News & Discussion: Regional Councils
Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 5:59 pm
My question might sound a bit odd, so here's the backstory behind how I came up with it (skip to the end if you don't want to read it):
While up in the Flinders last week, we pulled into the "Prarie Hotel" at Parachilna (it'll always be the Parachilna Pub to me) for a schooner. We talked to the proprietors for a while (my dad went to school with one of them or something) and somehow conversation ended up on "deceased estates" in the area. Apparently there's a number of them around the Flinders Ranges that they've been trying to track down so they can acquire them and restore the buildings on them.
A few days later we shredded a tyre half-way between Arkaroola and Blinman and had to go down to Angorichina Village in Parachilna Gorge to get a new spare when we got to Blinman. On the way down I saw some signs on the side of the road saying there were large blocks for sale (500 acres or so). A few hours later I was imbibing in some icy pints of Blinman Pale Ale (highly recommended!) and I asked the girl behind the bar if she knew anything about the blocks. She said they'd been for sale for years and would probably never sell because they're hilly and you're not allowed to build on them. That sounded weird to me so I asked why that was. She said she didn't know but that's what she'd been told. I found that there's no local council, just a progress association.
So when I got back to Adelaide I tried to find out why it could be that you couldn't build on the land and who would have the power to control that. I did find out that when Blinman was surveyed, there were 160-odd blocks and a further 150-odd in the surrounding area for farming, (the population peaked at 1500-2000 when the copper mine was going about a century ago... now it's 30 or so) so I take it the blocks are freehold and not leasehold. There's a town progress association and the area is covered by a council-type body that covers about 80% of SA - the Outback Areas Community Development Trust (I think that's the name), which says on its website that it's considered as a council for some things, but I couldn't find if they had any planning powers.
So does anyone know why you wouldn't be allowed to build, and perhaps more importantly - who, if anyone, controls developments in non-council areas?
While up in the Flinders last week, we pulled into the "Prarie Hotel" at Parachilna (it'll always be the Parachilna Pub to me) for a schooner. We talked to the proprietors for a while (my dad went to school with one of them or something) and somehow conversation ended up on "deceased estates" in the area. Apparently there's a number of them around the Flinders Ranges that they've been trying to track down so they can acquire them and restore the buildings on them.
A few days later we shredded a tyre half-way between Arkaroola and Blinman and had to go down to Angorichina Village in Parachilna Gorge to get a new spare when we got to Blinman. On the way down I saw some signs on the side of the road saying there were large blocks for sale (500 acres or so). A few hours later I was imbibing in some icy pints of Blinman Pale Ale (highly recommended!) and I asked the girl behind the bar if she knew anything about the blocks. She said they'd been for sale for years and would probably never sell because they're hilly and you're not allowed to build on them. That sounded weird to me so I asked why that was. She said she didn't know but that's what she'd been told. I found that there's no local council, just a progress association.
So when I got back to Adelaide I tried to find out why it could be that you couldn't build on the land and who would have the power to control that. I did find out that when Blinman was surveyed, there were 160-odd blocks and a further 150-odd in the surrounding area for farming, (the population peaked at 1500-2000 when the copper mine was going about a century ago... now it's 30 or so) so I take it the blocks are freehold and not leasehold. There's a town progress association and the area is covered by a council-type body that covers about 80% of SA - the Outback Areas Community Development Trust (I think that's the name), which says on its website that it's considered as a council for some things, but I couldn't find if they had any planning powers.
So does anyone know why you wouldn't be allowed to build, and perhaps more importantly - who, if anyone, controls developments in non-council areas?