Call to check clifftop ‘land grabs’ Keith Platt keith@mpnews.com.au A RATEPAYER group is calling for surveys to make sure public land has not been included within the fence lines of multi-million dollar clifftop properties at Mt Eliza. And once the surveys are done, the group wants a walking track built along the clifftop from Jacksons Rd to Pelican Point, near Daveys Bay. In a budget submission to Mornington Peninsula Shire, the Mt Eliza Foreshore Advisory Group (MEFAG) says the proposed walking track would provide the “missing link” between Canadian and Daveys bays. The submission ranges from calling on the shire to stop nudists from leaving the “optional dress” area of Sunnyside beach, to managing car parks, off-lease areas for dogs and updating aerial images on the shire’s website. The group says a new path on the cliff would fix the lack of beach access cause by erosion, rising sea levels and exposed rocks. It alleges Crown land between Jacksons and Freemans roads “has been ‘acquired’ by several abutting landowners as ‘their land’ and most of these landowners frown on anybody who ventures along the top edge of the cliff face”. MEFAG chairman Des Berry says the shire should survey the land and then “negotiate fencing options” with property owners and protect a known Aboriginal midden before building a path which would also serve as a firebreak.
Quarry quarrels MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors will decide whether to oppose the resumption of quarrying at Dromana land owned by Hillview Quarries after a VCAT pre-hearing next year testing the validity of previous planning permit that expired in March 2004. Councillors at last Monday’s public council meeting postponed finalising a council position on a bid by Hillview Quarries to extend the life of the quarry at 121 Boundary Rd, Dromana. A Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal pre-hearing conference on 14 March next year will hear submissions by Hillview Quarries and objectors to an extension of the quarry licence before a possible full five-day hearing in May if mediation fails to find common ground. Some objectors believe the company is trying to dodge a previously agreed deal to clean up the quarry site at an estimated cost of $3 million by extending the permit indefinitely.
New brewery Violent crumble: The Mt Eliza Foreshore Advisory Group is calling for cliffs at Pelican Point to be stabilised and for a walking track to be completed between Canadian Bay and Daveys bays.
He said the need for a path had been “highlighted since the closing of the Pelican Point lookout and beach access path since 2009”. The realignment of boundaries in high value property area is not without precedent as in late 2009 the shire forced the demolition of a swimming pool belonging to the family of billionaire Solomon Lew. The MEFAG submission says the
Mt Eliza foreshore management plan adopted by council in 2004 had shortcomings and needs rewriting. If the rewrite was too expensive for council’s planning department “MEFAG members are available to assist owing to members’ skillsets, experience and local knowledge”. Other issues covered in the MEFAG submission include improvements to the Canadian Bay beach car park
which was largely unchanged since the 1970s; calling for a new toilet at Sunnyside Beach, a project accepted by councillors 10 years ago but never realised; replanting trees on the cliffs of Daveys Bay “suspected” of being cut down to improve views: stabilise cliffs at Pelican Point where a lookout and walking track have been closed since 2009
A BREWERY will be built at Fingal, on land formerly owned by the Freedman brothers to train thoroughbred race horses, after Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors approved an application by site owner Andrew Purchase to eventually brew beer and cider at the green wedge site. Some councillors at last Monday evening’s public council meeting voiced disapproval about alcohol being shipped in to be sold at the brewery for the first few years of the new venture’s existence. It will take at least five years for enough hops and barley to be grown on the 160 Sandy Rd land.
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Mornington News 20 December 2016
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