The City of Greater Geelong (CoGG) has
granted Caltex franchisee Milemaker Petroleum planning permission to build the
service station in a Rural Living zone of Drysdale, despite having received 47
objections from local people.
The objections to the proposal are
summarised below. They fall into four broad categories: environmental,
aesthetic, economic and democratic.
1. Environmental objections
The site of the proposed service station is
the junction of Jetty Road and High Street, Drysdale. This junction is the only
route into and out of the north of the Bellarine Peninsula and regularly sees traffic
jams that frustrate motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. A service station at
this site will increase traffic congestion, increasing travel times, wasting
fuel, increasing air pollution and heightening the risk to cyclists and
pedestrians.
Any service station poses
significant risks to its environs, because it stores large volumes of fuels and
other chemicals, Spillage or leaks from tankers, leaks from storage tanks and spillage
from customers will be washed into the storm water system, threatening the underground
water system, the nearby Lake Lorne and the permanent spring just across Jetty
Road (and downhill) from the site.
Finally, the proposed service station will be open 24 hours a day, filling the area around it with light and noise at levels normally associated with the centre of a city, not the entrance to a rural town.
2. Aesthetic objections
The proposed service
station would severely compromise the rural ambience of the approach to
Drysdale and Clifton Springs. This ambience exists because areas close to the
town centre - including the site of the proposed service station - are Rural
Living zones. These
zones allow homes in a rural environment and are meant to protect and enhance
the area’s natural resources, biodiversity and landscape and heritage.
Siting a service station in a Rural Living
Zone would threaten local 'green space', already under threat from massive new
housing estates approved already by the council, contradicting its own Structure Plan for Drysdale and Clifton Springs,
which requires the towns’ rural ambience to be
maintained.
Council officers told people who objected
to this industrial use of a Rural Living zone that a service station is a
'discretionary' development in a Rural Living Zone. Consequently, objections
that the proposal would be inappropriate were simply wrong in legal terms.
However, subsequent to approving the
Service Station, the council rejected a planning permit for a Child Care Centre
in Jetty Road on the grounds that it was inappropriate in a Rural Living Zone
and inconsistent with the Drysdale Clifton Springs Structure Plan! In this
case, the council agreed with the 15 submissions objecting to the proposal; yet
it approved the service station proposal despite 47 objections to it!
3. Economic objections
Objectors were concerned that Milemaker's
proposed service station would be just a few hundred metres from the two
existing ones; and that an application is likely for a service station at the
Woolworths-led shopping centre in the new Curlewis estate, bringing the local
total to four.
Objectors were concerned that an
over-supply of service stations in the area could reduce profitability for all
of them or even force one out of business. Either result would be bad for the
local economy; and closure would bring all the environmental problems
associated with ‘decommissioning’ a service station.
In reply, council officers said that
economic considerations such as these were irrelevant to decisions on applications
for planning permits – which perhaps helps to explain the current state of
central Geelong’s economy!
4. Democratic objections
The council’s handling
of this application has been inept in three ways. First, it gave people a
shorter time (17 days) to comment than it took to process the application (22
days). Secondly, CoGG invited public comment at a time when a lot of local
people were away on holiday and, therefore, unable to comment. Finally, the
council displayed two A4 notices about the proposal on the property itself, but
access to them was virtually impossible for many people, including those with
prams/pushchairs and anyone with limited mobility.
Despite all those problems, 47 people made
submissions to the council about the proposal. All of them opposed it, saying
clearly that the community does not want a Service Station at that location.
For years, community
associations (including those on the Bellarine) and individuals have criticised
the council’s ‘consultations’ and proposed improvements, but with no effect.
