Powerlines devalue farms: Legal right to high-voltage view compensation

Many farms are about to be carved up for unsightly powerlines. Now a legal precedent that could see landowners win more compensation has emerged.

A rural vista of high-voltage powerlines deters buyers, devaluing land.

Farmers have the right to be compensated for the visual impact of high-voltage transmission lines and pylons, up to 75m high, being built across their land, according to legal precedent.

Hundreds of farms across southeastern Australia face being carved up for powerline easements as part of new era of transmission line construction, which will carry cheap regional wind and solar power into Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

But valuer and agricultural economist Sam Paton, who represented 190 landholders over whose properties the Sydenham to Mount Gambier transmission lines were built from 1981-83, said farmers were eligible for far more compensation than just the land lost to pylons and half the value of the easement under the powerlines.

“If it’s (the transmission line) in line of sight of the residence there’s a diminution of value, which can be 30 per cent (of its value),” Mr Paton said.

Overall property values can also be compensated, he said, given the visual impact that can deter many buyers.

“People can be highly emotional about it — they (buyers) drive in with an agent, see the powerlines and say forget it, show me something else.”

Mr Paton said negotiating compensation can be a hard-fought battle, but that the Land and Environment Court of NSW had already set a precedent, which farmers and their lawyers could use.

In February 1996 Judge Pearlman ruled power transmission lines and seven towers built across the historic 1027ha Swatchfield grazing property near Oberon on the NSW central tablelands, had diminished the value of the overall property, its homestead and manager’s residence.

In the case against Electricity Transmission Authority of NSW the Judge ruled “compensation payable for the diminution in value of Swatchfield” as:

35 PER CENT of the homestead’s value, given “the transmission line is visible from many places inside the homestead” and “this view is now significantly impacted upon by the transmission line, which passes directly across this view close to the top of a ridge line where it is silhouetted against the sky” (the closest tower to the homestead was 1.6km away) — $112,000.

30 PER CENT of the manager’s residence, which was 600m from the nearest tower — $22,500.

10 PER CENT of the overall property’s value, due to “injurious affection” — $301,791.

Compensation for the 2.8ha footprint of the seven towers was just $8400, while $27,870 was awarded for the 18.58ha easement, set at half its land value.

“The presence of the transmission line is a significant negative feature of Swatchfield overall,” Judge Pearlman said.

“It can be seen from virtually all places upon the property, including the road leading to the entrance to the property. It is dominating against the skyline and massive in scale.”

The Victorian Government has plans to build new transmission lines across six renewable energy zones, including the 500kV Western Victoria Transmission Network project.

Other lines include the Victoria to NSW Interconnector West, the HumeLink in NSW, Energy-Connect project in South Australia and NSW and a swathe of new transmission lines across northwest Tasmania to lift the state’s capacity to pump renewables into the national grid as part of the Marinus Project.

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