Planning for a future

The ‘peri-urban interface’, as some call it, often features hobby farmers who move to relatively small acreages to enjoy the benefits of that lifestyle and a few of whom, within a short period of time, object to traditional farming practices. The hypocrisy of some people doesn’t seem to even register with them – “we moved here because the housing was cheaper but we don’t like aircraft noise” and “we moved here because of the quiet and bucolic nature of the area but we don’t like farming near us” have both been heard before.

Conflicts around airports and rural developments are characterised by a lack of planning that has done nothing to manage the obvious and likely problems.

No major buffer zones, no mandatory vegetative screening or other measures that should be demanded of the developers to ensure the sustainability of the proposal, no covenants on land that guarantees a right to farm – once those opportunities are missed at the approval stage, the almost inevitable result of encroachment is the call for airport closures or moves and similar challenges to traditional agricultural practices.

But the problems are not limited to NIMBY-esque resentment of modern agriculture – there are also land-use arguments within agriculture.

For example, the tax driven forestry plantation investment schemes are under fire from some farming communities for taking high quality land out of traditional production, soaking up more water than other farming types and changing local communities.

While not wanting to get into the argument of the particular value of one agricultural or forestry pursuit over another, it seems that the common flashpoint is the lack of planning for the orderly development of different industries, particularly by local government, but including state and federal governments.

Many aviation communities are aware of the short-term focus of some councils who operate aerodromes and have had to stave off continued attempts by avaricious developers wanting to get their hands on the local airport land for their own benefit rather than the community’s benefit. The contrast could not be starker between those long-sighted councils who have committed to making their airports a sustainable community asset (think air-park type developments) versus those short sighted councils who persist with aircraft landing fees that continue to rob their communities of much greater income from visitors.

AAAA recently had the choice of holding a training day in two different communities – one with landing fees, the other without. Obviously, the community with a friendlier welcome for aviators will receive the thousands of dollars for accommodation, meals, venue hire etc, while the other will not even know what they are missing – until we tell them.

Other rapidly expanding conflict zones are the windfarm developments across much of Australia. AAAA first approached the Wind Energy Association (WEA) a number of years ago with concerns regarding the threat to aviation safety posed by towers and associated infrastructure.

Of critical concern are the wind monitoring towers put in place before a full development – very narrow, quite tall, generally on ridges/high ground, with significant guy-wires and able to be erected within hours.

While WEA has included a consideration of aviation impacts (literally) with these towers in guidance to members, there is no compulsion to actually change anything or notify anyone of the new threat to aviation safety. AAAA has consistently raised this with CASA over the years, but it seems powerless to make a difference to aviation safety on this front.

Some states have quite detailed planning and approval processes that require development proponents to consider aviation issues, but from AAAA’s experience this is generally a cursory process.

While AAAA does have positive arrangements in place for notification with some windfarm companies, this is not an industry wide approach, either for the wind farm companies or for other sectors in aviation who may be operating legitimately below 500ft.

The risks from all of these issues are reasonably predictable, as are the potential consequences, but it seems government is unmotivated to apply the same standards of risk management and planning to itself as it so often requires of industry.

Better planning and land-use policies will help both the aviation and agricultural industries avoid the mistakes of the past and the present.

Improved land-use planning should be an integral component of a national aviation strategy. n Australian Aviation is proud to be the official supporting journal of the Aerial Agricultural Association of Australia. The views in this column are those of the AAAA, and not necessarily Australian Aviation’s.