Strategic Extractive Resource Areas

SERAs indicate the locations of existing quarries and potential future quarries in areas close to where the raw materials are needed for construction and infrastructure projects. SERAs aim to identify and safeguard land with the highest potential to supply material to build Victoria’s future, taking into account the surrounding natural, cultural, and existing land uses, and supporting transport networks.

SERAs are also used to provide buffers to existing quarries so they can continue to operate, by ensuring sensitive or incompatible land uses are not built too close to an operating quarry.

SERAs apply a suite of existing planning controls in areas where access to potentially valuable quarry materials such as sand, stone and gravel may be at risk because of new sensitive or incompatible land uses. SERAs serve as strategic land markers in the planning system, indicating locations where extractive resources may exist and ensuring they are considered in land use decision making.

The planning controls that SERAs provide include:

• utilising the Special Use Zone (SUZ) for existing quarries
• applying a State Resource Overlay (SRO1) to areas that have been identified as potential new or expanded quarries in the future
• applying a separate State Resource Overlay around existing quarries as a buffer.

A SERA is not an approval for a quarry. All proposals for new and expanded quarries in Victoria, including in SERAs, must be assessed under the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990 and the relevant Council’s planning scheme, as well as a range of environmental, water and cultural heritage legislation and regulations.

The demand for rock, sand and gravel in Victoria continues to rise. SERAs will help ensure there is a long-term supply of quarry materials available to meet this growing demand so that current and future generations can affordably build homes and infrastructure.

SERAs better identify potential quarry sites so they are more clearly considered in the assessment of local development and buffer zones. This will help to avoid potential impacts on quarries, and adjacent landowners or occupants.

SERAs provide greater certainty to industry, land use planners and the community to better inform future land uses well in advance, by defining the locations of strategic state resources in the planning system while considering other existing land uses, environmental assets and community interests.

SERAs are a key planning initiative from Helping Victoria Grow: Extractive Resources Strategy to identify and secure strategic extractive resources.

Baw Baw, Cardinia and Hume were chosen because they have a significant resource of strategic importance to the state’s growth, and to keep construction costs down we need to ensure that rock, gravel and sand come from places close to where the material will be used.

Cardinia is part of the fast-growing south-eastern metropolitan region of Melbourne. It is also recognised for its significant sand reserves, producing about 16 per cent of all sand and gravel in Victoria. Baw Baw is anticipated to become a key source of sand in the medium to longer term for metropolitan Melbourne as existing sand supply sources closer to Melbourne become depleted. Hume is amongst an area of high demand for extractive resources for housing and major infrastructure and produces substantial supply of hard rock.

Without the protections that the SERAs provide, these strategic resources are at risk of being made inaccessible by sensitive or incompatible land uses, which causes construction costs to increase.

No. SERAs focus on ensuring the Victorian planning system clearly identifies where state-significant quarries are located now, and where they might be located in the future to minimise potential land use conflicts.

While the changes apply new zone and overlay controls to manage quarries in three local government areas, the SERAs themselves do not approve new or expanding quarries.

All proposals for new quarries in Victoria, including in SERAs, must be assessed under the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990 and the relevant Council’s Planning Scheme, as well as a range of environmental, water and cultural heritage legislation and regulations.

In some cases, a new or expanded quarry will be referred to an Environment Effects Statement (EES) process, which will assess the impact of the proposal.