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VCAT Threat

Posted on November 25, 2011

By BEN PISCIONERI

A GROUP of Red Cliffs residents say they’ll take Mildura Rural City Council to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after Council last night approved plans to allow backpackers at a Jamieson Avenue student hostel.

The venue has been home to international student accommodation for the past five years, but nearby Red Cliffs residents claim backpackers have already been staying at the venue over the past 12 months.

They say this has resulted in “loutish, disruptive and anti-social” behaviour.

Residents opposed to backpackers staying at the venue say it’s too close to residential areas and too far from entertainment venues, resulting in loud yelling and music and at times fighting.

“One hundred and nine people in a building like that right in the centre of town where there is no night entertainment and nothing for them to do, of course there’s going to be problems,” said one Red Cliffs resident.

“Unfortunately for us, it is zoned for business but surrounded completely by residents.”

However proponents of the plan say student accommodation would remain the focus of the venue.

They say only small numbers of backpackers will stay at the venue to “top up” numbers in the wake of falling international student numbers over the past 12 months.

“The application for a permit to allow backpackers to be included as allowed tenants of the hostel has been made as a result of the drop off in international students enrolling in local training courses,” a spokesman for the management group said this week.

He said this was due to the “deliberate slow down of student visa approvals implemented by the Federal Government over the past 18 months,” a spokesman for the management group said this week.

The spokesman said there would be a limit on the number of backpackers allowed at the venue as part of the permit conditions.

He said the management group understood residents’ concerns but described them as “unfounded.”

“…the recruitment of specialist management and the implementation of heightened noise management strategies will nullify any potential areas of unease,” the spokesman said.

“Should the permit request be granted, management will ensure that the neighbours’ ongoing right to a peaceful environment is maintained as it has since the commencement of the operation some five years ago.”

But residents opposed to the move say there have already been claims of new management and new security measures, yet noise and behavioural problems persist, as recently as last week.

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