An Interim Erosion Management Overlay has been approved by the Victorian Planning Minister and will form part of the Mornington Peninsula Shire Planning Scheme when gazetted.
The new control known as Erosion Management Overlay – Schedule 7 (EMO7) applies to land highly susceptible to landslides but not already covered by an Erosion Management Overlay.
The planning control was a key recommendation of the Board of Inquiry into the McCrae landslide, and the Victorian Minister for Planning asked Council to urgently introduce it.
If the EMO7 is applied to a property, the landowner will likely need to apply for a planning permit before undertaking most types of development – including removing trees and vegetation and altering drainage and aims to ensure new developments in these areas are safe.
However, in many cases:
- Only a small part of a property is covered by EMO7. This means development can occur in the usual way on the rest of the site not covered by EMO7 (subject to any other relevant planning controls that apply to the land).
If a planning permit is required, an application will likely need to include a report from a geotechnical expert explaining how the proposed development will be safe from landslide risk. However, Council can vary or lessen the requirements if they are not relevant to the assessment of an application.
The Shire is aware of some anomalies in the mapping used for the interim Erosion Management Overlay, for example, retaining walls and other minor earthworks with an artificially steep slope have been picked up as being highly susceptible to landslides.
The Shire is working to remove these anomalies as a matter of priority and will then ask the Minister for Planning to revise the EMO7 to reflect the refined mapping this year. In the interim – Council will be supporting residents by waiving application and enquiry fees where EMO7 is the sole permit trigger and further geotechnical analysis and/or permit conditions are not required to address the underlying risk.
EMO7 is a temporary measure until a revised permanent EMO is introduced after a comprehensive Shire-wide review of landslide susceptibility data and mapping (also known as Stage 3 of Council's review and update of EMOs on the Peninsula).
