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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-06-29 Daily Xml
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LAND REZONING

Mr VAN HOLST PELLEKAAN (Stuart) (15:36): I would like to talk on behalf of Trevor and Angelika Toune who are residents of Point Paterson on the outskirts of Port Augusta. They have a particularly difficult situation. They have lived on their land, which consists of approximately 60 acres about five or six kilometres from the centre of Port Augusta and a couple of kilometres outside of the main residential area of Port Augusta, since 1984.

In 2008 they subdivided their land and created two 20-acre blocks (in addition to their home block) and they wanted to sell them. The land, to the best of their knowledge, was zoned residential rural living. They had a buyer organised and ready to go. This was essentially their retirement package. These people are retired. When they went to sell the land they found, to their horror, that the land had been rezoned as industrial back in 2002, and they genuinely did not know about it.

What makes it more difficult for them—and they understand that this is technically still their responsibility—is that for the entire time they have been there (since 1984 right up until, I think, 2008) their council rate notice still showed that their land was residential rural living. They were just not aware of the change. It was not until the purchaser of one of the blocks was doing his homework and went to have a look that he then came back to the Tounes and said, 'Look, this land that you're selling me as residential is actually industrial'—and that was, obviously, a very embarrassing situation and put the sale off.

These people are in a very difficult situation. In good faith, they spent $14,000 doing the subdivision. They accept that, while their council rates said all along that their land was residential, that is technically not their saviour. They also say that they were never ever informed of the rezoning.

We all know that is a tricky issue and it may or may not be the case. There is no doubt that the rezoning discussions and public meetings and things were advertised locally, and they do not dispute that. However, Trevor was working away at the time—as a lot of people in my district do—and he is not aware of any mail or correspondence advising of the rezoning back in 2002 or shortly thereafter. It is always possible that a letter went astray, but he is pretty adamant that he was quite thorough in collecting his mail when he came back from working away, and his wife, Angelika, did not ever see it.

Their plight was raised in the DPA for Port Augusta I think six or so months ago, a few months before the election, and unfortunately their case was not able to be helped with. There were a few issues that were left outside that the government could not see its way through to helping them with. I have spoken to the planning minister about this and he is quite understanding and personable and he understands their difficulty. However, naturally enough, the impetus for this has to actually come from the council to suggest the rezoning.

I have spoken with Port Augusta council and they are actually quite on side too. They feel a bit of responsibility for the fact that they made that administrative error in their rates notices. So, they will make sure that there is a recommendation for rezoning this land back to rural living. As I understand it, they are quite comfortable to do that, and the minister has said that he will do his best to support them. So I just want to raise this matter on their behalf.

The difficulty, of course, is that their land is quite close to the Port Augusta power station. It is further away than some established residential blocks in Port Augusta, but it is quite close to the Port Augusta power station. What I have suggested to them is that they might not need to do any further subdivision but that their 20-acre blocks that they would like to sell could have two different zonings on the same block, which I am told is unusual but quite legal. So I really do urge the government to support that when that application comes through. They are retired people who are under an enormous amount of personal stress from this. Their retirement savings, essentially, have gone into these blocks of land. They have invested, they thought wisely, by doing a subdivision—and so any help that the government can give them would be greatly appreciated.

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