A MARONG land purchase has helped progress the City of Greater Bendigo's plans for a new employment precinct that could see up to 4000 jobs created .
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The 155-hectare piece of land is located within a 280-hectare area along the Wimmera and Calder Alternative highways, south of the Marong Golf Course, which council has identified as its preferred site for the development.
Council chief executive Craig Niemann said the land purchase was a significant step in developing Bendigo Regional Employment Precinct and was site was identified in council's Marong Township Structure Plan.
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Mr Niemann said the future precinct will allow businesses to develop or expand into the site, thereby creating more jobs in the region.
"(This land) will start a process of developing a future industrial park or BREP," he said. "This is work we have been doing for a long, long time. It's work that was setup through the industrial land strategy.
"This will be a place where people will be able to be employed in lots of different types of industries. "We are talking between 3000 and 4000 jobs, which is a significant increase in the number of jobs for greater Bendigo.
"When you think of the population of Bendigo hitting 150,000 in 2036 and 200,000 in 2050, the growth in population means more jobs (are needed). So we need to create that in terms industrial perspective as well as a central Bendigo business perspective."
Mr Niemann said it will help support new and expanding businesses in Greater Bendigo and attract investment long term.
"We are very pleased to be able to announce this successful outcome to meet Greater Bendigo's long-term employment and industry needs.
"From here, the City can appoint consultants to begin the various detailed planning studies that are required, and the City will work with the State Government to determine the best process for rezoning the land. The community will have the opportunity to provide input and feedback as part of the planning process.
"We can now progress this priority project to ensure Greater Bendigo can attract and retain vital business investment to support future jobs for our community."
The purchase of the land comes after council made an unsuccessful attempt to compulsorily acquire 331 hectares of farming land in Marong in 2018.
Mr Niemann said the land was identified following a call out to individuals to put forward potentially suitable sites. More than 600 potential sites were found as a result of the call out.
"The city has spent the last two years going through a process of assessing market needs," Mr Niemann said. "The purchased land was not compulsorily acquired. We have been in discussions with landowners who were willing to sell and a fair market value was negotiated.
"We have had previous work done to try and acquire land, which didn't work (and) put the call out 18 months ago for anyone (who had suitable land). We had 600 sites listed and worked our way through that list.
"This site is strategically located and has access to the Calder Alternate and Wimmera highways, which is important."
Mr Niemann said council has long seen the need for more industrial land with less than 10 years of industrial land supply left in Greater Bendigo.
"We've got a lot of demand for industrial purposes but are running out of land,'" he said. "So it's a really important piece of work that council has acquired this land and we can move to a planning process that includes developing a master plan for the site and planning amendments to rezone the land. It's farm land at the moment."
Mr Niemann said the purchase price of the land was commericial-in-confidence information. In April, it was reported that the City of Greater Bendigo wanted to set aside $5.95 million for an "industrial land strategy".
"That money was utilised to buy this land," he said. "We haven't used all of that money. We have accumulated sufficient land to enable the project to proceed and enough to draw infrastructure to site.
"(We will) work with state and federal governments to fund that. As demand increases and the precinct needs to grow, we'll look at further acquisitions if we need to. Council will be involved for as long as it needs to, but there will certainly be an opportunity to hand the land back to the private sector if and when that opportunity arises."
Council has informed property owners located within the employment precinct and close to the site of how the development of the land will proceed as well as contacting Marong-area residents with details about BREP.
Mr Niemann said the next step would be to analyse the land and determine the best fit for the new precinct.
"We will be calling on consultants to undertake a detailed analysis of the site to make sure it's fit for the industrial precinct," he said. "They'll do geology, hydrology and native vegetation tests, cultural heritage management, look at it from a transport perspective and all those studies to inform a planning scheme process and help us design a site to maximise the best use of the site."
For more details visit www.bendigo.vic.gov.au/brep
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