By Cam Lucadou-Wells
It’s taken more than three decades to create but now the council wants to destroy this nature sanctuary. CAM LUCADOU-WELLS reports.
JOHN Foy isn’t going to stand by and watch Casey council dispossess and bulldoze his 34-acre patch of paradise in Narre Warren North.
The 78-year-old has spent 35 years transforming paddocks and a small billabong into a home with a luscious habitat garden with hundreds of plantings and a nesting pond for varieties of waterbirds.
“It feels like 300 kilometres from Melbourne,” he said as he surveys a mother Pacific black duck and eight ducklings swimming across the lake.
On 1 December, Mr Foy and neighbour Marlene Kane addressed a Planning Panels Victoria hearing to object to Casey compulsorily acquiring his land at 191-195 Belgrave-Hallam Road.
He sees it as a David and Goliath battle against the Planning Minister – who gave permission for the acquisition overlay’s exhibition – and Casey council.
Mr Foy said he was disgusted when he saw the council’s illustrated plans for his land for the first time last week.
His house would make way for a road leading to sports fields. The duck lake will be partly filled and covered by the main soccer pitch.
The northern sheep pastures would be home to two soccer fields, car parking and a pavilion as part of an extension of next door’s Narre Warren North Recreation Reserve.
Casey moved to publicly acquire Mr Foy’s property after lengthy negotiations broke down.
One of the sticking points for Mr Foy was he couldn’t get a guarantee from Casey to not disturb an embankment burial site of six family dogs.
“I was going to put in a covenant but I was told I was wasting my time. The council has powers to withdraw it.”
Four supportive submissions and three opposing submissions were lodged after the council’s advertised public acquisition overlay was exhibited in July and August.
Ms Kane believes more neighbours would have objected had they had more details about the council’s plans.
She said residents believed the council had only wanted to build a section of a 2.5-kilometre trail link in the site’s far northern corner.
The link is between Frog Hollow Reserve and Lysterfield Park, following the meanderings of Eumemmerring Creek.
In September, Casey council requested a state planning panel to consider Amendment C223 for the overlay.
The council report states the development would help address a shortfall of at least three soccer pitches in Casey’s north.
Casey statutory planning manager Duncan Turner said publicly exhibited information had included reference to “the future expansion of district leisure and sporting facilities”, as well as the shared user path link.
The owners of the property, owners and occupiers of surrounding land were notified of the amendment’s exhibition in writing, Mr Turner said.
