'via Blog this'
The Victorian Government "will amend planning laws to give households power to veto wind turbines within two kilometres of their homes. Turbines will also be banned in the Macedon and McHarg ranges, in the Yarra Valley, on the Mornington and Bellarine peninsulas, and within five kilometres of the Great Ocean Road and the Bass Coast."
I am going to be interested to see the consequences of this decision for planning as a whole. The Minister seems to be saying that preservation of the landscape needs to take precedence over other planning considerations. Yet many forms of development can change views and alter people's perceptions of their environment. So the question is, does landscape impact now need to be given greater weight in the assessment process? Will it mean that anyone proposing a development has to mitigate their impact on the landscape as much as possible?
This is a big issue for planning major infrastructure such as roads and power, as they are highly visible and impossible to disguise.
It is also an issue in terms of what factors are given greater weight in planning decisions - facilities which benefit the whole community, such as power generation, or the views of a small number of individuals. Previously it has always been assumed that everyone in society has to accommodate some elements of development that they may not like, because they serve the greater good. It's almost impossible to escape something undesirable in the modern landscape, whether it's a road, a drain, a power line, a factory or whatever. But they are part and parcel of living in an industrialised society. In other words, you've got to accept the bad along with the good if you want to receive the benefits of modern technology. So why should the impact of wind energy turbines be considered any differently to the impact of any other form of infrastructure?
I wonder if it is because there is an attitude than new energy generation isn't needed, because of the power stations in the Latrobe Valley? And seriously, has any wind turbine opponent ever gone and had a look at their landscape impact?! Why is it wind energy that is so divisive?
It will be interesting to see if large scale solar power generation or geothermal power generation plants generate the same opposition as wind energy.
