Stakeholders are calling for an overhaul of some of Victoria’s planning laws after a developer illegally cleared endangered native vegetation on his property, and then won permission to build a multi-million-dollar development on the site.
When development company East Rex Road Property became the legal owner of the Campbellfield property in Melbourne’s north, it began illegally removing trees and native vegetation without having applied to Hume City Council for a permit for the work.
From November 2019 to the following January, the company, through subcontractors, cleared an estimated 1.4 hectares of vegetation.
The developer and the company were criminally convicted and fined a combined $225,000 in the Victorian County Court.
But after the land was illegally cleared, the developer separately applied to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) for permission to clear the rest of the land of native vegetation, subdivide the block and build warehouses, which was approved in April.
In making its decision, VCAT relied on expert evaluations of the land’s environmental value, which were conducted after the property had been cleared and found the site scored 29 out of 100 in a vegetation assessment “with large trees and canopy being absent”.
VCAT found the site had a high industrial value and gave the $6.8-million project the green light with conditions that the developer relocate some endangered species and pay for environmental offsets to protect other land.
Hume Mayor Joseph Haweil said he worried about the message the case sent to other developers considering this kind of behaviour.
“It tells them, well you can cop the fine then have a go at the tribunal or whatever authority is assessing this kind of application, and you will possibly be able to proceed with the development as if nothing has happened,” he said.
“It is a very dangerous precedent.”
He said it was time for Victoria’s planning laws to be re-assessed to ensure “anyone who has engaged in misconduct is not rewarded in some ways by loopholes in the system.”
RMIT conservation scientist Sarah Bekessy compared the case to the illegal destruction of the Corkman Hotel in Melbourne’s inner city in 2016, where the developers were fined more than a million dollars and jailed.
“Just as we saw absolute public outrage at the destruction of the Corkman Hotel in Carlton, we should be seeing an equally outraged response to this destruction,” she said.
“Instead [the developer] has been given a green light to develop the site as they originally intended.”
In the criminal courts, the outcome was clear.
Developer East Rex Road Pty Ltd and director Ray Dimech had their convictions from a lower court upheld in August and fines imposed after they had lodged an appeal against the penalties issued by the magistrates’ court.
The company was fined $125,000 and Mr Dimech $100,000, and both were ordered to pay the council’s costs.
In that hearing, the prosecutor also compared the case to the Corkman Hotel, accusing the developer of factoring in the criminal fines as part of “the cost of doing business”.
