A BUSH block in Flinders, which saw its owner being fined $15,000 for illegally clearing a substantial amount of land eight years ago prompting a community outcry, is now up for sale.
The vacant Green Wedge block at 2 Barkers Rd backs onto the Main Ridge Nature Conservation Reserve. The land was subject to court action when the owner, Antoinette Noronho, plead guilty at Frankston Magistrates’ Court in March 2016 to clearing about a third of the native vegetation on the 16-hectare block without a planning permit.
She was fined $15,000 and ordered to pay the shire’s $4000 costs.
Noronho made an application seeking the Mornington Peninsula Shire Council and Parks Victoria approve the building of an access road to her land through Main Ridge Nature Conservation Reserve. As reported by The News in 2015, the council had voted to discontinue 130 metres of Barkers Rd in December 2014 in what appeared to be a trade-off for allowing a road through part of the reserve, which was approved by councillors, (Shire takes bush block to magistrates’ court, The News 8/9/2015).
This was despite the strong opposition of 12 neighbours who said the reserve was home to swamp wallabies, echidnas, antechinus (a small marsupial) as well as 60 species of birds. At least two migratory species, rufus whistler and rufus fantail, also nest in the reserve.
Despite its troubled past, the property is currently listed for sale with a price guide of $3.3 million to $3.6 million.
A furious resident said it was “absolutely disgraceful that the shire, planning regulations and laws encourage people to destroy our last remaining designated bushland areas and profit millions in doing so”. “They should have forced her to replant the vegetation as she cleared hundreds of old trees not approved for removal,” they said. “It’s up to us to conserve these areas for future generations and at this rate we are failing them.”
Black Fox Real Estate, which is managing the sale, stated, “2 Barkers Rd stands out as a true blue-chip gem, a nature lover’s paradise waiting to be embraced”. “2 Barkers Rd is more than just a property; it’s a sanctuary, a blank canvas for your dream home, and a gateway to a life immersed in nature and the pleasures of the Mornington Peninsula,” it said. According to Domain, the property was last sold in 2012. Noronho bought the 16-hectare (40 acre) block with no access road for $425,000 in January 2013. The property had been bought by Peter Quinn in 2007 for $975,000 but it’s understood he failed to win approval for a road.
First published in the Mornington News – 5 November 2024
