Melbourne, Australia: Flight path businesses waved off.

MELBOURNE Airport has attacked a state government planning review that could see businesses developed under its noisy flight path.

The government is conducting a ''logical inclusions'' review of Melbourne's urban boundary, and a 235 hectare site in a green wedge area east of the airport at Attwood has been identified for possible rezoning for a new employment precinct.

The airport's chief executive, Chris Woodruff, said any consideration of rezoning the land - which is already covered by an airport planning overlay - would be an ''illogical'' move.

''It is right under our flight path, it is right at the end of the runway, it is in the current Melbourne Airport environs overlay,'' Mr Woodruff said.

''You have just got to stand on that farmland to understand the consequences of a development there, it is noisy and the planes are ever so low.''

''People who go to work there for eight hours a day are going to be very annoyed by the noise.''

Mr Woodruff said the airport would make its position clear to the Growth Areas Authority, which is collating possible boundary changes to be considered by Planning Minister Matthew Guy.

Hume Council chief executive Domenic Isola said the council had requested that the Baillieu government rezone the Attwood green wedge land.

''Green wedge doesn't allow you to do anything on it,'' he said. ''We want it to [be] rezoned so as to allow things to potentially occur on the land that will provide greater community and social benefit, some of those might be around road linkages, some of those might be around employment opportunities, some of those may be about community benefit.''

Opposition planning spokesman Brian Tee said: ''Mr Baillieu's … plan to concrete over the green wedge is threatening the tourism jobs that the airport delivers to Victoria. The government must stop and think about the long term consequences - once the green wedges are gone, they are gone forever.''

Growth Areas Authority chief executive Peter Seamer said the council's and airport's submissions would be considered in the Authority's recommendations.

On the other side of the city, Kingston City Council has received a letter from Mr Guy inviting it to suggest any changes to the council's urban boundary.

Kingston Council's urban boundary runs along Melbourne's south-east green wedge.

In the letter Mr Guy said: ''This process is designed to deal with possible changes to the boundary and will not be open to general public submissions.''

The letter said any land to be considered for rezoning must be ''proposed for residential or employment development - a critical government objective is to encourage new housing developments as well as land supply for local employment opportunities.''

Source: http://www.theage.com.au