LANI’S Holiday Island in Forster has agreed to embark upon a two and a half year compliance improvement plan to avoid possible closure. It is one of many parks across the region whose licences have been reissued for shorter terms than the usual five years, subject to conditions.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Related: Long road to compliance for Lani's...click here
According to Great Lakes Council, whose officers inspect the parks as renewal licence dates draw near, the shorter operating licences signal a change of approach taken by Council to combat the lack of action by park owners to comply with regulations in the past.
“This has been an ongoing issue for some time,” Council’s acting manager of building assessments Chad Vowles said.
“Over the last 12 months quite a few caravan parks’ licences have come up for renewal. Their previous licences came with various conditions to bring them in line with local government regulations but we have found owners just ignored those conditions of consent. Council has been very liberal in the past but we’ve seen very little progression. So our new approach is to issue shortened renewal periods.”
There are approximately 20 caravan parks across the Great Lakes. Each non-compliant park is being directed to provide a program of works within a certain reasonable timeframe so “we don’t find ourselves in exactly the same position five years on.”
Mr Vowles said that most issues surround facilities and fire safety – matters of “significance and importance” which owners had not responded to. He said that some parks have already been through the process and are now fully compliant but others have some way to go to bring them into line with current legislation surrounding caravan parks and ‘moveable dwellings’, in place since 2005.
“We want to work with the park owners but we need to see some improvements otherwise the jobs are just going to get bigger and bigger. There’s a lot of variation currently between parks but ultimately we’re going to see a raising of levels as they all come up to standards and minimise their risks before something bad happens... I would be very surprised if we had to close any down,” Mr Vowles said.
But the state director for the Affiliated Residential Park Residents Association (ARPRA) Gary Martin is concerned that the brunt of compliance orders is ultimately born by the resident as they are the ones who actually own the structures above the ground, just not the land beneath.
“At the moment councils don’t want to talk to itinerant owners, they want to talk to the landholder... So what is happening is that councils are turning park operators into town planners who might not understand the regulations. But who does that ultimately affect? The resident. How do you go in 20 years down the track and unwind the sins of the past?”
Mr Martin said that ARPRA would like to see the system changed so that caravan park residents apply directly to council to make structural changes to their homes instead of applying to the landholder responsible for the earth underneath.
Council’s Mr Vowles said that any permanent structure plans must go through council approval processes. He said residents are already able to apply directly to council providing they have the written consent of the landowner to go ahead with their changes.
“But some parks do have a policy that all applications must go through the landholder, so it can get confusing,” he said.
