Any reference to CASACIR or its directors, shareholders, owners or operators relates to pre-14 February 2024 when the company was sold. In no way can anything said relate to the company or its new owners, operators, directors, and shareholders after that sale.
The council planning officer and manager of statutory planning, Peter McWhinney, said that there was no validation for consideration of loss of land value on surrounding land impacted by quarries, mining or the like. In fact, he deliberately ignored the impact on land values of the farms surrounding man X. man Y and CASACIR’s new Neerim North quarry. He stated in his report to council dated 11 June 2008 [emphasis mine] that: “The impact of a development proposal on property valuations is not generally an issue considered in planning law though clearly important to property owners”. However, his comment is clearly in direct contradiction to the planning scheme (of which he had responsibility for compliance) which at the time stated in SPPF 17.05 (now (as at June 2011) SPPF 14.01-1) [emphasis mine]: “In considering a proposal … to develop agricultural land, the following factors must be considered: … *The impacts of the proposed … development on the continuation of primary production on adjacent land, with particular regard to land values …”.
Man X, man Y and CASACIR had authorised the false claim made to the 2008 tribunal as absolute fact that the quarry would not have any detrimental impacts and would only result in economic benefits.
I believe that the reason that Peter was prepared to seemingly ignore the land values was, perhaps, an attempt to collude with man X, man Y and CASACIR and have people believe they can do nothing about it. The reality is though, that we had a reduction of ~21% in our rates based on council’s valuer’s observation of, and agreement with, the impact of the quarry!! This clearly showed that there was, in fact, a significant reduction in our land value due to the impacts of man X, man Y and CASACIR’s quarry! This was further reflected in an approximate 40% loss upon sale!