 days over the Christmas holidays, just as the works started.
Residents say their calls to the after-hours number went unanswered.
Whitsunday Conservation Council (WCC) says council’s planning maps reveal most of the site was covered by MSES – Matters of State Environmental Significance – Category B vegetation.
However, this offers no guarantee of protection, as a local council can approve broadscale clearing despite the presence of significant vegetation and wildlife, according to WCC.
WCC spokesperson Suzette Pelt said ‘under no circumstances’ could what happened on this site be considered best practice.
“In a region where the environment is everyone’s business, this council’s planning is woefully out of date,” Ms Pelt said.
“It’s nothing less than shameful for planners and developers to be hiding behind approvals like this. There was no need for this level of clearing for four single residences.”
Ms Pelt said the developer began major excavations and clearing on steep slopes just as the Christmas heavy rains hit, and runoff was ‘out of control’.
“As discussed at an onsite meeting with council officers, it appears there could be other breaches of the approval,” she said.
“Although the developer did submit an environmental management plan, it appears that council did not include any of this plan as conditions of the approval.
“One item included in this plan was: ‘work to be conducted, where possible, during the dry season’.
“Under this council, developers seem to have all the rights, while residents, ratepayers and the environment suffer the consequences.
“For example, there is no requirement by council for the developer to notify adjacent property owners of the commencement of what anyone would rightly consider to be major works and a massive disturbance to an urban area.”
In the absence of clear boundary markers by the developer, some residents also believe there might have been incursions into their properties, she said.
Whitsunday Conservation Council maintains a cultural change is needed in the regional council, where the environment, which underpins every part of life and business in the region, must be put first and foremost in all planning considerations.
