Opposition continues to caravan park proposal

OPPOSITION to a long-running proposal for a caravan park in Freshwater Creek continues, with an independent advisory committee for the Great Ocean Road region refusing to support it.

The Surf Coast Shire council held a hearing of submissions meeting on Tuesday this week about the proposal, referred to as the Torquay Holiday Park, which would be built on Farming Zone land at 350 Coombes Road and 1200 Ghazeepore Road.

Graeme Jacobs submitted the application for the $8.7 million camping and caravan park.

The Torquay Holiday Park would be built on the same site as the one proposed in 2014 for the 48-hectare Torquay Eco Park, which received 224 objections from the community and had its planning permit refused by the Surf Coast Shire.

The applicants took the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which upheld the shire’s decision.

The latest planning permit application (prepared by NSW firm Habitat Planning) states the proposal has a development footprint of 8.5 hectares so would be 82 per cent smaller.

It would contain 33 one-, two- and three-bedroom cabins, 15 powered glamping (safari) tents and 65 powered caravan sites, powered and unpowered camping sites and unpowered overnight stay sites.

According to the minutes agenda of a separate hearing of submissions meeting about the proposal in March 2020, there were 171 objections to the application.

Most of these were from residents of the Kithbrooke Park Country Club.

Kithbrooke Park director Peter Counihan said on Monday this week that the country club’s residents opposed the application on several grounds.

These included that the application was outside the township boundary and the proposed use was inconsistent with surrounding land uses, Coombes Road presented safety issues to walkers and cyclists, it would cause amenity impacts to the area by virtue of traffic and noise, it was inconsistent with the Farming Zone and the Thompson Valley which also provided a settlement break, and the application had limited net community benefit.

The Great Ocean Road Region Standing Advisory Committee has also considered the application, after a referral from the Victorian Planning Minister in September 2020.

“Whilst there are a number of elements of the proposal that could be addressed through project design or planning permit conditions, the planning policy imperative lies in protecting the non-urban break between Torquay and Armstrong Creek,” the committee wrote in its advice.

“While the proposal is modest compared to earlier iterations, in the committee’s view planning policy in general does not support this type of incursion into the non-urban break; although it may well be appropriate in other areas of the shire.”

The Surf Coast Shire has also advised that there will be an unscheduled council meeting on Tuesday, February 16 at 6pm, to be held virtually via Zoom, for the council to adopt a Councillor Code of Conduct.

The agenda will be made available on the council’s website before the meeting, which will be live-streamed and recorded.