The City of Ballarat hopes to get parts of the Lake Wendouree lighting project completed by as early as next winter after councillors approved the project at Wednesday night's council meeting.
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Councillors approved the planning permit application to install lights along the Steve Moneghetti Track, voting five to three in favour with one apology. The motion was moved by south ward councillor Ben Taylor and seconded by his south ward colleague Des Hudson.
Cr Taylor and Cr Hudson were joined in voting in favour of the recommendation to approve the application by councillors Tracey Hargreaves, Peter Eddy and Daniel Moloney. Councillors Mark Harris, Samantha McIntosh and Belinda Coates voted against approving the planning permit application.
About 225 five-metre-high light poles will be installed every 25 or 30 metres around almost the entire six-kilometre track, except for the portion that runs through the Ballarat Botanical Gardens between Carlton Street and St Aidens Drive.
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The lights will turn on at dusk according to a sensor measuring the amount of available natural light and will turn off at 10pm each night.
The lake lighting project came about as part of the Lake Wendouree Master Plan, which was adopted by council in 2017.
During consultation for the master plan, more than 1450 of the 1800 responses supported the installation of lighting around the Steve Moneghetti Track.
Various community consultations since then have received mixed responses, while this particular planning permit application received 23 objections and four positive submissions.
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Objectors raised issues with the effect of the lights on wildlife and to the amenity of lakeside residents, damage to trees, and potential negative effects on safety.
Council officers recommended councillors approve the project and grant a planning permit for it, citing net community benefit.
"The lighting has been designed sensitively to minimise visual impacts and will not have an unreasonable impact on the heritage values of Lake Wendouree," the council officer report said.
"The lighting will increase the safety and usability of this public space, consequently improving the cultural and recreational values of the precinct and social wellbeing of the community."
In response to some objections, council officers said private views were not a planning consideration and there was no evidence lighting would impact the security of nearby properties.
The project, worth an estimated $2.8 million, will be partly funded by $2.5 million from the state government after both major parties made commitments during the 2018 state election campaign with council already having allocated the remaining $300,000.
During an extended question time, central ward councillor Samantha McIntosh passionately argued for a ground-level lighting option over the proposed light poles.
However, the council meeting stream froze right as councillors started to enter into the debate and was not working for more than 30 minutes, forcing the meeting to be paused while the technical issues were resolved with some councillors' statements unable to be viewed as a result.
South ward councillor Ben Taylor moved the motion and said the project was not just for the lake's 345,000 annual users, but would broaden its reach with more people able to use the lake across more of the day.
Speaking against the motion, Cr McIntosh said while the community was behind the project, there were still some concerns around maintenance costs and why the lights were not proposed to be installed at ground-level.
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"This is a project that the community has been behind, ultimately. In the first consultation, there was around 80 per cent of people that were in favour of lights around the lake," she said.
"What they didn't see was what that meant and the difference in response once people started to understand what that meant was significant and really concerning. What we've seen in more recent community consultation was a lot of people expressing significant concern."
Mayor Daniel Moloney said the project had gone on too long.
"I think people would remark about why it is so ridiculously complex to put in lights around the lake. We've had design reports, environmental reports, heritage reports, we've had Heritage Victoria approvals, heritage impact studies, arboricultural reports, biodiversity impacts, the studies that have gone into this have been significant," he said.
"We've got this project to the point that we went through a detailed consultation process, it came out very strongly as one of the key things people wanted to see done in Ballarat and it went into the Lake Wendouree Master Plan a few years ago."
Cr Moloney said if council were to deny the planning permit application, it would undermine its ability to attract government funding during the upcoming election campaigns.
"This council advocated to the state government heading into an election period in 2018 for funding to do this very project... this has come about directly from the City of Ballarat's advocacy and that came from feedback from our ratepayers so to not follow through on a project that has been well-assessed, has been well-trialled, gone through quite a lot already to get to this point would seriously undermine our advocacy efforts heading into next year's federal and state elections," he said.
"On one hand, we would be asking for something but not giving any confidence to government that we could actually deliver.
"It is time for us to get on and deliver this project, it's been discussed now for several years and the trials have been in place to give everyone a good opportunity to give feedback and the design has been modified accordingly."
Cr Moloney said council would look to get moving on the project almost immediately.
"I think we'll see the shovels in the ground next year, but we're keen to get the tender process up and running by Christmas, so that means we will then be able to get started on the project. Hopefully we'll be able to get the darker parts of the lake lit up by next winter."
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