Wallace McKenzie has worked on his Gippsland farm for around 25 years and has had to adapt to the changing conditions caused by the rapid urbanisation of country towns within 100km of Melbourne. Becoming surrounded by new housing estates, Wallace has faced many new problems: “Domestic cats have had a huge impact on wildlife, especially on the small bird population, domestic dogs have frightened cattle causing them to run through fences, and celebrations, particularly with fireworks involved, frighten stock causing them to stampede”. Along with the new problems concerning his farming, Wallace has also experienced a significant increase in rates, forcing him to sell off a portion of his land to developers already.
The encroaching houses are a daily reminder for Wallace of the changing reality of farming. After the introduction of the Precinct Structure Plan (PSP) in 2014, many farms were rezoned as ‘residential’ land meaning the owners of the land now had to pay higher rates. Many other farmers have not been able to keep farming their land and have had to sell out to developers, “some willingly, others reluctantly”, says Wallace. Some have sold and moved their farming activities further away from the developing towns, others have amalgamated to counter the rising costs, particularly in the local dairy industry, whilst others have just been forced to give up.
Property consultant Rob Wills explains that the “government strategy with urbanisation was to keep pushing out the urban fringe” but once it starts eating into the green wedge, there isn’t any infrastructure or jobs out there for all the people moving to those areas. Instead, the government strategy is to create “Peri-urban areas” such as Warragul, where schools, shops and jobs are already available, along with easy access to the CBD via trainlines, and then expand and grow the area. Wallace’s land was a part of the area defined in the PSP, and roads, schools, houses and parks are already planned out in his land which will inevitably be developed. The road and footpath come to a sudden stop at the border of Wallace’s property, and as soon as Wallace sells his land, the road will continue, and the paddocks will turn into residential blocks.
This sign was originally placed in front of the barbwire fence, but unhappy residents vandalised it with graffiti voicing their discontent with the impact of developers and it was replaced then moved. “There have been many protest activities such as petitioning Council regarding the impact on small spring fed farm dams as creeks are being diverted and businesses using huge amounts of bore water have been attracted to the area”, says Wallace, “there’s been a reaction alright”. Small farms and local residents are rapidly becoming surrounded by these new housing estates and the quiet country life they once enjoyed is disappearing.
A common sight in these developing Peri-urban areas is the mass transformation of green paddocks into small dirt blocks. “The mass exodus from the city” as Wallace describes it, is causing these small Peri-urban towns to become swamped with new families and people "escaping to the country" and the population is increasing at an exponential rate. Even so, “developers can’t keep up with producing residential lots and they can’t keep up with demand”, says Rob. So too, the country towns were not initially designed for such population growth, and Wallace says that “I think there will be a big problem with local infrastructure”, “Warragul township is not designed for the amount of people that are coming here”.
When asked how he feels about the increasing development of farming land happening, Wallace says “well to be honest it’s made me feel a bit sad, but it is inevitable”. However, he has not given up or sold off all of his land yet, and still continues his farming activities as best he can. He recently planted around 70 new trees. “There I am defiantly pushing up these little trees and they’re knocking others down – I’ve been defiant in the face of inevitability”. Another problem Wallace and many other farmers are facing is climate change. “More extreme weather has resulted in the need for adaptive measures such as increased expenditure on water and water storage facilities, firefighting equipment and large-scale tree planting” says Wallace.
Some of the trees on Wallace’s property are over one hundred years old, such as these native gums. Many of the trees lining the borders of his paddocks were planted by hand by Wallace over the last 25 years. On the land that he has sold off already, his hand planted trees were bulldozed to make way for more houses and other amenities. However, Rob explains that when it comes to urbanisation and the states growing population, “you’ve got three choices”, one is to go up, “and you can see there’s a lot of high-rises going up in the CBD” he says, you can extend the urban fringe and “eat into the green wedge around Melbourne”, or towns like Warragul can become these ideal Peri-urban environments, but at the cost of farming land.
The inevitability of Wallace’s tree. The top of a hay shed is barely visible under a sea of mulch from the bulldozed trees to make way for more housing. According to Rob, the growth rate of Peri-urban areas didn’t take off right away, “it was the growth when the alignment of the PSP’s strategy aligned with the Victorian Government’s strategy of no stamp duty and first home buyer grants for people who are buying houses in regional areas”. Since then, the demolition of the land to make way for the demand caused by this sudden growth has only sped up. “The rate at which it will happen will be based on the rate at which the landowners or developers actually develop their land”, says Rob.
Another challenge with developing these Peri-urban areas away from the CBD is the lack of jobs. Whilst the population in towns such as Warragul is increasing exponentially, the township was not designed for the amount of people now needing jobs. Rob says that the idea with the government strategy was to have towns situated on trainlines to allow people to commute to work in the city or areas like Dandenong which are halfway between Melbourne and Warragul. However, as a local resident, Wallace can see that “infrastructure inadequacies are a real problem” and that the “rapid increase in population will continue bringing with it an urgent need for improvements in local infrastructure”.
‘The Great Divide’: the development of Warragul has made many local residents divided on its impact. Rob says that “for Warragul and country towns to survive, they need this growth, they want people there”, “if you don’t do this in country towns, these areas get smaller and less people live there because people will move away to the city”. However, he says that “the challenge is for people who have lived there all their lives” – like Wallace and other local farmers. Wallace says that for some farmers who have spent their whole life farming, “finding an alternative source of employment and income outside of farming is both difficult and in many cases for them, personally undesirable”.
“But it’s about getting that balance right I think”, says Rob.
