Farming family loses out in fight against Victorian planning minister to axe permit for Maffra solar farm
A Victorian farmer who faces a solar farm being built next to her property says the government’s lack of a strategic plan over where renewable projects should be built is causing ‘unrest’.
A Victorian farming family who went up against the “might and power” of state planning minister Sonya Kilkenny have had their hopes of preventing a solar farm from being built next to their heritage-listed estate crushed after the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled in favour of keeping the permit.
Sophie Paterson, who oversees the Boisdale Homestead and cattle farm spanning 400ha in Maffra, 220km east of Melbourne, has lost a bid to stop developer BNRG Leeson’s 15ha Maffra Solar Farm project after a week of proceedings, with the final order handed down on Monday.
The Leeson Group is Australian-owned, with its partner in the project, BNRG, a multinational developer of solar farms headquartered in Dublin.
According to BNRG’s advertised plan, the project is estimated to cost between $7m to $8m and will involve about 9000 solar panels to be mounted on metal structures.
The property Ms Paterson owns with her husband, Andrew, shares a boundary of three sides on the land where the proposed project will sit.
Ms Paterson argued that the development would result in a loss to prime agricultural land, which could be transformed into productive farmland in the future.
The 52-year-old also submitted that the permit should be reviewed as the project would not be in the best interests of the township’s development and would not be culturally appropriate due to the proximity of ancient 25,000-year-old Aboriginal grinding stones on the farm that she believes deserve “a more respectful setting than being in the proverbial shadow of a solar farm”.
The Boisdale Estate was incorporated into the Paterson family’s cattle business, Tablelands Pastoral, in 2005.
The respondent, BL Maffra Solar Nominees Pty Ltd, submitted that the project would power about 1500 to 2500 homes a year and that the site being disputed is not currently productive.
Ms Paterson said the site next to her property was not the right place for a renewable energy project. She told proceedings that the proposal would displace land for irrigated agriculture for as long as the solar farm was operational; the respondent argued through expert witnesses that the site had poor soil structure.
“The proceeding was extremely frustrating. You don’t really have a voice, with the Planning Minister’s barrister at one stage making us out to be these pompous NIMBYS. Which, for anyone who knows us, it’s just so far from the truth. I work in advocacy, I advocate for renewable energy,” Ms Paterson told The Australian. “It’s pretty hard for a small family like us to be up against the might and power of the planning minister.”
Instead of greenlighting a project in Maffra, she suggested solar developments in the Latrobe Valley or on land not optimal for irrigation. “I don’t think the government is thinking about a strategic plan for the locations of renewable energy,” Ms Paterson said.
“This is a tiny project. I don’t even know how it’ll be viable in 10 years time. I think it’s sort of ad hoc … That’s why you’re finding so much unrest all over the place, because we don’t have strategic locations.”
She also expressed concern over what she described as a lack of community engagement on the project. While the company did publish its public engagement activities, Ms Paterson said she was not aware of the community meeting held and did not receive a letter drop about the project in her mailbox.
In her submission before VCAT, she raised that if the pace of growth in renewable energy capacity outpaced the demand for energy, there might be solar farms “wound up and left to rust”.
The project would also be visible from the family’s driveway, which they said would be a “constant reminder of the built form change thrust upon us”.
While some changes were made to the permit, senior VCAT member Rachel Naylor ruled it be granted.
Ms Paterson is considering an appeal.
More Coverage
Angry Liberals cry foul over mother and son Facebook act
Every mother wants the best for her son but a senior Liberal has been accused of betraying the party to give her pride and joy a leg-up in politics.
Greens ‘fanning flames of anti-Semitism’
Sydney’s inner west has become a ‘tinderbox’ after a spate of anti-Semitic attacks, with the local mayor saying the Greens ‘at every level’ had failed and ‘inflamed’ tensions.