AN independent planning panel has recommended minimum lot sizes of 2000 square metres in Mt Eliza’s Woodland precinct and 1300sqm on street corners. For almost a decade, the shire has been trying to restrict subdivision of about 1600 big blocks in the area bounded by Nepean Hwy, Humphries, Moorooduc and Canadian Bay roads. Since September 2003, it has received many applications to subdivide, but has not had a planning scheme to limit development. Some landowners have taken the shire to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which has refused some plans, but approved others. The issue has divided Woodland residents…
Month: November 2012
TEN landowners in a section of Bungower Rd, Moorooduc, will share their rural idyll with more than 65 dogs if the shire council approves an application from a veterinarian. The vet is asking the council to approve plans for “Bark Avenue” boarding kennels at 281 Bungower Rd near Coolart Rd. Stage one will have 20 “luxury” kennels and runs for large dogs and eight for small dogs. Stage two will have six kennels and runs for large dogs and 32 for medium dogs. There also will be 14 exercise yards. Other elements of the complex include a cattery, geriatric dog…
DEVILBEND Reserve was officially opened on Saturday, but the battle between environmentalists, government and fishing groups is far from over. Parks Victoria’s newest reserve was opened by Water Minister Peter Walsh, bringing to fruition more than 12 years of planning and negotiation. Now called Devilbend Natural Features Reserve, the 1000-hectare reserve has an entrance gateway, asphalt entrance road, sealed car park, picnic and barbecue facilities, walking tracks and a boardwalk. Controversially, there are two fishing platforms and the 14,600-megalitre reservoir (an Olympic pool holds one megalitre) was stocked with 5000 brown and 5000 rainbow trout of “catchable” size by the…
DELIBERATELY lit fires wrecked two cars and damaged a third in Hastings early Saturday morning. The cars were torched within two hours of each other, although police have been unable to link the crimes. In the first blaze a Toyota Camry station wagon was burnt out on a nature strip in Villawood Drive, Hastings. Heat from the burning vehicle seriously damaged a Land Rover Discovery that was parked alongside the Camry. Detective Leading Senior Constable Nick Sweetman, of Hastings CIU, said the owner of the Discovery, a volunteer Hastings CFA firefighter, was awakened by his pager calling him to the…
PEOPLE trying to kill snakes are risking injury, says a Mornington Peninsula professional snake catcher. Barry Goldsmith of Mornington-based Snakes and Wildlife Control has been called out to eight properties in recent weeks where homeowners have killed or attempted to kill a snake using a variety of implements. Four snakes that had been mortally wounded had to be euthanised. Trying to kill a snake was far riskier than leaving it, he said. Snakes are on the move following recent warmer weather with Mr Goldsmith and other snake catchers in the region coming into the busy time of the year. “People…
SOUTHERN Peninsula Rescue Squad came to the aid of a charter yacht tangled in a South Channel beacon tower off Portsea last Saturday. The squad was contacted by water police at about 5.30pm and asked to attend the scene where it arrived at about 6pm. Ten passengers aboard Sorrento Sailing Escape’s 12-metre (40-foot) Beneteau class yacht were transferred to the squad’s rescue boat Southern Peninsula 1. The yacht’s skipper and rescue volunteers then pondered how to disentangle rigging that had been snagged on a sign atop the No 4 marker, which indicates the northern side of the channel. Sorrento-based commercial…
MEMBERS of two influential community groups say fast-tracking the move by South East Water to Frankston could add to the woes of Frankston MP Geoff Shaw. They are targeting Mr Shaw in their 11th hour bid to have the water authority’s headquarters sited away from Kananook Creek and the foreshore. “We agree that Frankston is the ideal location for South East Water HQ, but why was it that the state government demanded this key waterfront site and this site only?” former Kananook Creek Association president Rob Thurley has told The News. “Why were better located, less sensitive sites never considered…
THE new Frankston Council was confronted by a thorny problem at its first meeting in Thursday night – how to save one of the city’s iconic trees. A problem solved 10 years ago has come back to haunt the council with owners of 138 and 138A Cranbourne Rd, Frankston, wanting to remove the 120-year-old Moreton Bay fig tree growing on common property between two homes. The tree was the centre of attention in 2002 when the previous owner of the property wanted to cut it down to build two homes. A public outcry saw the council buy the property and…
TOWNS and suburbs on Port Phillip including Rosebud and McCrae could be submerged by coastal flooding combined with heavy rain events by the end of the century, says an unpublished confidential report. Port Phillip Coastal Adaption Pathways Program studied four bayside areas – Rosebud-McCrae, Mordialloc, Elwood and Southbank as well as a low-lying area in North Melbourne. The existence of the report was revealed after Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors held a private meeting on 24 September. This was after the public gallery was cleared at the end of the final public meeting before the council went into caretaker mode in…
SHIRE council officers last Thursday brought an enterprising extractive industry at Balnarring Beach to an abrupt halt. The first site to come to a standstill was the foreshore and later a small reserve at the corner of Campbell and Highview courts. Not known as a mining area, the two reserves were nevertheless giving up buckets of saleable items – earthworms. “It’s amazing how many worms there are in the ground, they were everywhere,” a resident who did not want to be identified told The News. “I’m sure removing this many worms from one spot can’t be good for the environment.…
MT Eliza university student Andrew Dixon has a new interest in his busy life – Mornington Peninsula Shire Council. The 25-year-old was perhaps a surprising winner at the council election on Saturday when he grabbed the last of three seats in Briars Ward, the new super ward that takes in the former Mt Eliza, Mornington and Balcombe (Mt Martha) wards. Cr Dixon joins his Briars colleagues Bev Colomb of Mornington and Anne Shaw of Mt Eliza in representing more than 42,000 voters. Many judges thought Leigh Eustace, who had represented Mt Eliza since 2008, would be elected, but the 11-candidate…
TOP chef Max Paganoni is heartbroken. While he was making sure customers left his restaurant at Red Hill Estate satisfied with their meals, something dark and sinister was happening just kilometres away at his home. Each day when Mr Paganoni leaves the house, he first lets out his miniature daschund dogs, Levi and Zucker. The dogs are in at night, but enjoy time together in the garden by day. On Sunday, four-year-old Levi was shot dead. Her still-warm body was found by a shocked Mr Paganoni at about 8pm. “I had just come home from the restaurant and went outside…