2016-07-12 Planning & Environment Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                   12 JULY 2016


The State interest identified under the State Planning Policy 2014 states:—

       mineral, coal, petroleum, gas, and extractive resources are appropriately considered in
       order to support the productive use of resources, a strong mining and resource industry,
       economical supply of construction materials, and avoidance of land use conflicts
       wherever possible.

There are 3 state interest policy areas to be integrated into the new planning scheme. In
summary:

1.   Identify key resources areas (KRA) - including the resource/processing area, separation
     area, transport route and transport route separation area.

2.   Protect key resource areas –
      ensure that sensitive land uses and other potentially incompatible land uses in a KRA
          are assessed against provisions that require the development to be compatible with
          the use of land in a KRA for an extractive industry, and
      provide for appropriate separation distances or other mitigation measures between
          the resource/ processing area of the KRA and sensitive land uses to minimise conflict
          with the use of land in a KRA for an extractive industry.

3.   Consider -
      the importance of areas identified as having valuable coal, minerals, petroleum and
          gas resources and areas of mining and resource tenures, and
      opportunities to facilitate mutually beneficial coexistence between coal, minerals,
          petroleum and gas resource development operations and other land uses, and
      the location of specified petroleum infrastructure that occur on petroleum leases or
          under petroleum facility licences and pipeline licences.

KRAs are state significant resources and must be included in the new Planning Scheme. KRA 56
– Ringtail Creek and KRA 57 – Wahpunga Range are identified as state significant resources in
Noosa Shire.

2.   Draft Amendments to The Noosa Plan 2006

In August 2015, Council publicly notified draft amendments to The Noosa Plan 2006. The
amendments include changes to the Natural Resource Overlay and Code to be consistent with
the State Planning Policy 2014 requirements.
Additional assessment provisions for extractive industry developments were also included in the
amendments, including requirements for buffers, separation and amenity, management of
operations, landscaping, hours of operation, traffic, transport and rehabilitation.
The draft amendments are with the Department of Infrastructure, Local Government and
Planning awaiting approval. The new Planning Scheme will build on the work already done for
these draft amendments.

3.   Resource and mining site assessment

There have been a number of past background studies and investigations into extractive
resources done over the years in Noosa Shire. The number of resources identified as being
significant enough for protection through the planning scheme has reduced over time with nine
(9) resource areas and eleven (11) mining leases currently identified in The Noosa Plan 2016.
The Planning Study recommends the number of resources protected by the new Planning
Scheme be reduced to six (6) resource areas and nine (9) mining leasesi, as outlined in section 4
of this report.

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