A SPECIAL online meeting of Mornington Peninsula Shire Council was abandoned last week because only three of the nine councillors said they could “attend”.
The meeting called for 11am on Friday 13 January was set to discuss taking action in the Supreme Court over the Victorian Civil Administrative Tribunal’s decision to allow Ryman Healthcare to build a $317 million aged care centre in Mount Eliza.
The Kunyung Road site proposed for the centre is located in green wedge zoned land and the VCAT decision was released just after Christmas, giving council 28 days in which to lodge an appeal (“Tribunal go ahead for Ryman” The News 10/1/23).
It is understood the appeal could cost up to $50,000, and even more if council lost and had costs awarded against it.
The mayor Cr Steve Holland, deputy mayor Cr Debra Mar and Cr David Gill said they were willing to attend the meeting.
Holland, who called the special meeting, said he had received written apologies from six councillors saying they were unable to participate.
Former councillor and longtime critic of the Ryman proposal, Leigh Eustace, said it was “really poor” that a majority of councillors had not made time to attend the online meeting.
“Councillors may not have meetings to attend, but they’ve still got a job to represent their community,” he said. “Officially, they’re not on leave. They’re still employed and getting paid – they don’t get annual leave.
“They were elected to represent the community and to attend an online meeting is not a huge impost.”
The 11-member council has been reduced to nine while it awaits the replacement of Kerri McCafferty, who resigned in December and Paul Mercurio, the new state MP for Hastings.
“I cancelled the meeting because I was not confident that a quorum could be achieved. A quorum being a majority of councillors – five out of nine,” Holland said.
“Councillors are not required to tell me why they cannot attend.”
Gill, who asked the mayor to call the special meeting to discuss the Ryman issue and not miss the deadline for court action, said councillors could have attended online “from anywhere in the world”.
“The discussion would have included legal opinion on an appeal to the Supreme Court and alternative actions,” he said.
“The VCAT decision was announced just after Christmas Day … and left only 28 days for council consideration at a time council was closed for the holiday period.”
Gill said missing the deadline for an appeal would be “an appalling outcome” and urged “all councillors to try to make themselves available for this important online meeting to form a position on this particular devastating setback for our green wedge planning policies”.
Motions listed for discussion at the meeting included appealing the VCAT decision in the Supreme Court on several grounds, including that Ryman’s land was in green wedge and outside the urban growth boundary.
Gill also wanted council to record its “disapproval” of VCAT releasing its decision “in the Christmas/New Year period, making a Supreme Court appeal very difficult within the 28 day allowable time frame”.
Gill also wanted council to publicise “risks posed by planning decisions, outside of council control, that pose threats to the future of our green wedge”.
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 17 January 2023
