Any farmer living near a major regional city and who is on a highway or near a railway line, should take heed of the Carter family’s story.
That’s the view of Marong district cropping and livestock farmer Max Carter.
His family is fighting the City of Great Bendigo’s decision to compulsorily acquire 313 hectares of the Carter farm for an industrial park.
It has been 16 years of uncertainty over the future of the land which represents about one third of the Carter property.
“It would knock a big hole in things. We have been buying land and my son has land adjoining,” he said.
“We do a lot of cropping with big modern machinery and with less land we would be over-capitalised.”
“We can crop almost every square inch of it and run livestock.”
The City of Greater Bendigo hopes the state’s planning minister can approve the public acquisition of the land as soon as possible so they can “keep moving on the process”.
The public acquisition overlay on the land needs to be approved by planning minister Richard Wynne before negotiations can begin with the Carters.
If he signs off on the overlay, the acquisition will go ahead and there are no avenues for appeal.
Mr Carter said the family was considering their legal options.
He said the family believed they had the support of the independent panel that reported in 2016.
A report from the panel questioned the public acquisition, stating council had not adequately considered all available land options near Bendigo.
It found there were other parcels of land that “rated reasonably” when compared with the Carter land, and it was improper to publicly acquire the land and then transfer it to a private third party.
City of Greater Bendigo director strategy and growth Bernie O’Sullivan said the council would enter negotiations with the family “fairly and genuinely”.
“It’s the minister’s call whether a public acquisition overlay is applied to the land,” he said.
“If it is then council would commence the process under the land acquisition and compensation act, and the negotiation process would follow from that.
Mr Wynne has previously described the Marong Business Park as a “top priority for Bendigo” and approved the rezoning of the more than 300 hectares in August last year.
Shadow planning minister David Davis will be briefed on an independent panel report into the Marong Business Park after being contacted by concerned members of the public.
Liberal MP David Davis said he was “aware of the issue” after being contacted by a number of individuals and suggested acquisition decisions should give "sufficient heed" to the advice of independent planning panels.
“I don't want to go further until I’ve been fully briefed on the (panel) report but certainly in many cases planning ministers are advised to give sufficient heed to the advice of an independent panel,” Mr Davis said.
