Ballina Shire Council is under fire after a bombshell review exposed major errors in how it enforced controversial conservation zones on private rural land. Landholders say the mistakes have cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars—and years of stress.
Now, the council is facing potential legal action. Rural property owners are exploring a class action over what they describe as a deeply flawed process that wrongly labelled productive farmland as environmentally protected. There are 475 landholders affected. Much of the zoning was based on satellite imagery and desktop studies, rather than actual site inspections.
At the heart of the controversy is the rollout of state-mandated “Environmental Conservation Zones” (known as both E or C Zones), introduced under a 2012 NSW planning directive. Councils were tasked with identifying and protecting ecologically significant land. But landholders were expected to bear the financial impact if their properties were rezoned.
Landholders say the Ballina Shire Council (BSC) approach has been superficial and unfair—relying heavily on maps while ignoring evidence on the ground.
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‘Completely Misidentified’
After sustained public pressure, the Council commissioned independent expert ecological surveys on five neighbouring farms in Teven. The results were damning.
One property was found to have no conservation-worthy land at all. Of the other four, the conservation zones were dramatically reduced from the council’s original assessments.
Dr Melissa Van Zwieten, one of the affected landholders, broke down during a passionate address at the April 24 council meeting. Later, she described how the ordeal had consumed her life.
“There’s been a lot of anguish by a lot of people for a long time,” she said.
“This has dominated my life for years. I’ve spent four months full-time over the past two and a half years just dealing with this—research, submissions, phone calls to councillors, trying to get someone to listen. I haven’t earned a dollar during that time.”
A professional environmental scientist, Dr van Zwieten said she and her husband had restored large areas of their property for both conservation and grazing. But she says her land was mislabelled based on “guesswork” from outdated aerial photos. The conservation overlay severely restricted land use, slashing the value of the property and its farm productivity.
‘Absence Means Nil’
Dr Van Zwieten said Council misinterpreted the state directive, which clearly says that a conservation zone can only be applied if agriculture is absent.
“Even if the land looks environmental, they have to prove there’s no agriculture,” she said.
“Absence means nil, — not just as Matt Wood (BSC Planning Director) says, ‘just a few goats’, it means no agriculture at all. And they ignored that.
“There are very clear directions from the Department of Planning in various publicly-available documents about what constitutes an environmental zone on a farm and it’s clearly different from what BSC has been interpreting and imposing. For Mr Wood and some councillors to claim the facts are not available, or they’ve never heard of this before is, quite frankly, ridiculous and unprofessional.”
Dr Van Zwieten contrasted Ballina’s approach with Lismore Council, which had properly accounted for the mixed use of land, including conservation efforts alongside farming.
“Ballina Council has been told for 15 years how to do this properly. They just didn’t listen,” she said. “And they still won’t even take the time to meet with us as a group.”
Shifting the Blame?
Another Teven landholder, Denis Perkins, said the Council was now trying to shift the blame—onto the state planning department, or previous councils.
“But this was Council staff not following the rules from the start,” he said.
“The original guidelines from over a decade ago made it clear: if you want to zone land as conservation, you have to prove agriculture is absent.”
Mr Perkins said his farm was one of the properties reviewed. Originally, nearly half his land had been zoned for conservation.
“Of the five farms surveyed, one was 100% wrong,” he said.
“The rest were significantly overstated. My property’s zone was halved—and even that was generous. In reality, maybe 10% of it qualifies.”
So how did it go so wrong?
Mr Perkins believes the Council simply didn’t have the money to do the job properly. Instead of commissioning on-site ecological assessments, it relied on modelling and satellite maps.
“They tried to shortcut it,” he said. “When the early steps became too hard or expensive, they just skipped them. They should have handed it back to the state and admitted they didn’t have the resources or expertise to do it properly, but they didn’t.”
Now, he says, ratepayers are left with the bill.
“This has dragged on for more than a decade. Just think of how much has been spent in staff wages alone—plus the cost of these flawed surveys and the compensation that might come next. It could run into the millions.”
For landholders like him, the cost isn’t just financial.
“We’ve had to fight for every inch of this,” he said. “And every single expert report we’ve commissioned has backed us. Every time.”
What’s Next?
As landowners prepare for possible legal action, Ballina Council is trying to buck pass the issue back to the state government, calling for more advice. But for residents like Van Zwieten and Perkins, the damage is already done.
“They say they’re representing the community,” Ms Van Zwieten said. “But we are the community. And they haven’t listened.”
COMMENT: THE BEST AND WORST OF TIMES FOR CR DICKER AND “CR HICKEY”
PICTURED TOP: Teven landholders and C Zone campaigners Denis Perkins and Melissa Van Zwieten celebrate after the meeting with Cr Eva Ramsey (centre) who has been leading the fight within the council for more consultation with the affected landholders.
Excellent reporting on the appaling treatment of Ballina Shire farmers by Local and State goverment.
As an affected landowner, I agree with this 100% 10000+ times over.
Finally an article that brings councils lies to landowners to light in the community. As a landowner in the middle of this I fully support a class action for Councils mistreating and misleading landowners. This has been going on for more than 12 years where landowners have been held over a barrel about what they can cannot do with their land. It’s ridiculous!
This topic has caused such a lot of anxiety within our farming community.
With elected representatives imply our farmers are acting on their preference for land zoneing and not actual fact is disappointing.
After 14 years I have had enough of the stalling and disgusting treatment of those 475 landholders by the council and those who believe that the land should be taken. If these c zones are enforced the land should be purchased by BSC or the state government. Why should we continue to pay rates and other levies on land we cannot use. We will fight this the whole way.
The whole process was totally flawed. I went to a meeting with the assigned lady in charge and she told me she did not even know what a camphor tree looked like. She had no idea on what the requirements were for the conservation zone. So if knowledge on conservation zoning was lacking on all council representatives it is no wonder it is such a debarcle.