A nine-year fight over the future of Miners Rest has finally come to an end with a new township plan adopted by council.
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While community members have rejoiced in the Miners Rest Township Plan coming to fruition, criticisms did come up about the council failing to listen, drawing out the process and costing ratepayers.
At a City of Ballarat planning meeting on Wednesday, the Miners Rest Township Plan (MRTP) review by Planning Panels Victoria was presented to councillors.
The panel had made no changes to the plan and found it would not impede housing growth in Ballarat.
Councillors voted for the MRTP as an amendment to the Ballarat Planning Scheme.
The MRTP is a strategic document that was developed as part of a program of local area planning for the City of Ballarat to implement the Ballarat Strategy 2040.
Committee for Miners Rest president Alicia Bond said it was an exciting moment to see the plan being adopted into the Ballarat Planning Scheme.
"In our view this is at least 16 or 17 years overdue, going back to 2008, when we saw the beginning of opportunity development and population growth" she said.
Ms Bond said due to poor planning the community has already seen a "direct impact" such as "detrimental flooding".
She said the school and kindergarten were now "overpopulated".
Ms Bond said the plan coming back with everything the community had asked for was a "tearful moment".
"It means everything the community put forward - no matter how many times we said it, got told it couldn't happen, fought for and hoped for its future - is now reassured to us by the very people who tried and tested this amendment," she said.
"It means the Miners Rest town centre can be protected from future inappropriate infill development.
"It means we can now have a community driven guiding document that can direst future planning infrastructure, footpaths, flood mitigation, creek beautification, flora and fauna, planning for town and shopping centre and we can now use this as a tool to advocate all levels of government to achieve these."
Miners Rest has a population of 3800 and has had a steady growth since the 1980s, according to the Planning Victoria report.
Parts of the MRTP include changes to minimum standards for new builds in the area such as a minimum subdivision area of 750 sqm, maximum building site coverage will be 45 per cent and a minimum permeability of 45 per cent.
Part of the township will be rezoned, areas of Miners Rest North will be rezoned from General residential to Neighbourhood Residential apart from the town centre, south of Creek Street, which is designated for medium density housing.
Criticism of inappropriate development came from public speakers including former councillor Grant Tillett.
Mr Tillett said in 2014 it became apparent a trend in Miners Rest was the development of "micro-allotments" which were "way out of character."
"In discussion with the Committee for Miners Rest, they would have decided that the committee should make current efforts to control this micro subdivision situation," he said.
Mr Tillett said the amendment for the MRTP which was approved was "almost verbatim" from what is was in 2014.
"The community fought, and fought is the right word, with council officers to gain what it wanted and what they thought best for the community and ultimately got," he said.
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Mr Tillett said told council "believe the community, when a community comes to the council unified in their want, don't fight the, help them".
"This took nine years of fighting because officers thought up every possible dream they could to go against this, they put forward and it took nine years and lots of dollars," he said.
The panel stated in their report "the Miners Rest Township Plan has a strong state, regional and strategic basis and is an appropriate, timely and orderly response to the development of strategy and structure planning for Miners Rest".
The plan will be implemented over a 10 to 15 year period.
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