We bought in 1992 another property on Lake McDonald. A big part of this 90 acre property was unfenced. I enquired with NSC about the fence regulations. The result was, yes you can fence it but you are not allowed to cut down any tree. I asked the gentlemen how anyone can build a fence if you can't take your machinery and material to the location. His answer was, this is not our problem. Today I know his answer was totally wrong. What was his motivation to tell me this bull.....? Probably NSC didn't like my weekly comments in our local newspaper "Cooroy Rag".

 

Some years later, we applied for a subdivision of the same property. The whole procedure was a disaster. I received from NSC staff more warnings than London during the Second World War. First, we came forward with a not so new idea to concentrate all future homes on a certain spot of the property. The remaining acres should be common property. Unfortunately the gentleman in charge of this matter didn't understand why we would like to do this. This was beyond his horizon. I spoke with one of our local councillors and he told me very bluntly that his man has to go because he makes too many mistakes and the councillors have to talk to the people to calm down the situation. Some months later he was gone. Unfortunately I was exposed to some more nasty attacks by some other NSC staff. They tried to apply 3 conditions to our application.

1. They wanted an access to the Lake which should be 12 m wide on the road side and a so far I remember 8 m wide (wedge shape) on the lake.

2. We had to hand over along the lake side all the land which was lower than 1m the high water mark. This was ok with us.

but.......

3. Additional to this land grab NSC asked for a 40m extended buffer in front of our home down to the lake and along the lake for about 180 m. This means the future fence line would be nearly in front of our home. This act had nothing to do with preserving the water quality of Lake McDonald. This was clearly an act of moral vandalism.

 

I decided not to cave in to the mind blowing demands of some bureaucrats and decided not to go ahead with my subdivision. Next day I had 2 big dozers on my property and we started clearing 20 acres. At least I was able to run cattle and build the fence which I wasn't allowed to build some years earlier.

 

Someone told our local councillor what NSC did to me and he was informed about the progressing tree clearing. He called me and asked me to stop the clearing action and he arranged a meeting with our Mayor Bob Abbot. Next day we had the meeting including the bureaucrats responsible for the subdivision conditions.

Bob asked them for an explanation. His answer was: "What a bull...."

 

Two weeks later I got my subdivision without the hair raising conditions.

 
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