Our rural properties escape urban living and are not one landform or land use. They are a mixture of wide open land, farmland, forests, national parks, mountains, river banks, lakeshores, urban fringe and rural residential areas.
The main feature of rural land is that it is unplanned; non-uniform with a natural look and it has a mixture of uses where no one use is dominant.
Rural character is made up of a number of components. The one thing they have in common is a feeling of 'openness'. These components include:
- open space with scenery and landscape
- agriculture and grazing animals
- houses, outbuildings and sheds
- vegetation (trees, shrubs and grasses) - both indigenous and exotic
- varying topography including rolling hills and steep gorges
- rivers and streams
