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Have we got a deal for you!

3/8/2019

14 Comments

 
PictureThe glossy brochure spruiks 'community benefits' valued by the Mering Corporation at $73 million.
By Catherine Watson
 
THE development company behind a proposed 1000-lot marina development at Mahers Landing has offered to fix Inverloch’s beaches and create a new family-friendly beach at Mahers Landing.
 
The Mering Corporation is also offering to dredge Andersons Inlet and build breakwaters to make the estuary suitable for boating.
 
And that’s not all. They propose to rehabilitate the Pound Creek wetlands and saltmarshes and the coastal foreshore, to construct a coastal trail from Inverloch to Mahers Landing, and to accommodate an Inverloch Heritage Museum on the development site.

The trade-off: Mering wants council support for its $380 million Mahers Landing project, with provision for 1113 residential sites and a 200-boat marina.
 
The company has not yet formally submitted the project to council but a company delegation including chairman Jason Yeap - owner of a new holiday mansion in Inverloch - briefed councillors and council officers late last month.
Picture
In a glossy brochure presented to councillors, they dangled the prospect of $73 million in “community benefits”, including $30 million for a coastal action plan covering 12 kilometres of foreshore rehabilitation works, and $22.5 million for dredging of Anderson Inlet and breakwaters.
 
The brochure shows the development includes a boat ramp, a dry boat store, tennis courts, a bowling green, swimming pool, gym and spa. A public commercial area is proposed to house an Inverloch Heritage Museum, a boating and aquatic club, a general store, café, shops and fishmonger
 
The Mering Corporation estimates development costs at $288 million, including $175 million for the subdivision, $39 million for marina works and $73 million for “community benefit works”. The value of the finished development is estimated at $380 million, with marina lots selling for up to $750,000, waterfront lots for $250,000 and marina berths for $100,000.
 
The brochure states that Mering Corporation is seeking “in principal (sic) support” from the council for “further exploration of the Mahers Landing Project opportunities”.
 
Project manager Alan Carlsson told the Post there would be regrets if the council didn’t support the plan and lost the potential community benefits.
 
“We’re asking Bass Coast Shire Council for their support to move this forward. We’re asking support for the process, not necessarily for the marina at this stage, but to support the process we would have to go through on the planning
 
“If we don’t get local council support we can’t go any further. We are saying to the councillors and council officers tell us what you want us to do.
 
“We’re spending a lot of money on very in-depth ecological studies to make sure we do something to improve that site, which is very degraded.
 
“People think oh yes, they’re in there to make a profit. Of course we have to make a profit
but the amount of community benefits we’re going to contribute …
​

“If the council don’t take up this offer, in a couple of years or longer we’ll look back and say gee, I wish we’d acted then.”
 
However, when the Post quizzed him for details of the $30 million coastal action plan, it turned out there isn’t actually a plan yet. Nor is Mering undertaking to fund the plan, even though it is listed under costs in the brochure. 

Mr Carlsson said the figure was just something the consultants had come up with. “I don’t know if that’s high or low. I’m not proposing we contribute $30 million. That would be a big ask. Council and the State Government would be part of that.”
 
He said Mering was prepared to contribute $600,000 to $700,000 to prepare the plan.
 
It’s not the first time developers have been bewitched by the money-making potential of this piece of degraded farmland at Mahers Landing. In 2003 a developer proposed a project called Tarwin Cove, which included a golf course, housing and a marina. At the same time a 2000-lot development was proposed for the floodplain opposite Maher’s Landing, at Venus Bay.
 
In the light of strong community opposition to the developments, the then Department of Sustainability and Environment undertook a study of the many issues, pros and cons. The outcome was clear: the cons far outweighed the pros. Both projects were abandoned.
 
Because the site is outside the Inverloch settlement boundary and zoned for farming, the Mering Corporation would first have to apply to the council to amend the planning scheme. The council’s acting manager of strategy and growth, Donna Taylor, outlined an arduous process.
 
“They would need to provide some strategic justification as to why that zoning should change. Typically that’s in a range of assessments and studies: environmental, traffic, drainage. Officers then assess them. Once we’re confident we’ve got enough information we put a report up to council recommending approval or non-approval to commence the process.
 
“The approval of the planning minister is also required to even commence the process of an amendment.”
 
If there are unresolved objections, the matter goes to an expert planning panel appointed by the minister. They hear from the applicant, the council and any other community members before making a recommendation, which the council then considers before sending it to the minister.
 
While the road ahead is difficult, it’s not impossible, and the Mering Corporation has called in the big guns for support. Watsons Pty Ltd, one of Melbourne’s biggest commercial development companies, will handle the planning aspect of the project.
 
The company has a reputation for persuading councils to rezone farmland for housing, reaping windfall gains for its clients at the stroke of the minister's signature on a planning amendment.
 
At the recent briefing, Watsons director John Woodman reminded councillors that the company was responsible for the Martha Cove and Wyndham Harbour developments.
​

“We are not new at this,” he said. “We are not amateurs. We are not people that don’t know how to get a marina approved.”
 
Asked how councillors responded to the briefing, Mr Carlsson was upbeat. “Nobody asked any difficult questions, which meant we addressed the concerns raised at a previous briefing last year.”

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14 Comments
Dave Sutton, South Gippsland Conservation Society
3/8/2019 05:54:34 pm

To take up just a few points of the Mering Corporation’s proposals:

Anderson Inlet is highly dynamic at the entrance and is unsuitable for larger boats. Now they are proposing to dredge the entrance. As a species we’ve been very good at disrupting natural systems. The consequences of dredging the inlet are totally unknown and unpredictable.

The little beaches around Anderson Inlet are used by the international wading birds of Siberia and subject to two international wader bird agreements, the Japan-Australia and China–Australia Migratory Bird Agreements, which require protection of their habitat from disturbance and development. We can’t just decide to turn it into a beautiful beach!

Anderson Inlet is a wetland that has important land and marine habitat for wader birds, sea grasses and mangroves that are vital fish nursery. With increasing sea level rise all these habitats will need to migrate inland if they are to survive. The mangroves and sea grasses are where the fish nurseries are. If we lose them we lose our fishing.

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Kevin Chambers
4/8/2019 10:05:12 am

I dont live down there anymore, but as a "veteran" of the Hastings Container Port saga, every time I see yet another "boom" development proposal, the hackles go up on the back of my neck. They stand upright when I see the word "dredge".

I dont know a lot about the hydrodynamics of Anderson's Inlet, but to me it seems like a miniature Western Port. If you muck around with its natural state, you are asking for trouble.

Yes the developer has "done" Martha Cove and Werribee, but in the benign almost no tidal Port Phillip. Dredge Andersons Inlet and wait for the first winter gale and then see what happens to the tidal "breakwatered entrance"

Lets go back to when the channel at San Remo was narrowed to allow construction of the bridge. Wiped out the Back Beach. They dredged the mail channel of Port Phillip and wiped out Portsea beach.

And if it all went ahead and went pear shaped, just who would pay for trying to "fix it". Methinks us mug tax/ratepayers and not the developer...

As I repeatedly stated during the Hastings saga, "dredge it and you'll stuff it".

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Allison Martin
4/8/2019 02:24:14 pm

I think it’s a fantastic idea. The inlet has filled with sand in the last few years and difficult even to paddle board let alone go boating. Development can work with nature if done correctly.

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James
14/9/2019 01:47:23 pm

Can you give us a list of examples where that has happened so we can check it out?

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Sunny
4/8/2019 02:34:20 pm

Another development for the rich to enjoy, I cannot see much community benefit that warrants destroying natural habitat.

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Kevin Chambers
4/8/2019 05:24:42 pm

Dear Allison Martin,

As has already been pointed out, the entrance to Anderson's Inlet is highly dynamic and is most unsuitable for dredging. Reminds me of the constant effort to keep the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes navigable.

You say it would be Ok if it was done "correctly". In the instances I have already quoted above, those in charge thought they were doing things in this manner. Now neither Portsea or San Remo Back Beach have one..And the only thing stopping the San Remo Caravan Park from ending up in the water is that huge expensive rock wall.

Simply put, "dont mess with nature" or the whole ecosystem and community suffer.

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Bron Dahlstrom
4/8/2019 11:58:56 pm

I agree with the arguments of everyone who has wrote that we must not allow developers near Mahers Landing and I won't duplicate their arguments. A couple of weeks ago I went there for a walk. It was so peaceful and there were many different birds enjoying the area. I stood there for a long time just relaxing and thinking how lucky we are to have this dynamic place. I felt quite sick reading the propositions of the developers and hope that the Councillors are not tempted to sell their souls. Surely they do not want to be voted out at the next council election, leaving a sabotaged area as their legacy.

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mark robertson
5/8/2019 07:02:43 pm

If our councillors and officers have learned anything during their tenure it should be that our coastline is particularly fluid in behaviour, and that our attempts at environmental 'improvement ' usually lead to unforseen and expensive side-effects. Our special ecosystems seem to be the losers all too often. This proposal needs to be treated with utmost caution and carerful thought for what could be lost. Perhaps Mr. Yeap and his team of experts could be reminded that this is the Bass Coast, not the Gold Coast........

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Cr Geoff Ellis
5/8/2019 11:10:45 pm

Hi Mark,
Our fragile coastline has taught this councillor heaps - you only have to look at the scouring at the end of the rock wall at the Jam Jerrup foreshore. 14 metres from the incoming tide to the road. Crisis? Emergency? Words. Action?

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thomas appleby
10/8/2019 10:03:26 am

I have seen a few developments & "improvements". They all change the existing benthic zone. Sand piles where never before, channels scour anew & vegetation changes. All changes,changes all.

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Judy Taylor
15/8/2019 02:47:38 pm

Such a proposal flies in the face of what is we are learning about coastal dynamics and the rapid changes occurring to the beach and Anderson's Inlet, which are most likely linked to the warming of the planet and consequences of that. Inverloch is loved for its natural beauty and attempts to turn it into another Gold Coast should be resisted.

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James
14/9/2019 01:52:30 pm

Surely the point at which you stop listening id right after the question about the funds for the $30m environmental work and the answer is: "oh no, not us that's just something our PR people told us to put in. You (the taxpayer) will pay for that.". As Sea Change's Bob Jelly once said: "where others see a sensitive environmental wetland I see a development opportunity". You've only yourselves to blame if you fall for it.

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Emilie
23/3/2020 09:45:27 pm

No bad idea. Inverloch is an awesome place and does not need this. Go away.

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Peter Gardener
2/4/2020 01:42:29 pm

As previous studies have concluded there are few benefits but many large risks and possible disastrous consequences of this or similar proposals. Could be a huge financial liability for future BCSC to remedy environmental consequences, This proposal also contradicts policy adopted in the Distinctive Area Landscape project which is meant to shape the future development and planning of the area.

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