16 May, 2013
Thousands of hectares of environmentally sensitive land on Sydney’s fringe will lose protection
Large tracts of land protected by environmental land zoning on the urban fringe will be reclassified as “rural” or “residential” land under the state government’s proposed new planning system, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW has warned.
NCC Chief Executive Officer Pepe Clarke said the number of environmental zones would be cut from four to one under the government’s proposals.
Two existing zones now managed to protect wildlife and bushland (E3 and E4) would be included in “rural” and “residential” zones that would be managed primarily for development.
“With one stroke of the pen, the O’Farrell government wants to sweep away vital protections for thousands of hectares of native vegetation and wildlife habitat on the urban fringe,” Mr Clarke said.
“This is potentially one of the biggest losses of environmental protections this state has ever seen.
“Environment protection zones have protected natural areas in NSW for nearly 30 years and must be retained or replaced with new protections that are equally or more effective.
“There is no evidence at this stage that the NSW government intends to replace environmental zones with effective alternative protection.”
Mr Clarke said many councils were encouraged to use the E3 and E4 zonings in the belief that these would protect important environmental values in perpetuity.
“Scrapping these protections is a gross breach of faith with communities across Sydney and the whole state.”
BACKGROUND
Under the proposed changes to NSW planning laws, the government wants to reduce the number of land-use zones from more than 30 to just 13. Currently there are four types of Environmental Protection Zones:
- E1 for national parks, etc.
- E2 for high conservation value lands that are not in formal reserves, often on private land.
- E3 for land that has “special ecological, scientific, cultural or aesthetic attributes”.
- E4 for land with “special environmental or scenic values that can accommodate low-impact residential development”.
Under the changes:
- E1 and E2 will be rolled into a new category call Environment Protection and Hazard Management.
- E3 will be rolled into a new category called Rural. Several other old zones will be lumped in with this one, including zonings that are for commercial primary production, intensive agriculture, etc.
- E4 will be rolled into a new category called Residential. This will include a range of existing residential categories, from large lots to medium density.
PROBLEM
The primary objective of E zones under the existing system is environmental protection. The primary objective of the Rural and Residential categories will be development.
Many councils have gone through extensive community consultation processes to determine lands in their LGAs that require E zonings. They have applied the zonings in the belief that they would provide adequate protection in the long term. Now the government proposes to sweep those protections away.
In many most of the land designated as E zones are categorized E3 and E4. That means most of the lands local people and councils thought were protected with special zoning provisions will have those protections removed.
A STATE-WIDE ISSUE
While some councils may use E-zones more than others, the problem will affect environmentally sensitive lands across the state, including wetlands, rainforest and koala habitat.
Tags
Planning and Development
Let others know about this issue