By Alesha Capone
BRIMBANK City Council has received more than 280 planning compliance complaints within 12 months.
From July 2010 to May this year, the council received 286 complaints, including 57 complaints in the latest monthly reporting.
The figure was released at a council planning committee meet-ing, which held last Tuesday at the Keilor Bowls Club – rather than the usual location of the Sunshine municipal offices – as part of the council’s tour of different sites, aimed at giving residents an in-sight into their decision-making processes.
The meeting’s agenda said the 57 compliance complaints were “a substantial increase in the number of complaints received during the monthly period and double the monthly average (25) of the previous 12 months”.
Council administrators Meredith Sussex and Joanne Anderson said the heightened rate of complaints was due to an increasing awareness about complying with the area’s planning scheme and more council inspections.
Most of the complaints concerned contraventions of planning permits, signage and house occupation.
The 30 visitors who gathered to watch the planning meeting also heard the council had lodged an enforcement order against Calder Park Raceway with VCAT, in relation to continuing landfill operations which contravene the site’s existing permit conditions.
The council has also lodged VCAT enforcement orders against two Brooklyn businesses, one in Geelong Rd and the other in Bunting Rd, for continuing to use the site without a planning permit.
