Question details

(869) My adjournment matter is to the Minister for Planning, and it relates to a housing precinct in Bass at the Wonthaggi North East precinct. There is a contamination issue in Wonthaggi, and it is certainly concerning many people. The Bass Coast shire and the Victorian Planning Authority are having an exchange about who is to wear the imposition of the environmental audit overlay. A report was submitted to council back in 2016 by GHD, and at the time the member for Bass Ms Jordan Crugnale was also the mayor, as we know, and at the time GHD made recommendations in its report to council. The Victorian Planning Authority assumed control of the amendment C152, the north-east precinct, in 2020 for fast-tracking housing, but there has been a bit of grief ever since. The state government, Minister – your government – made significant amendments to the Environment Protection Act 2017 in 2021, which incorporated amendment C152, and this amendment led to the inclusion of the EAO in 2024, and this affected over 250 properties in Parklands estate in Wonthaggi, potentially impacting up to a thousand properties. The overlay was put in place by the VPA. It was determined that parts of this precinct could have contaminated soil because there was a history of agricultural intent and farming that could have led to that contamination. In the end the EAO requires anyone that needs a building permit or planning permit in order to build and develop to pay for some very expensive and time-consuming investigations, and the costs look like this: a preliminary risk screen assessment, around $15,000; EPA lodgement fees are well over $300; costs to complete any environmental audit to commence, around $30,000; and for an environmental audit with EPA we are looking at over $1000, almost $2000. So clearly home owners are quite stressed about the prospect of having these significant cost imposts. The community is needing an arbiter, someone to intervene, so I call on the planning minister and I urge them to intervene, to review this process, to find a successful resolution to support people both living in and wanting to build a home in this area and also to review those cost imposts and maintain environmental protections.