THE layers of red tape to get planning approvals are getting much worse, leading Mildura developer Larry Dimasi says.
“The process has slowed right down – and the amount of work we now need to do to get a permit is horrendous, compared to what it used to be,” said Mr Dimasi, who has 11 in-house staff including engineers and consultants to work on development applications.
“I’d say it’s easily doubled in what we have to do now.”
Aside from residential development, Mr Dimasi has built a number of medical and childcare centres in our region.
His latest medical project is a new multimillion-dollar private radiology centre that will open later this year in Lime Avenue, bringing about six new specialists to the town.
He lamented a shortage of medical services in Sunraysia and said Mildura needed a new public hospital to service a population that grew by 11.34 per cent last year.
“We’ve got about 150 beds (at Mildura Base Public Hospital). I was on the hospital board 17 years ago when there were 300 beds with a population in Mildura of 40,000,” Mr Dimasi said.
“We now have 80-odd thousand people here but we have half the beds. It doesn’t make sense.
“A lot of the other medical projects I’ve been involved with, have come to fruition because local doctors and entrepreneurs have bought private facilities, such as radiology and pathology and things that are outside of the public health system.
“Mildura has sadly just been drip-fed money from the State Government, despite our politicians going down to (Melbourne) begging and screaming for major projects up here.
“The old saying of ‘build it and they will come’ … well, they are already coming, but the government is not building it.”
