She Oaks sand mine denied, again

PLANS for a sand mine in the She Oaks and Maude area have been rejected by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal following hearings in Melbourne.

The move by VCAT comes after the Golden Plains Shire council also knocked back a planning application to develop the sand quarry at 223 Maude-She Oaks Road, She Oaks, at its November 2018 meeting.

VCAT members ultimately found that while individual elements of the development plans, put forward by Vanderlei Holdings, were not enough to deny the application, “Collectively, the effect is an unresolved proposal.”

Despite Shire officers originally advising councillors to approve the application in November, Mayor Cr Own Sharkey said VCAT’s decision was reward for the community’s effort.

“You get all that information presented to you by experts and planning teams and there’s some things that really come down to a decision by councillors,” he said. “We really engaged with the Maude-She Oaks community and they were a pleasure to deal with. They took that same attitude up to Melbourne at VCAT and really, it’s a David verses Goliath story.”

Original plans for the pit would have seen to grow to 12.5 hectares, with most of the resource excavation happening during the first of stage of development. Yet a second stage, consisting of 1.4, was later abandoned by the developers.

Council received about 85 objections to the original application that ranged from traffic issues, to agricultural, environmental, visual and tourism impacts, as well as dust, noise, and nearby land devaluation.

Cr Sharkey said the residents who opposed the sand mine development had followed the how-to of community engagement.

“Lots of communities will engage in different ways during different issues,” he said. “To meet such an intelligent, well minded and really respectful community is a pleasure and probably one of the highlights of being on council.”