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The Forum > Article Comments > Victoria’s bushfires: time to reflect new urban strategies > Comments

Victoria’s bushfires: time to reflect new urban strategies : Comments

By Beatriz Maturana, published 27/3/2009

Australia has abundant land and for the 200 years of colonisation settlers have had no need to compromise ...

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To sum up the article:

a) Fires happen and kill people in small towns.
b) The solution is to get rid of the small towns so that when the fires rage no one is killed.

What a ridiculous proposal. Rural communities exist primarily for the local farmers and foresters.

The real solution would be to manage the fuel load and clear fire breaks to reduce the severity of the fires and reduce the damage and prevent loss of life, as has been recommended in 2 royal commissions after previous fires.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 27 March 2009 9:54:08 AM
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Shadow minister,
This is a well constucted article canvassing some ideas and as such it is even better than the one the one by the Wilderness bloke.

As usual on issues like this your lack of thought or understanding of the issues involved means you have missed the point Comprehensively.

Wholesale burning off (using greens as fire lighters) IS NOT a smart option nor is it the only one.

Wise old saying tis better to be silent and thought perhaps a fool than to write and remove all doubt.
Posted by examinator, Friday, 27 March 2009 1:18:59 PM
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Examinator, this is my first post here - but have to agree with your comments regarding Shadow Minister.

Aussies have for a long time been developing semi/rural areas in ways which are not only poor in terms of bushfire safety, but make little sense in terms of town planning (5 acre blocks cost a heap more to service in terms of roads, electricity, water, garbage collection etc etc and make very poor use of avaiable land resources)

Planners have long recognised that problems with this form of urban edge development and this is reflected (in NSW) in newer planning strategies such as those for the Central Coast and Lower Hunter which steer away from rural residential developments.
Posted by King Idiot, Friday, 27 March 2009 1:37:02 PM
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Examinator, I see that in this post you have chosen to heed your own words, your attack on me in the other post was so factually incorrect that this time you have chosen to attack without actually providing any trite opinion or viewpoint.

The article by Beatriz Maturana is simplistic and incorrect in its comparison with rural Europe in which even the smaller "towns" number in the tens of thousands often with some industrial base,and the spacing between the towns is small and intensely farmed. Even here you will find on the outskirts small holdings of a couple of hectares.

Most small towns in Aus are not within commuting range of a large city, and many of the small holdings on the periphery have some form of intensive agriculture ie fruit and veggies and provide supplimental income, whilst many of the houses within the town are on 1/4 an acre. The cost of services to these small holdings is higher, but even when paid for by those on the properties, is small compared with the value of the land and so this reasoning is facile.

The other issue is that most people living in the small towns earn substantially less than those in the city, but prefer to remain because of the lifestyle that open space provides. Crowding them into high density ghettos would effectively kill off the small towns and would face such resistance as to be totally impractical.

A comparison to motoring would be to say that people are killed in motor accidents, thus the solution would be to ban private cars and only allow public transport because it is also more efficient.

The other alternative would be to make cars safer, such as seat belts etc.

Fire breaks and fuel reduction work. The greens and the wilderness junkies have been actively opposing it, and floating purile suggestions such as HD rural towns is only a distraction from the main issue.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Friday, 27 March 2009 2:33:52 PM
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Shadow Minister,
I agree with what you say but maybe you were a little harsh on the author. She, at least, recognises the part Town Planners play in the prevention of home distruction, even though she has not got it quite right.

My extensive experience with bushfires makes me believe that town Planners have much to answer for. It seems, in most cases, they disregard the fact that we live in high risk bushfire enviroment and allow developers carte blanche. Given their own devices developers will go for maximum blocks at the lowest cost to them, and do nothing about perimiter roads/access, fire breaks/ fuel reduced areas or the placement of sporting fields and maintained public areas.

Rather than larger town areas, perhaps we can get the author to cast her mind to these issues irrespective of the residential block sizes.

The Canberra situation was a classic example of bad town planning. Who, in their right mind, would allow an urban area adjoining thousands of acres of pine forest.
Posted by Banjo, Friday, 27 March 2009 3:26:07 PM
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If you go to the NSW Govt handbook on "Building in Bushfire prone areas"
you will find a swag of restrictions and prohibitions for building in rural areas.
This is the book that councils use in assessing any development proposal.
One of the many requirements is the development of a "asset protection zone (APZ)" around the structure.
In High risk areas this is suggested to be 50 meters around the house to cleared, the idea being to trade distance for safety.
This does go against small blocks in a village environment.
I wonder how our town planners will deal with this one issue alone.
I also note that Beatriz makes no mention of us strange folk who are quite content to live away from towns alone in the bush.
Are we all meant to be corralled into fortified towns against our will?
Fortunately, we loners that live, work and enjoy the remote bush rarely see town planners.
It is hard enough to get the council to maintain our dirt roads to a reasonable standard let alone some serious town planning.
Posted by Little Brother, Friday, 27 March 2009 4:52:01 PM
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