By JESSE GRAHAM and DANIELLE GALVIN
A SWEEPING change to the Bushfire Management Overlay will bring a fairer system for landowners in the Yarra Ranges, with issues that locked land from development set to be resolved.
On Wednesday 28 May Planning Minister Matthew Guy outlined a number of changes to the BMO, which he had adopted after a long consultation.
The changes, which include provisions for bunkers and fixing vegetation clearance rules, will come as a relief for residents such as Cockatoo’s Jacqui McIntosh, who has been living in a caravan with her husband on their Waratah Way property.
She bought the block in late October 2010 and following the implementation of the Royal Commission’s recommendations, the BMO put plans for her “dream home” on hold.
“It’s just a massive relief – the one thing that really may help us is the grant that they have announced to assist us in getting permits through,” Ms McIntosh said.
“There are so many people in the same situation and we have heard some terrible stories.”
Under the BMO changes, vegetation clearance obligations will be limited to a property’s boundary, where before it hadn’t been restricted.
A clarification will also be added to the overlay, which outlines that existing homes can be rebuilt without having to meet the overlay’s conditions, as a new home would.
Yarra Ranges Mayor Fiona McAllister said that the changes acknowledge people’s rights to live in bushy areas, such as those around the Dandenong Ranges, while still mitigating bushfire risk.
“It looks, at this point, as if it will resolve all the issues for those building in BMO areas,” she said.
“For all of the people who have been fighting for years to achieve this, it is an incredible outcome.”
The council had long advocated for a change to the BMO after being unable to issue planning permits to landowners affected by the overlay.
The BMO was developed as a result of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission and introduced in 2011.
It currently applies to land that may be significantly affected by a bushfire and large swathes of the Yarra Ranges are covered by the overlay.
The changes to the BMO do not require a change in legislation and are expected to be gazetted state-wide in early July.
Information for landowners and councils on the changes and how it affects them will be available when the changes are implemented at dpcd.vic.gov.au/planning.
