The meeting showed huge community concern over our deteriorating living conditions and what the future holds. There are many community groups with detailed knowledge of the mechanisms and laws around what is happening in their various specific trouble spots. These people are community-minded, dedicated, and well informed.
The draft Yarra Strategic Plan claims to deliver the first Victorian integrated river corridor strategy and to identify immediate actions for the river corridor, enabling long-term collaborative management between agencies and Traditional Owners. It is intended to guide local planning. We publish here a critical submission to this draft plan. Summary of submission by candobetter editor: Climate Change and human failure to interact safely with the natural world. Plan fails to adequately factor in transport interaction with Yarra. Lack of proper transport interconnectivity. Higher density depends on high quality public transport. Private car still dominates. Forecast population growth and new constructions will inevitably cause major environmental damage. North-East Link Freeway will comport massive land-fill problems, hardly referred to in Draft Plan. Likely potential for destabilisation of groundwater in the Yarra Valley in the Bulleen and Rosanna area as a consequence of the North-East Link Freeway project. Substantial areas of public open space is threatened by the project, together with about 25,000 mature canopy trees. Adverse human health effects of the project would include increased air pollution and heightened road noise. Lack of cycling provision on roads in cities of Boroondara, Banyule, Manningham and Maroondah and the Shires of Nillumbik and Yarra Ranges. Proposal in Plan to increase lanes capacity on the Eastern Freeway to cater for the North East Link project by over 40%, from 802,000 square metres to 1,127,000 square metres. Adverse environmental effects would include increased run-off of polluted stormwater into the Yarra River and elevated ambient temperatures as a consequence of the large increase in concrete and asphalt surfaces. Report of the Commissioner of Sustainability, State of the Yarra and its Parklands (2018), concluded that the status of the Yarra river was poor for 18 of its 25 environmental indicators. This can only deteriorate if planned stressors go ahead.
Introduction
The draft Yarra Strategic Plan rightly identifies climate change as a threat to the Yarra River. In this regard, climate change is neither more or less than a register of the failure of the human species to interact properly with the natural world. COVID - 19 also falls into that category.
Transport and the Yarra
The draft Plan gives too little attention to the relationship between transport and the health of the Yarra. This is a major flaw. The functionality of large cities is decided more than anything else by the dominant modes of mobility deployed in them.
The draft Plan declares (p. 16) that the Department of Transport "plans, builds and operates an integrated, sustainable and safe transport system across Victoria. It does not, actually, as little effort is made to integrate the various modes. Within the public transport sphere in particular, insufficient effort is made to ensure the connectivity of the network.
Even more importantly, the concept of integrated transport and land use planning has pretty much been abandoned by the Victorian government, and has done so since Melbourne 2030, with the concept of the poly-centric city at its core, was all but forgotten.
The idea (p. 12) that higher density residential development should be the sole province of inner areas is flawed. There is significant demand for higher density residential development in locations well removed from inner Melbourne. The central problem is that the government has abandoned the key enabler of this, which is high quality public transport across the whole of Melbourne.
The reality is that the modal mix for personal travel in the City of Melbourne is little different from what it was 50 years ago. The private motor car dominates. And it is very space-inefficient.
The draft Plan anticipates that Melbourne's population will grow to nearly 8 million by the year 2051, and with an extra 140,000 dwellings to be built in the Yarra River corridor by 2041.
There are no grounds, within current policy settings, that these "milestones" would be reached without damaging the environment very seriously. The central issue is that the Victorian government does not have a transport plan for Melbourne.
North East Link
The Victorian government's North East Link freeway project is hardly referred to in the draft Plan. It should be. It was developed in the absence of any consideration by the government of other forms of transport, and especially public transport, which would have a relatively benign effect on the Yarra River corridor.
It is understood that the extensive tunnelling proposed for the project would require the excavation of about 1.5 cubic metres of rock and soil, which would go to landfill (see Timna Jacks and Benjamin Preiss, "Warning over toxic soil from 'big dig,'" Sunday Age, December 1, 2019). It is not known whether any of the material is toxic and there appears to be insufficient landfill capacity to take it.
There appears to be potential for destabilisation of groundwater in the Yarra Valley in the Bulleen and Rosanna area as a consequence of the project.
Substantial areas of public open space is threatened by the project, together with about 25,000 mature canopy trees.
Adverse human health effects of the project would include increased air pollution and heightened road noise.
Paved surface area
One of the dysfunctional elements of the dominance of the motor car is the increase in paved road surface that is required to cater for ever-growing motor vehicle numbers. For instance, it is proposed to increase lanes capacity on the Eastern Freeway to cater for the North East Link project by over 40%, from 802,000 square metres to 1,127,000 square metres. The adverse environmental effects would include increased run-off of polluted stormwater into the Yarra River and elevated ambient temperatures as a consequence of the large increase in concrete and asphalt surfaces.
Local government and transport
It is not only at state government level that we have major policy failure in transport. For instance, if one is to consider the land area of the City of Boroondara, it is comprised of about 6,022 hectares, of which 1279 hectares, over 20%, is comprised of road reservations. About 80% of the land devoted to road reservations is controlled by the City of Boroondara, with the balance controlled by VicRoads. The reservations controlled by Boroondara contain about 560 kilometres of local roads.
Significantly, very few of these roads have been developed to provide for safe cycling traffic. They are designed, with few exceptions, exclusively for motor car traffic. Apart from the City of Yarra, the other councils with a direct interest in this project (the cities of Banyule, Manningham and Maroondah and the Shires of Nillumbik and Yarra Ranges), also appear relatively uninterested in increasing the mode share of space-efficient, and therefore environmentally friendly forms of transport.
Conclusions
The Status Assessment contained in the report of the Commissioner of Sustainability, State of the Yarra and its Parklands (2018), concluded that the status of the river was poor for 18 of its 25 environmental indicators.
These measures will continue to deteriorate unless substantial reforms are made to transport capacity in Melbourne, and especially in the Yarra River corridor, to preference space-efficient and less carbon polluting transport modes.
Ian Hundley
29 March 2020
Rapid population growth has impacted heavily on private and public open space in Melbourne, especially over the last decade. Clifford will discuss some individual case studies and his Private Members' Bill to reintroduce local democracy into Victoria's planning law. Hear him at the Protectors of Public Lands AGM Saturday October 26th, 2019, 2.30pm. Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt. Alexander Road, Flemington. All welcome!
Protectors of Public Lands, Victoria Inc.
Annual General Meeting
Flemington Community Centre,
25 Mt. Alexander Road, Flemington 3031.
Saturday October 26th, 2019 at 2.30pm
With Guest Speaker, the Hon. Clifford Hayes MP
"Protecting Open Space in 21st Century Melbourne."
Rapid population growth has impacted heavily on private and public open space in Melbourne, especially over the last decade. Clifford will discuss some individual case studies and his Private Members' Bill to reintroduce local democracy into Victoria's planning law.
Please join us for afternoon tea after the meeting!
Contact: Jill Quirk 0409742927
Here is the Unconventional Economist, Leith van Onselen's talk at the Sustainable Australia Party venue.
Professor Bob Birrell [1] calls for better planning to stop over-development, sustainable population policy reform at a Sustainable Australia Party event. "Net overseas immigration is completely dominating the figures." The politicians tell us, "We just have to get used to it, and the way we're going to deal with it is to throw literally billions at it ... and ... eliminate suburbia." "That's what they say. But rezoning and high density doesn't actually work. The houses are too expensive. The reason is site costs. The more people the more demand for housing. If you increase the opportunity for housing on the same site, the site values go up higher.... It doesn't work." "Nor does the high rise 'solution'. You know there are tens of thousands of these being completed. When we checked the 2016 census, what we found was, that in the two areas of greatest density, CBD and South bank, only 5% of all those appartments were occupied by families with children. Well, what are we going to do about it? We have to deal with high NOM (Net Overseas Migration), it's not inevitable - and this is the key point. The high levels of NOM at present are due to government policy or government non-policy. They are a deliberate consequence of government policy. Not inevitable. For example, overseas students. It is a fact that the biggest source of growth in Net Overseas Migration in Melbourne is overseas students. There are more overseas students coming in on a student's visa each year than are leaving holding a student's visa. Okay, we don't object to students coming here for an education. the problem is that, once they get here and complete their education, they can stay on, more or less forever. Our governments have deliberately encouraged them to do so. By providing, as of right, a two year stay here, with full work rights - even if your degree is in cultural studies - and, when you've done that, you can get another student visa. Or you can become a tourist, or you can get a working holiday visa, or you can apply for a 457 temporary visa. Or you can apply for a permanent entry visa. And, as a consequence, a big chunk of overseas students are just spinning out ... over the years. So, we can change that and that would have a major impact. There are many other areas we could change. I'll just give you one or two to finish, which you may not know about. You've probably heard a lot about 'regional policy' - 'maybe we'll put people in the bush, rather than let them stay in Melbourne or Sydney. Well, currently, there's a program near 30,000 visas strong for state and regional sponsorship. The problem is that these visas do not require people to actually stay in the states or regions that sponsor them. They very quickly move off and they end up in Sydney or Melbourne. Or, consider this, and I'll finish on this note, consider the policy on spouses. [...] what happens in Australia is that you can sponsor a spouse at the age of 18 and you do not have to show that you have a job or an income which will enable you to sustain that spouse. I'm not kidding you. This is the situation. Compare that with Europe. Most countries now, you've got to be at least 22 before you sponsor a spouse, and you've got to prove that you have the funds to support that spouse. I could go on. There is massive potential to bring down the numbers. [...] We have to get the numbers down if we are really coming to grips with Melbourne's crisis of overdevelopment. I'll just leave you with one final thought, and that is that at least public opinion is moving in the right direction. [refers to TAPRIS study] Some 54 % of voters now believe that immigration should be reduced. The polls this year are putting the numbers in the 60%, so the potential is there. May I wish [Sustainable Australia Party] the best in mobilising it."
[1] Although Bob Birrell's publications in demography are very well known, his qualifications are much greater: Bob Birrell (PhD Princeton – Sociology) was Reader in Sociology and the founding director of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University. He was the joint editor of the demographic journal People and Place (with Katharine Betts) from 1993 to 2010. His appointment with Monash University finished in 2014. He has been a consultant and advisor to successive Australian governments on immigration policy, most recently as part of Coalition Government’s Evaluation of the General Skilled Migration Categories, published in 2006. His research covers Australian history (A Nation of Our Own – Longman 2005), Australian education policy, urban affairs and immigration practice and policy. His most recent international publications include, ‘Media Effects and Immigration Policy in Australia,’ in Gary Freeman, et al., Eds, Immigration and Public Opinion in Liberal Democracies, Routledge, 2013 and ‘Migration: the Australian experience,’ in Sasha Bangalay and Delphine Nakache, Eds, Immigration Regulation in Federal States, Springer, 2014.
Hoddle Street is a very long road in Melbourne, Victoria. Congestion in Melbourne is reaching ludicrous and unforgivable proportions. The treelined part of Hoddle Street is apparently being sacrificed without public consultation for the no-win race of government-engineered population growth.
Ian Hundley, of Protectors of Public Lands,Victoria took these photos yesterday of the before an after tree removal for lane widening in Hoddle street Melbourne. He wrote:
"I checked out the Hoddle Street capacity road works today. See photos taken from the Vere Steet footbridge (near Collingwood Town Hall) to the south which shows trees retained and to the north which shows where trees have been removed from the median. Also one of the signs which declares this is a project to connect communities. We must try to contain the mirth on that one - if they pull it off it will be the first traffic sewer to have brought communities together."
The sign Ian refers to reads, "Streamlining Hoddle Street-Connecting our communities." How completely facile! It must have been coined on a morning tea break without realisation that "streamlining " in this case means de-tree lining!
All this destruction is to help accommodate the additional 100,000 cars each year in Melbourne. The only way to widen a long established street like Hoddle Street is to either knock down houses and appropriate land or remove anything not absolutely necessary, that won't cost the government money, and for which the voices of complaint, from the avian inhabitants and the long-suffering public will not be heard.
I did not hear any public announcement of the removal of these trees. They are just gone. What difference will the additional traffic and the absence of the trees make in the immediate area to the noise levels and the temperature? So much of the local environment in Melbourne is being ripped apart to make way for population growth that if residents can't mitigate any of the damage it will just lead to feelings of hopelessness and despair. This plays into the hands of the growth manic state government and the various lobby groups feeding from growth.
Jill Quirk is the Secretary for Protectors of Public Lands, Victoria and was the long-time president of the SPAVICTas Branch of Sustainable Population Australia.
On 30 October 2017, Port Phillip Bay Keeper, Mr Neil Blake and Mr Jay Gleeson, AGL Community Relations Manager, Strategic Projects, will be speakers at the Annual General Meeting of Port Phillip Conservation Council, Inc. Mr Neil Blake’s talk 'From the back blocks to the Bay' discusses likely threats to the Bay from population growth, urban consolidation and climate change. He will also give an update on his Bay Keeper citizen science initiatives promoting community stewardship of our waterways – including his project recording recent changes to beach profiles and erosion around the Bay. Mr Jay Gleeson's talk will involve a presentation on AGL’s assessment of options for shipping Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from interstate and overseas, receiving it at an import jetty and injecting it into the pipeline transportation system for supply to south-eastern Australia. After assessing sites around Australia, Crib Point in Westernport Bay has been identified as AGL’s preferred option. Mr. Gleeson will give an outline of AGL’S Import Jetty Project and implications for Westernport Bay and Crib Point, and will take questions from the audience. For background to the LNG project see: www.engageagl.com.au. Time: 7pm 30 October 2017 Venue: Longbeach Place - Chelsea Community Centre, 15 Chelsea Rd., Chelsea.
Dear Members and friends of PPCC Inc,
You are cordially invited to
The Annual General Meeting of Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.
7 PM MONDAY, 30TH OCTOBER 2017
LONGBEACH PLACE - CHELSEA COMMUNITY CENTRE
15 CHELSEA ROAD CHELSEA
(Near Chelsea Library - ample parking between library and our venue -MELWAY MAP 97 B1)
OUR TWO GUEST SPEAKERS ARE SURE TO BE OF INTEREST:
PORT PHILLIP BAY KEEPER MR. NEIL BLAKE: Neil’s talk 'From the back blocks to the Bay' discusses likely threats to the Bay from population growth, urban consolidation and climate change. He will also give an update on his Bay Keeper citizen science initiatives promoting community stewardship of our waterways – including his project recording recent changes to beach profiles and erosion around the Bay.
MR. JAY GLEESON AGL COMMUNITY RELATIONS MANAGER, STRATEGIC PROJECTS: Mr. Gleeson will give a presentation on AGL’s assessment of options for shipping Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from interstate and overseas, receiving it at an import jetty and injecting it into the pipeline transportation system for supply to south-eastern Australia. After assessing sites around Australia, Crib Point in Westernport Bay has been identified as AGL’s preferred option. Mr. Gleeson will give an outline of AGL’S Import Jetty Project and implications for Westernport Bay and Crib Point, and will take questions from the audience. For background to the LNG project see: www.engageagl.com.au
We look forward to seeing you on 30th October. Please feel free to promote the meeting with friends and colleagues who might like to hear our guest speakers.
The other day I retrieved a brochure with an illustration like this from my letter box. It was imploring me to take up residence in newly built apartments quite close to where I live. I guess that decor was supposed to sell the sterile looking place to me.
I wouldn't mind if it were a matter of some people choosing to live in this utter beige-ness but my problem is that the whole of Melbourne seems to be in the process of transformation into multiplications of this with a total lack of soul inside and out. They are replacing Edwardain wonders, 20s charm, 30s homeliness, 40s clinker (although not many were built in that decade) and 50s and 60s fun and funkiness.
Barry Humphries used to laugh at the floral axminster and the duck egg blue bedroom walls, the pink baths with matching basins or "vanities", the sandblasted glass double doors and the ducks on the wall.
That's all gone now. No-one would dare! Well no-one of ordinary means would dare venture into any strong colours because you always have to think of the re-sale value of the house, the possible taste of the unknown people who might one day buy your house. Another reason to stay conservative is that you could well be renting and I'm sure those landlords would prefer you to remain in the neutral colour range.
To me this brochure with above photo was sad. They were trying to sell me something with no personality. These promotions frequently spill out of my letter box and if not completely eaten by snails before I retrieve them a shudder goes through me with the thought that I too might be an inhabitant of such a mausoleum. Of course if someone else's personality shone through too strongly in a house I was contemplating I would probably want to subdue it and assert my own taste.
This photo of which we have all seen similar seems to characterize the style of the day, the acceptable digestible purchasable, constipated, safe, respectable human filing cabinet I loathe it . It’s as though it has been run through a machine to determine the colour scheme that won’t offend anyone and then it has been put together by a robot.
Give me the bad taste, the spontaneous joy and love of colour of the home makers of decades past that we enjoyed laughing about. The constrained neutral interior makes me feel more like crying. All it needs is to hang a Howard Arkley print on the wall and the irony of the situation would be complete.
There is his huge gap between what the people want and what politicians and their masters want.
(Cartoon by Jill Quirk.)
I attended a Population Task Force meeting yesterday inMacLeod (for region Ivanhoe and Eltham). There were about 30 in attendance, all but one ‘oldies’, mainly from Ivanhoe/Eaglemont, a couple (myself included) from Eltham.
The convenor was Richard Della Riva who just sat there and looked bored. His electoral office is in Vermont, so he would not know too many people in MacLeod.
The moderator and keynote speaker was a youngish Tim Smith. The presentation lasted less than 15 mins, then it was over to Q&A. I kick-started Q&A by stating that I got the impression this was not about stabilisation of population growth but rather accept growth as a given and then see how it can be managed. I wanted to know what environmental impact study had been done (approving murmurs from the floor ) and was asked to make a submission (which I will asap).
Tim Smith was then hammered by the rest who all complained each in their own way about the population growth, some gave mini-speeches from their seats. He used the excuse – not convincingly - that many of these questions were of a federal nature, again and again he asked people to make a written submission. You can make one at http://vicpopulation.com.au/.
At the end Tim Smith asked by show of hands who thought immigration was too high. Up shot the arms. He re-phrased it: Who thought it was right or not enough? 2 arms out of 30 went up – one woman who spruiked for hemp growing and the one next to me, sent by a church group, who was just interested in getting more refugees. (She stormed out of meeting after closure).
Surely, 30 is not a representative sample, but I thought it very interesting that 28 out of 30 wanted less immigration, and they were all Third Agers plus one young woman in her mid 20s who was very anti-immigration. I gave her a copy of Peter North’s book Growing for Broke, which she very much appreciated.
The Minister for Planning has publicly insisted [1] that Victoria has to fit 10 million people in Victoria with four more million in Melbourne and that that is the reason for the planning dictatorship he is trying to force on Victorians. If we did not 'have' to fit in millions more, no new plan would be 'needed'. Population numbers as a topic dominate the mainstream press,[2] but three residents' action groups in Planning Backlash - possibly trading on their marginal electorate status - reportedly held the rest to ransom for their presence at the Planning Backlash rally on the steps of parliament 8 June 2017. Their ransom was censorship of their fellow groups in a promise that no rally speakers would mention the role that population growth has in driving Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 and all the destruction it promises. Even though the Victorian Government has openly published several written policies for massive population growth, [3] the Yarra Residents' Coalition, Brunswick and Moreland groups of Planning Backlash have been identified as censoring debate about this on the very steps of Victoria's parliament.
In light of this censorship and division, Brad Marsh's statement at the end of his speech, as President of Yarra Residents' Coalition, was ironic, "We have 18 months. Lets work together and see if we can restore democracy to the political decision-making and restore residents' rights."
I protested to Mr Marsh about the censorship and his reply to me was that population was 'complicated' and that the real drivers were money and foreign buyers. My informed response was that the money is to be made through population growth-caused demand and that property is marketed to foreign buyers with the guarantee of population growth pushing prices up. It is extremely difficult for me to believe that Mr Marsh is unaware of this.
Apparently Professor Buxton, together with Mr Marsh, saw it advisable to remove the subject of population growth from those covered by this public meeting.
Well, now that the rally is over and the aim of getting population-discussion-shy groups to come has been achieved, it is important for people to know why population was not mentioned at the rally. It is important because the public are truly mystified by the suppression of real population numbers debate and they don't need more confusion. They suspect that something is going on in the background but rarely does an actual incident of discussion-suppression get reported. People go home with the false idea that they are alone in strongly questioning the state population juggernaut and this makes them less sure of their ground - which is what the growth lobby want.
Several politicians spoke at this meeting, including the Shadow Minister for Planning. One of the strategies in the meeting was the idea of ousting the Labor government for a Liberal Government, in hopes of more friendly planning. There seems to be some substance in the idea that the last Liberal Government, whilst pursuing a similar program of population growth, overdevelopment and deregulation to that of the previous Labor Government, did allow some protections in the form of residential zones, now predictably overturned by Planning Minister Wynne, using the excuse of population growth. Alternating Liberal/Labor governments are like a good cop/bad cop scenario. Mr David Davis, Shadow Minister for Planning (Liberal) made many promises of more friendly planning in his speech at the rally, but the subject of the population driver was not mentioned, of course. A man who identified himself as a member of one of the three groups mentioned above was later heard saying to David Davis (Shadow Minister for Planning) that he was in favour of immigration-fed population growth and David Davis reportedly replied that he was in favour of it too.
The groups that apparently (were they really representative?) wanted population growth left out of the speeches and banners are mostly in Labor and Green electorates, heavily networked by the Socialist Alliance. These north of the Yarra suburbs are already densely packed. Why would people in such overpopulated suburbs apparently be in favour of mass immigration? One explanation is that the Greens and Socialist Alliance activists tend to push open-borders views and to confound multiculturalism with open-ended immigration. Because they lack valid arguments for their positions, they tend to unfairly attack people as 'racist' who don't want mass immigration-fed population growth. This is intimidating and probably stops many people in these suburbs from speaking openly.
Whilst the open-borders ideology is an obvious influence in the inner suburbs north of the Yarra, we should be aware that these views have been covertly nurtured by the property development lobby, which has a record of infiltrating, manipulating and financing people in groups using political activism as a front. See a discussion of this kind of tactic in a Property Council of Australia forum here: Transcript of Growth Lobby video-shocker, "Straightening out B.A.N.A.N.A.S". Unsurprisingly, the Labor Party, which is truly little more than a property speculating corporation, doesn't seem bothered by this activity. (See "Australian Labor Governments or Commercial Corporations?" Many government departments (whether under Liberal and Labor governments) are members of the Property Council of Australia and fail to criticise its overt aims of influencing government to its financial advantage in matters of property and development tax, media influence, and mass immigration.
There are two parts to the attack on our democracy that a rogue Melbourne Planning System carries. One is the way the government 'streamlines' or steamrolls developers' interests over the civil rights and democratic interests of the people living here, citizens and residents. Another is the mass economic immigration that fuels the developers' interests and which the state government invites via its website https://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au/. Since both phenomena are interwined and mutually dependent, one unable to exist without the other, neither should be left out in a public protest. This is particularly so when you have the opportunity of instructing the passing public about the role of government-pushed mass immigration in overturning our democracy and property rights in the planning system.
Note that the Victorian Government, in its population literature, has totally misled Victorians about its major role in causing population growth and driving overdevelopment, assigning sole responsibility for immigration to the federal government. The chief way that the Victorian government misleads the public is by denying its own role in economic immigration, although its role has been major and structural since the time of Kennett. See "Sheila Newman: Kennett population policy, numbers and flow-ons: Regional migration and industrial law under Kennett". [4]
[1] Wynne expressed this imperative to 774 Drive Program host, Raphael Epstein on Friday 26 May 2017. See the following comments: http://candobetter.net/comment/214871#comment-214871, http://candobetter.net/comment/214873#comment-214873, and http://candobetter.net/comment/214882#comment-214882
The Victorian Government has published its population engineering policies for rapid population growth in multiple planning and other documents. See "Towards "Melbourne at 8 million" and beyond", which gives a history of the Victorian Governments' constantly increasing population targets. The Government's population growth policy is a moving target, ever climing upwards and the public have never been consulted, although they have many times expressed their rejection of what is happening.
[2] Although population growth is a constant topic on the mainstream media, expression of opposition to it is suppressed. True discussion of the pros and cons constantly suppressed in the mainstream media. See, for instance, "Yet again, ABC refuses to discuss population ponzi - by Leith van Onselen".
The gambit of mainstream media and politicians, is to pretend that the only issue in mass immigration is race. They thus racialise the 'debate' and excise the true costs of their ponzi scheme to the general public. When parliamentarians attempt to raise the population numbers issue among their fellows, they are frequently attacked.
[3] Victorian population growth policy document:
, "Beyond Five Million, The Victorian Government's Population Policy," December 2004.
Repeated here for regional Australia in a government funded 'independent' think-tank: http://inform.regionalaustralia.org.au/population-and-people/population-and-migration/item/beyond-five-million-the-victorian-government-s-population-policy
[4] Victoria in Future 2016, VIF Frequently asked questions: This Victorian Government 'population research' document pretends to educate the public about trends in Victoria's population, but obfuscates the fact that the government's population policy has greatly impacted these 'trends' in the past and plans to in the future - upwards. The chief way that the Victorian government misleads the public is by denying its role in planned immigration, although its role has been major and structural since the time of Kennett. See "Sheila Newman: Kennett population policy, numbers and flow-ons: Regional migration and industrial law under Kennett". Here is a statement by the Victorian Government which crucially misleads the public:
"Net overseas migration
Net overseas migration (NOM) is the difference between people coming to live in Australia and residents leaving to settle overseas.
In the past, natural increase has generally contributed more to Australia's annual population growth than has overseas migration. However, since 2004-05, overseas migration has overtaken natural increase as the major contributor to population growth. In 2014-15, NOM accounted for 54% of the annual population growth of Victoria (ABS cat. no. 3101.0).
[...] In discussing net overseas migration, it needs to be borne in mind that governments have much less control over migration than may be expected. State Governments have no control and can only influence Commonwealth Government through advocacy. In turn, Commonwealth Governments have chosen not to practice rigorous controls over the number of people moving in or out of the country. Numbers of permanent humanitarian and skilled migrants are capped by Commonwealth Government policy. On the other hand, Australian residents, and New Zealanders, come and go without restrictions. The numbers of long term but temporary migrants, such as students, working holiday makers and category 457 migrants, are not capped, nor are those coming under family reunion schemes."
Victorians and Australians need to initiate a new democratic process and hold to it. Residents' action groups now find themselves at the coal-face of democracy. They are the front line representing the future of our cities, states and this country. Their task is to identify, defend, and establish new property, community and natural environment rights and the implied citizens' rights that accompany these rights. We can no longer rely on the traditional environment NGOs or alternative political parties to represent us on these fundamental problems. They have been silenced by one means or another. Twenty years ago no-one would have contemplated making Planning Minister Mr Wynn's statements on drive-time ABC radio that we have to fit in 10 million more people in Victoria with four more million in Melbourne. This insane proposition is not the end of it by any means, either. Not only would Melbourne keep on growing, but most state governments are trying to force similar changes on their residents and the property development lobby has in the past admitted to the desire for something like 50 new mega cities around Australia, with eight new ones currently on the drawing board. The scale of these commercial projects will demand authoritarian regimes similar to China's. The looming privatisation of the planning system carries a danger of law suits from commercial developers against government, resident groups and private individuals if they try to object to any and all constructions. This paper proposes starting the new democratic process using the Planning Backlash Residents' Bill of Rights document and building on this. Victoria lacks any effective democratic process except state and council elections, but these elections give almost no rights to citizens and residents, renters or owners. This has to change or we will live in a property-developer-led dictatorship with our population completely replaced and displaced by constant massive construction and infrastructure projects, like those in China.
Groups currently trying to peacefully prevent the erosion of residents' rights by government instigated overpopulation and overdevelopment need to take more formally constructive initiatives. So far they have been reactive rather than proactive, responding to media reports with letters to the editor, responding to government inquiries by making submissions, responding to law bills by writing letters to members of parliament and the three main political parties, responding to development notices by writing objections and taking these to VCAT, and, in many instances, protesting on the steps of the Victorian Parliament. Whilst all these methods are honorable and traditional, they are reactive and piecemeal, do not notify the wider civilian population or representatives, authorities and administrators at all levels of government, and their demands and processes are inadequate in the face of the massive changes to our way of life that are being brought about by related policies at the level of Federal, Victorian and other state government. [1]
When we hear the Minister for Planning, Mr Wynn, on drivetime radio, insist that Melbourne and Victoria will have to fit in something like 10 million people - about half Australia's current population by 2050 – then we need to take the matter beyond a very limited talk-back opportunity or 'have your say' submissions. When we hear from Planning Backlash that the Victorian Government is letting a tender for the private sector to rewrite the entire Victorian planning system in what amounts to a transfer of its planning powers, in the context of a continuously increasing scale of projected population growth, and the consequent over-riding of residents' rights, then these Planning Backlash resident groups need to notify authorities and administrators at all levels of government of their concerns in a formal objection to the entire policy of mass economic immigration and elevation of the property development industry to a quasi-authority. Note also the danger that planning system privatisation will muzzle debate through loss-of-profit legal suits against government and private individuals who object to any construction, in the vein promised by the Trans Pacific Partnership and other global agreements.
Twenty years ago no-one would have contemplated making Mr Wynn's statements. The insane proposition of four or six million more people for Melbourne is not the end of it by any means, either. Not only would Melbourne keep on growing, but most state governments are trying to force similar changes on their residents and the property development lobby has in the past admitted to the desire for something like 50 new mega cities around Australia, with eight new ones currently on the drawing board.[2] Such a massive rate of population growth and infrastructure development would require fundamental changes to the way Australian governments, courts, police and defense forces relate to citizens and residents because it would completely upset current land-use and land-tenure, with massive displacement of citizens and residents. For this reason the police and defense forces also need to be included in the notification and asked for feedback regarding the likely impact of this huge project of expansion.
In face of the bank-backed and political party-backed army of bulldozers and planning bureaucrats Australians may soon face, residents' action groups now find themselves at the coal-face of democracy. They are the front line representing the future of their cities, states and this country. Their task is to identify, defend, and establish new property, community and natural environment rights and the implied citizens' rights that accompany these rights.
Organised protests in public places are fine as a preliminary action, but we need to establish a more effective and long-term process with a body of documents to which we can refer again and again and use to negotiate new laws and rights. Planning Backlash has a fine beginning document, the Planning Backlash Residents' Bill of Rights. (See next page.) The document is not yet perfect, but is the only one of its kind. It lacks points on natural environment and wildlife and on public housing rights, but these could be included. It has an internal inconsistency by proposing regional development as a substitute for further densification of Melbourne suburbs, but its other demands – that population growth be slowed down to an OECD average and that infrastructure be provided in advance – are protective against this.
There needs to be a Notification of Concerns document with an introduction about the situation, followed by the Planning Backlash Residents' Bill of Rights, which is a document of concrete demands which would establish and enlarge our democratic rights. Those who find this pro-active view of rights hard to imagine might consider the Magna Carta as an example of an historic document that forged rights where no-one had believed this possible. [3] The document needs to be signed by resident and other organisations (such as member organisations of Protectors of Public Land) to give it weight and to avoid stigmatising individual activists. These local and widely connected organisations are the most representative we have on property and democratic rights at the moment. There would be one address for replies, which should be made public. It could then be sent far and wide by mail or by email, but notably to the authorities and organisations that use, enforce, discuss and interpret the law (the judiciary, councils and councillors, police, army, political party branches, etc,). The demands for rights needs to be signed by enough credible organisations to make it a serious claim. Some of the organisations and authorities notified with the document would have to respond because, in effect, citizens will be saying that they think what the government is doing is contrary to fundamental property rights and expected government obligations to citizens. Hopefully some individuals in the organisations addressed would also find common concern with other concerned citizens.
[1] Australians have a right to try in good faith to show that any of the following persons are mistaken in any of his or her counsels, policies or actions: The Sovereign, the Governor-General, the Governor of a State, the Administrator of a Territory, an adviser of any of the above, as well as to point out in good faith errors or defects, with view to their reform: the Government of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; the Constitution; legislation of the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or another country; or to urge in good faith another person to attempt to lawfully procure a change to any matter established by law, policy or practice in the Commonwealth, a State, a Territory or another country. You may point out in good faith any matters that are producing, or have a tendency to produce, feelings of ill will or hostility between different groups, in order to bring about the removal of those matters; or do anything in good faith in connection with an industrial dispute or an industrial matter; or publish in good faith a report or commentary about a matter of public interest. These rights are set out as 'in good faith' defenses in the Australian Criminal Code Act 1995, section 80.3.[1]
[2]This number, along with the desire for a population of 250m, has not been overtly stated in public documents but you can get the flavour of it in property council proposals like thishttp://www.eco-business.com/videos/one-high-speed-rail-eight-new-cities-a-new-plan-for-australias-growing-population/ (See illustration below) and you can infer it from the Department of Primeminister and Cabinet's "Smart which talks of "Publishing details of the regional City Deal competitive bid process to be used in the selection of City Deals outside Australian cities" at https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/smart-cities-plan and for which you can download the elaborations here: https://cities.dpmc.gov.au/18190/documents/48080
[3] Although the Magna Carta was a demand made by a group of Lords, the principle is the same, but the groups represented are larger and more social-contractually formed. In 1789 in France the National Assembly was peacefully obtained from the king by the common people, arguing their rights via delegates. (The king later went against this document and set his foreign troops on the people of Paris, sparking off a violent revolution, which many people erroneously think was actually started by the people.)
We, the current residents of Melbourne, country and coastal areas of Victoria, call on the government and opposition at all levels to act to protect our homes, communities and cities from over-development.
The current trend of excessive population growth through the ever increasing levels of immigration.
The excessive influence of vested interests and lobby groups upon residential planning and government decision making.
The increasing densification of residential areas and the consequent impact on our infrastructure without commensurate infrastructure upgrades at all levels.
The continual changes to planning law and regulations that provides no certainty for the peaceful enjoyment of our neighbourhoods by the current and future residents.
The continual urban sprawl into Melbourne’s green fringe and farming land.
• Population growth targets to be limited to sustainable levels based on OECD averages which is currently around 0.63%. (Australia’s rate of growth is currently around 1.7% ).
• Infrastructure be upgraded to meet current needs and kept ahead of requirements to meet our cities population growth requirements.
• A bipartisan planning environment that provides certainty and protects residential areas against densification in any form.
• Councils to be the sole “responsible Authority” for issuing planning permits and building permits.
• VCAT’s role to be confined to resolution of legal planning disputes and ensuring that lawful planning regulations are met.
• FIRB rules and penalties designed and strictly applied to prevent destruction of existing housing stock and neighbourhood character by foreign nationals.
• Expansion and development of regional cities and associated infrastructure to support population growth and lifestyle quality.
• Developer donations be deemed illegal with mandatory disqualification, forfeiture, or dismissal from or of any current or future development.
• Protection of current open space and tree canopy with requirement to retain or replace vegetation on all new or redevelopment sites.
• Government, at all levels, legally required to assess and protect the interests of residents ahead of developers’ interests.
• All planning committees and reference groups must have at reasonable resident representation.
• Legislate to ensure permits can be refused where a poll of residents/owners living within 300m radius of the proposed development indicates objection by the majority of existing residents/owners.
• A national uniform code be developed to define minimum dwelling size, minimum open space per bedroom and maximum occupancy limits.
• Enforceable minimum Victorian building standards regulations administered by an independent authority.
• Any breach of a planning permit or building standards should result in a prosecution by the relevant authority or the State or local Government to ensure proper rectification
• Developers to meet infrastructure costs necessary for new developments including drainage, sewage, water supply, telecommunications, gas and electricity.
• Developers to be required to contribute to a general community/Council infrastructure fund, , based on number of bedrooms or estimated improved value of the property.
• Neighbourhood character, architecture and heritage requirements to be met by every new residential development.
• Establishment and enforcement of resident and visitor car parking standards, for new multi-dwelling developments, at the rate of 0.75 spaces per bedroom, for residents and 0.25 spaces for visitors.
• Character protection for heritage and traditional local shopping strips.
[This bill was] Published & authorized by PLANNING BACKLASH, on behalf of it’s 250
supporting residents' groups in Melbourne, country & coastal areas.
PO Box 1034 Camberwell, Vic. 3124
3CR talkS to Michael Bayliss from Planning Backlash about the development woes facing Melbourne and how this issue will only become more serious in light of plans to further deregulate the planning system. Whether it is increasing densities in the inner suburbs or developing the urban fringe, we are not getting the standard of development that Melbourne requires as we proceed to a low carbon economy. (Article adapted from one published on 3CR at https://www.3cr.org.au/citylimits/episode-201705310900/planning-backlash-and-development-crisis-melbourne. Interview begins at 13.10. [Note that the links to 3CR probably won't work unless you remove the 's' in https. We have added the 's' in order not to be stigmatised by Firefox browsers as displaying 'passive mixed content'.]
Wednesday, 31 May 2017 -
Download MP3
3CR talks to Michael Bayliss from Planning Backlash about the development woes facing Melbourne and how this issue will only become more serious in light of plans to further deregulate the planning system. Whether it is increasing densities in the inner suburbs or developing the urban fringe, we are not getting the standard of development that Melbourne requires as we proceed to a low carbon economy.
Michael also discusses the protest that is organised to take place on the steps of State Parliament at 1pm on Thursday June 8 (details below):
"This government is rapidly taking away all our rights about planning and development. New laws have been brought out and even worse ones are coming. We demand that they restore residents' rights. We must have a say in what can be built in our streets and in our city.
Please make the effort to be there. We need numbers to show them we are serious. Professor Michael Buxton will be speaking and the Planning Minister and Shadow Planning Minister will be invited to speak as well as some residents."
Anyone that lives in Sydney or Melbourne will have experienced the crippling rise in congestion on our transport networks first hand. Morning and evening peaks now run for hours, traffic is forever thick on the weekends, and the time taken to travel from point A to point B now takes longer than ever. Article originally published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/05/mass-immigration-grinds-big-cities-to-halt/
Over the weekend, The Australian confirmed what we living in the big cities already know: commuting is fast becoming a nightmare:
The number of vehicles travelling in Australian cities
has grown almost tenfold in the past 70 years and, with exponential
population growth not being met with adequate road infrastructure
upgrades, traffic speeds are crawling to a standstill…Last year, a report from the Committee for Economic Development of
Australia said congestion could cost the nation more than $50 billion in
lost productivity by 2031 unless addressed.The latest congestion bill was $16.5bn in 2015.
Congestion levels on major arterial roads are at a high, with most
cities suffering much slower travel times and lower average speeds than
previously recorded…Sydney, which last year was named the nation’s most congested city by
peak transport body Austroads, has seen significant reductions in
average speeds even since 2011. The population of Greater Sydney has
risen by almost 300,000 people during that time, reaching almost five
million…Melbourne is growing by 2000 new drivers each week, with more than
200,000 vehicles travelling across the West Gate Bridge between the CBD
and western suburbs each day…Between 2006 and 2013, speeds on Melbourne’s major arterial roads
have slowed by an average of 13km/h, with speeds on the West Gate
Freeway entry ramp from Williamstown Road slowing to half the speed
limit of 100km/h during morning peak hours…
The primary culprit is pretty obvious for those that care to look:
the explosion in population growth, which has seen Melbourne add one
million people over the past 12 years (a 27% increase) and Sydney add
821,000 people (a 20% increase):
In October last year, Infrastructure Partnerships Australia (IPA) released a report that used Uber driver information to measure “road network performance” in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth to drill down into average travel times at different hours of the day.
The results were based on the following number of drivers in each city:
And found that “efficiency” pretty much followed the level of population growth:
In Melbourne, which is the population ponzi king, travel times have
worsened materially, followed by Sydney, which has also experienced
strong population growth. Brisbane only experienced a minor worsening in
travel times. Whereas in Perth, where population growth has cratered,
travel times have actually improved.
The Bureau of Infrastructure and Regional Economics has also forecast soaring costs of congestion, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, over the next 15 years:
The underlying driver of this population growth and rising congestion
is the ‘Big Australia’ mass immigration program being run by the
federal government and supported by the three major political parties –
the Coalition, Labor and The Greens.
While net overseas migration (NOM) has fluctuated as long-stay
temporary migrants have come and gone, the fact remains that Australia’s
immigration settings are set at turbo-charged levels and are projected
to remain so for decades to come, thus maintaining Australia’s
population growth at around 400,000 people a year – equivalent to adding
a Canberra to Australia’s population:
Underpinning this high NOM is Australia’s permanent migration program, which is currently 200,000 a year, comprising:
This permanent migration program was ramped-up massively from the early-2000s, as shown in the next chart:
Accordingly, in the 16 years to 2016, Australia’s net overseas
migration (NOM) rocketed to an annual average of 200,000 people a year –
almost triple the historical average of around 70,000 people a year.
As shown in the next chart, which comes from the Productivity Commission’s (PC) recent Migrant Intake into Australia
report, 86% of immigrants lived in the major cities of Australia in
2011, whereas only 65% of the Australian-born population did:
The situation is set to deteriorate even further, too, with
Australia’s population expected to grow to around 40 million mid-century
under current settings, driven almost exclusively by mass immigration:
And because of this mass immigration, Sydney’s population is
projected to grow by 87,000 people per year (1,650 people each week) to
6.4 million over the next 20-years – effectively adding another Perth to
the city’s population:
It’s even worse in Melbourne, whose population is projected to
balloon by 97,000 people per year (1,870 people each week) over the next
35 years to more than 8 million people – effectively adding 2.5
Adelaide’s to the city’s population over this time period:
It’s common sense that ramming 80,000 to 100,000 extra people into
Sydney and Melbourne each year will create immense pressures on housing,
infrastructure, congestion, and overall livability.
Even former Treasury secretary Ken Henry gets it, last year sounding the alarm that rapid population growth has overrun infrastructure and housing in the big cities:
“My observation in Sydney, in Melbourne, today is that
people already think – with very good reason – that the ratio of
population to infrastructure is too high,” he said.Australia will need to construct a new city every year as big as
Canberra or Newcastle to accommodate the expanding number of people, he
said. Or, every 5 years,Australia would need to build an entire new city from scratch for 2
million people; or an entire new city as big as Melbourne every decade.Without such action, there will be more congestion, longer commute
times to work and increasing problems with housing affordability…
Where is the national plan to cope with this mass immigration? How
will Australia’s governments and businesses ensure that incumbent
Australians’ living standards will not be eroded by the associated
pressures on infrastructure, housing, the environment, and the dilution
of Australia’s fixed mineral endowment, which is a key driver of our
wealth and living standards?
Residents of Sydney and Melbourne, in particular, know that their
living standards will be smashed if mass immigration is allowed to
continue. Therefore, reducing immigration back to the long-run average
of 70,000 people annually, as advocated by the Sustainable Australia party,
is becoming critical. This would see Australia’s population stablise at
around 32 million mid-century, rather than the current projection of
around 40 million.
Because as it stands, Australia cannot possibly hope to build enough
infrastructure to supply a Canberra-worth of new residents each and
every year for decades to come, which is what we are facing under
Australia’s current mad immigration settings.
Stop Press - Just received this minute. It seems that Josh Frydenberg, Federal member for Boroondara and Minister of Environment, has put an interim protection order on St Kilda Road, as it has been sponsored for National Heritage Protection. I knew this has been proposed by a leader of the Liberals and a leader of Labor. A number of us wrote to Josh urging him to do it. Great news!
1.
Read the press release from the residents of Upper Ferntree Gully. They are angry. Please sign the petition here - it will be presented to their local MP. https://www.change.org/p/legislative-council-of-victoria-protect-the-dandenong-ranges-2-storeys-not-tall-stories?recruiter=58750254&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
2.
This is a terrible decision by Andrews and Wynne - the people of Southbank get no say at all. Melbourne is being wrecked. See what Greg Barber says - what Crown want Crown gets - let us wonder how. http://www.theage.com.au/business/property/crown-casino-wins-approval-for-90storey-tower-at-southbank-20170208-gu8saj
Letter to the editor
What a dreadful decision by the Planning Minister and the Premier to approve that giant building for Crown. It breaks the governments own rules about heights in the city. Why have rules? The question has be asked, how did Crown get them to break their own rules? Think of the overshadowing and overlooking. I pity the people living in Southbank with this building going up and they get no say whatsoever whether they want it or not. Interesting the answer given by the Minister on radio Thursday when he was asked about shadowing. He said there would be no shadowing. Really? It has been worked out that the shadow will stretch out for 1km. That is quite a shadow.
Building by building our city is being ruined.
Mary Drost
3.
This is on the Age website. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/from-quite-awful-to-liveable-urban-design-guru-helps-transform-melbourne-city-20170209-gu9570.htmlWell I don't agree. Our city was not awful in the 70's, it was more liveable than it is now and it is being ruined more by the year. Wait until they dig it up for this terrible Metro rail and it will be totally unliveable.
4.
Read this story from the Peninsula. We are losing all our heritage. So very sad indeed and the government just does not care. http://morningtonpeninsulabandicoot.com/2017/02/05/brush-fence-vs-heritage-and-history/
5.
Well at least the libs are making an attempt to get South Yarra Station connected. But I think it all should be scrapped and build other things like a train to the airport or one to Doncaster or lots of other places. They are obsessed about this one and it will wreck Melbourne for years. Fine to connect it to South Yarra but do you know that the news trains won't work on the rail we have and the trains are too long for our existing stations. They say that the loop is full. That can be solved by improving the signalling system. In London on the line I use when there, the Jubilee line trains are only about 4 minutes apart. Sometimes at peak I have seen a train disappearing one end and the next one appearing at the other. Why can't we be so clever? We just want to dig up parts of the city and St Kilda Road.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/liberals-make-another-attempt-to-include-south-yarra-station-in-melbourne-metro-20170207-gu7t9w.html
6.
The government just chopped down all those lovely trees at the Beaumaris Secondary School with virtually no warning. Beaumaris which is so protective of its trees, they have landscape overlays to protect them but the government just do this vandalism. So dishonest that they say they have consulted with the community without mentioning that they did not hear a word that was said - just tick the box - community consulted - tick. Read the article.
Some may already have read the following article in the 'Comments' section of 7th Feb The Age newspaper, from our President Greg Mier. It concerns the (still nowhere near completed) vegetation destruction at the Beaumaris Secondary School site.
Keep your eyes both on the western boundary, and the often overlooked southern ('Community') oval's boundary with Long Hollow Heathland which acts as a vital protective buffer!! The VSBA's latest map, as they consistently have been throughout, is materially misleading. We were even refused a measly two or three metres around the fence lines.
Genuine community consultation? Pfft!!.
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/once-again-development-comes-first-20170127-gtzvks.html
(Submission inside) Plans for the proposed underground railway from north west to south east of the city are not yet finalised. On Friday the 13th the Minister of Planning said the location of the proposed Domain station may be moved and yet the Age announces 14th Jan that work would begin on Monday the 16th. This is clearly vandalism. They are going to start destroying trees and moving gas and sewer lines at the Domain. Remember that St Kilda Road is heritage listed and Heritage Victoria have received thousands of objections and Heritage Vic have not yet made a determination. One has to wonder how much pressure they are under by this State Government in their determination to start digging. We are sick to death of hearing them say they are 'shovel-ready'. How dare the government say that the damage to St Kilda road will be worth it for the advantage the rail will give. The necessity for this rail is being questioned by respected planners in Melbourne. There are far more important road and rail projects that are needed first.
Hard to believe that they are intent on wrecking one of the most beautiful boulevards in the world. One of the most picturesque parts of Melbourne. Compare this to what London are doing right now - putting in 42 kms of underground from west to east called Crossrail, without disrupting anything up on top. This took years in the planning before one shovel was put in the ground so that they got it perfectly done. Please Minister ask for their help. (Mary Drost, Convenor, Planning Backlash.) [Candobetter.net Editor: Illustrations inserted by candobetter.net editor. See also Submission from the National Trust of Australia. and this Port Phillip Council information about its trees which include the historic St Kilda Road historic boulevard.]
December 2016
Re: Heritage Victoria – VHR: H2359; P25649, St Kilda Rd
This in relation to the damage by the proposed Metro Underground Railway to the wonderful Boulevard known as St Kilda Road. I write to object to the granting of this permit.
First point to be made is that the routing must be changed. More sensibly the route should be from the north of Melbourne via Southern Cross Station to Docklands and then to Fishermans Bend and from there across South Melbourne and crossing under St Kilda Road in the vicinity of Toorak Road and coming right through and linking to South Yarra Station.
The proposed route does not make sense in that there would be a station at the north of the city and then at the southern end, really duplicating the existing city loop, totally unnecessary. On the other hand it makes much more logical sense to be on the west of the city and include Docklands and Fishermans Bend.
However I really believe that this concept of an underground in that location, using that route, is not going to help Melbourne at all and it will be detrimental to the beauty and heritage of the city. This connection between north and south already exists using Southern Cross Station and Flinders St Station and connecting into the loop. There are far more important railway extensions that should be made first e.g. to the airport and to Doncaster. Why not require MMRA to submit costings and details of alternative routes for public consideration?
It is hard to believe that they would even for one minute contemplate not tunnelling deep enough to avoid any damage on the surface that can be avoided in this significant heritage area. The idea of any cutting and filling rather than using deep tunnel mining throughout from the Arts Centre down Toorak Road and in South Yarra is absurd to the point of stupidity. Why is deep mining tunnelling not being used right through? It should be.
It is thirty plus years since the City Loop was put in. That is deep and I think no cutting and filling was done. The idea of cutting and filling to save money is short sighted in the extreme.
When Singapore want to do something new they send a team around the world to see where it is done best and get them to help. We believe our government needs to re-think this whole plan and route. They should immediately get in touch with authorities in London and ask their help and advice. They are the world’s best, having started their underground in 1863 and have an incredible underground network and only recently tunnelled out 42 kms from Heathrow airport to Canary Wharf and even further east without disrupting anything on top in such a devastating manner as this proposal from MMRA/Lovell Chen would. Or the government could ask Switzerland for help. They dig tunnels through miles of mountain.
(See Switzerland, longest tunnel in the world: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36423250 “Gotthard tunnel: World's longest and deepest rail tunnel opens in Switzerland”, 1 June 2016; http://www.houseofswitzerland.org/swissstories/environment/construction-world-s-longest-environmentally-friendly-tunnel, “The construction of the world’s longest environmentally friendly tunnel.” See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel ).
But we talk of cutting and filling down one of the most beautiful boulevards in the world. Try doing this in Paris and you would be sent straight to the guillotine.
In contrast this proposal is for cutting and filling down one of the most beautiful boulevards in the world – and that is unacceptable loss and destruction of cultural heritage and the defining character, identity and beauty of Melbourne.
St Kilda Road must not be damaged. It would a tragedy to have all the threatened trees knocked down. It would take many years for them to grow again to maturity. These are mature elms that have been there for probably 100 years. How dare they damage them in any way.
The tunnels should be deep enough to prevent any damage or vibration to anything up on top whether buildings or trees as was done recently in London. (see: the Crossrail project, http://www.crossrail.co.uk/, “A world-class new railway for London and the south east,” with integrated transparent planning and design up-front and the project planned around heritage protection as a priority, including protection of the setting and visual amenity of protected heritage squares in London as a result of either the permanent or temporary works). We believe this application for a Permit should be refused. More time, planning and consideration for protecting and maintaining heritage and the defining landmarks, gardens and monuments of the city should be the starting and guiding principles around which transport and underground railway tunnels are planned.
What is planned in the area of the Shrine is a total disgrace and a disregard of the importance and history and location of this beautiful Shrine in memory of the men and women who have lost their lives in wars defending Australia. It was superbly planned and located in relation to St Kilda Road and the city and the surrounding gardens, and these visual lines and vistas are part of its heritage significance registration, and they should be maintained and left undisturbed. How dare any government propose to turn this into an excavation site wrecking the parks and gardens and trees surrounding it at least for years, possibly damaged forever. This must not be allowed. We, the people of Victoria, rely on you at Heritage Victoria to protect these heritage sites.
This beautiful area of parks and gardens and trees must not be touched and damaged in the dreadful way proposed in this plan and application. In fact there is no need to have a train station in that position, at ‘Domain’, at all. Other locations and routes should be considered, costed and submitted, ones that are not on heritage sites, places and gardens and do not propose to do such dreadful damage to the whole precious heritage, gardens and monuments precinct. The current St Kilda Rd trams and tram stops and the current number 8 tram in its present route are sufficient. As said earlier the underground must be rerouted and avoid this whole area and come under St Kilda Road to link up with South Yarra Station. The plan and proposal is misconceived and would fail the people of the State of Victoria and cause loss of irreplaceable cultural heritage and civic identity and pride.
There are alternative routes that are not on heritage lands and places and that is where MMRA should focus its planning and transport routes, tunnels and hubs.
Whilst we support the development of transport infrastructure, this proposal, shockingly, is situated entirely in heritage sites and lands (St Kilda Road, the Shrine of Remembrance and Shrine reserve gardens and trees, the Domain Gardens, the South African Soldier’s Memorial, and adjacent affected trees, gardens and sites) and the costs of the proposal is heritage devastation, a far-too great a price to pay. It is an unnecessary and completely undesirable destruction of the entire area that is and should be heritage protected. Heritage Victoria should protect this heritage gardens and monuments precinct as a whole, and require MMRA consideration and costings for alternate routes that are not on and through heritage places be made available to the public.
Is that protection not what Heritage Victoria and heritage registration is for?!
The plans to dismantle and store this borders on an insult to the sacred nature of this cherished memorial. It must not be allowed to happen. Is nothing sacred? Like the Shrine, it is a sacred memorial to the fallen and must be totally protected. Do not allow this to happen to the South African soldiers’ memorial.
This entire area is under Heritage Victoria protection and they would be derelict in their responsibilities if they approve such terrible destruction under their watch, even if they are at odds with the Government Department under which they operate. Their duty must be to protect these important heritage sites of State significance which this area most certainly is even if it means preventing the Government from following their plans.
I and the coalition of 250+ resident groups (representing at least several thousand people of the State of Victoria; some groups have hundreds of members e.g. my local group has 600 members) strongly request this permit application be denied. The proposal is out of keeping with the values and heritage rights of the people of the State of Victoria. We ask that Heritage Victoria acts to stop this proposal and protects our heritage. We rely on you to act in accordance to protect this entirely-heritage registered area and to refuse this permit.
Mary Drost OAM
Convenor
Planning Backlash Inc
Coalition of 250+ resident groups
Note: Candobetter.net has removed Mary Drost’s home address and email contact for privacy and to prevent spam. You can contact Mary via our contact link at top left corner of this site.
This week Craig Thomson, President of the Australian Wildlife Protection Council, is working on a submission to oppose the rezoning of Melbourne Water land in Rosebud South. Unfortunately he has run into problems getting appropriate ecological information about the site. He wonders if the State Government and Melbourne water have deliberately made the ecological report unavailable. The fauna report relies solely on a habitat assessment and a desktop study for threatened species.
AWPC President, Mr Thomson, says that the absence of on ground fauna surveys is very alarming that there was no on ground fauna surveys. He asks,
"Is this now what happens when the state government tries to fast track rezoning crown land for commercial profit. Or, worse, has it become common practice? It seems like a little of both. Either way this lack of survey will miss the Eastern grey kangaroos, koalas, swamp wallabies and echidnas that survive on this urban fringe. It also misses the potential for threatened species to be present on site. Any potential development on this site could be the difference between extinction or survival of local biodiversity."
"That is is not good enough."
See the information provided below. For more about the site go to http://www.dtpli.vic.gov.au/planning/about-planning/planning-services-directory/fast-track-government-land-service/181-jetty-road,-rosebud.
All submissions must be directed to the Advisory Committee and will be treated as public documents. If you would like to make a presentation at the Public Hearing, you must make a written submission and complete the relevant section of the online form.
Make your submission and comments here before 9 December 2016
5 Fauna
A fauna assessment of the study area consisted of an on-foot field survey of habitat quality and a desktop assessment of the likelihood of fauna species of conservation significance occurring within the study area. A detailed zoological survey comprising a range of techniques over different seasons was not undertaken for this study as it was beyond the scope of works.
5.1 Pre-existing information search
The Victorian Biodiversity Atlas (VBA) was queried for threatened fauna species recorded within a 5 km radius of the study area (DSE 2013a). Appendix 4 provides the results of this query.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 Protected Matters Search Tool (PMST) on the Commonwealth Department of Environment (DoE), website was queried to determine if any protected fauna related matters not reported in the VBA query are considered likely to occur within the study area. Species identified in the EPBC query are presented in Appendix 5.
5.2 Fauna Habitat
Vegetation in the study area is likely to provide suitable foraging and nesting habitat for a range of common fauna species such as common woodland birds and arboreal mammals such as Common Ringtail Possum Pseudocheirus peregrinus. However, based on habitat requirements for a range of threatened fauna species that are known to occur locally and the poor site condition and fragmented landscape, it is considered unlikely that the vegetation on the site would serve as critical or limiting habitat for significant fauna species.
The majority of threatened fauna species previously recorded within the 5km search area or predicted to occur are considered unlikely to utilise the study area. The low likelihood rating is based on various factors including, lack of suitable habitat, lack of recent database records or the predicted location being outside of the known habitat range of current species populations. One listed species, Powerful Owl Ninox strenua occupies a large home range and as such may utilise sections of the study area for occasional foraging. However vegetation throughout the site is considered unlikely to provide limiting or critical habitat for this species as the site supports few large or hollow bearing trees.
Greens Councillors Amanda Stone, Sam Gaylard and Misha Coleman voted together with Councillors Stephen Jolly and Jackie Fristacky to give the go ahead to run a cycle path through a natural reserve. Trees will be felled. This was not a foregone result, since the decision was carried only by one in a 5:4 vote. The Greens obviously had a choice, but seem to have chosen to put transport ahead of nature in a very overcrowded area with little access to natural surroundings. This lack of interest in protecting the natural world and our access to it from overdevelopment seems to be an increasing feature of the Greens, particularly to the North of the Yarra.
Julianne Bell reports on this matter in a letter to Protectors of Public Land and includes the submission made by PPLVic to the council, which has been published with small adaptations, below. The pictures of the trees that will go were also provided by Ms Bell. (Intro to this article by Editor: candobetter.net)
At a meeting on Tuesday last 2 August 2016 Yarra Council considered the cycle path project proposed to be constructed through Rushall Reserve and along the escarpment next to the railway line. Debate on this controversial project, opposed by many from the North Fitzroy community plus parks and community groups such as PPL VIC, was reported to have raged until around 1 am the next morning.
To their eternal shame Greens Councillors Amanda Stone, Sam Gaylard and Misha Coleman voted together with Councillors Stephen Jolly and Jackie Fristacky to give the go ahead to this project. The vote by Councillors was 5 in favour 4 against. (Councillors Roberto Colanzi, Simon Huggins, Geoff Barbour and Phillip Vlahogiannis voted against approval of the project.)
Construction of this project will spell destruction of the Reserve as it will alienate about half the parkland and necessitate clearfelling of trees - 38 have been identified not just the 12 cited by staff. These are said to be the habitat of the critically endangered Swift Parrot. (See attached photos of trees on the escarpment along the existing goat track including the large River Red Gum which Council staff consider "might be able to be saved".) Apart from Boroondara, Yarra has less parkland per capita of any municipality in Melbourne so can ill afford to lose more.
Also of great concern is the impact of the cycle path of the Batman-Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site on the Merri Creek.
Consultants report they cannot find aboriginal artifacts (surprise!surprise!). This was the only known treaty signed in Australia between white settlers and the Aboriginal population. It is extraordinary that the City of Yarra has never moved to establish the site as one of national significance.
See below the submission made by Fiona Bell for PPL VIC at the Council meeting. (Same surname as mine but not related.) Note our campaign opposing the commuter cycle path through Rushall Reserve continues as does our advocacy for heritage protection for the Batman-Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site on the Merri Creek.
Julianne Bell
Secretary
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
PO Box 197
Parkville 3052
Mobile 0408022408
Council Meeting Item 11.1, Tuesday 2nd August 2016
I am making a submission on the "Shared Bike Path'' through Rushall Reserve (referred to as "the project") on behalf of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc., a coalition of 80 groups dedicated to protecting and maintaining sites of environmental and heritage significance. I am qualified additionally to speak on the subject as I am a resident/ratepayer of the City of Yarra, a member of the City of Yarra Heritage Advisory Committee and a cyclist. Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC sends her apologies for this evening.
I wish to make the following points.
I believe that NO cycle path should go through the Rushall Reserve, which is presently a cul de sac reserve surrounded by cycle paths.
The Council officers' report has established that there is a significant recent addition to the project plan not revealed before to the community. I quote from the report under "Feedback of Path Design" section. "It is highlighted that further recent feedback from asset owners, in particular City West Water in May 2016, means that any path adjacent to the rail embankment in the reserve (at one particular point) need to be located a further 2.5 m to 3.0 m further east (i.e.into the reserve) than is shown on the plan in Table 3 below. This is further outlined in paragraphs 30 to 36 below.)”
In view of this significant change to the design to the plan for the project, and the fact that the cycle path will intrude further east into the Reserve taking over more precious parkland, PPL VIC is advocating council defer any decision concerning the project in order for the community to digest the changes.
We are of the view that the project should be deferred for hearing at a future Council meeting.
Should Council be so ill advised as to proceed to consider the project tonight and make a decision, here are our arguments opposing the project. These have been raised before in our submissions:
1. There has been no assessment of the value to the community in terms of a recreation facility, only the profit to cyclists.
2. There has been no assessment of the environmental impact with clearance of native vegetation and the heat island effect of asphalting over parkland (should this proceed).
3. No consideration has been given to the fact that the Reserve including the Heritage Zone on the escarpment is the habitat of the critically endangered Swift Parrot, Lathamus discolor. A major factor for the demise of this bird is reduction of vegetation, especially eucalypts, as it is primarily a nectar feeder.
4. The cycle path is billed as a recreational cycle path but there is a network of nearby cycle paths which serve North Fitzroy residents. It is clearly a commuter cycle path and will serve residents of municipalities across Melbourne not only locals. To quote Justin Hanrahan of Council staff at a recent meeting on 16 June 2016 with PPL VIC that that a major purpose of the project is "to shave off a little travel time for bike users on the trail." It seems clear, therefore, that the proposed cycle path should be categorised as a commuter cycle path. It is designed to save commuter cyclists time in transit, although this would be only a very few minutes.
5. There is no data collection of likely users and of users of existing trails to justify the extraordinary proposed expenditure of $600,000.
6. The Cultural Heritage Management Plan is unsatisfactory. There is no real acknowledgement that the Batman Woiwurrung Treaty Signing Site is the only site in Australia where white settlers signed a treaty with the native population. The whole of Rushall Reserve and Merri Creek within the Reserve should be declared a national heritage zone not a transit route.
Signed: Fiona Bell
Fiona Bell
This article is about the real reason why the medicare rebates don't cover the cost of doctors' services and therefore why the practice of general medicine is increasingly unsatisfactory for doctors and patients.
I was inspired to attempt this article by a letter just published in the Age because it articulated my own concerns. The only thing it lacks is that it fails to give the principle reason for the very high costs of running a medical practice.
The truth is Medicare needs to be reformed
It is particularly galling that Labor has adopted the catchcry "Save Medicare". Apparently Medicare is sacred and untouchable. This attitude prevents any possibility of the reform that it desperately needs. It is also galling that Labor is spruiking that the removal of the freeze on rebates will allow GPs to keep bulk billing and this will "save Medicare". The current rebate for a standard GP consultation lasting up to 20minutes is $37.05. Without the freeze, the rebate would be around $39 and by mid-2018 around $40. If GPs had to depend on such paltry amounts for their incomes, Medicare would have died a long time ago.
The truth is that GPs who do not see a patient every six minutes can continue to bulk bill by supplementing their incomes with various care plans, health assessments, home medicine reviews, case conferences, practice incentive payments etc. These processes allow GPs to generate a reasonable income, but there has never been proof that they improve health outcomes. The lowly consultation rebate, frozen or not, encourages GPs to manufacture incomes from these dubious methods. Some, dare I say it, "dodgy" doctors do more than their fair share of "dodgy"' care plans.
The most important 15 minutes in the health system is the consultation with GPs. It must be valued appropriately so that GPs can take a patient's history, examine them and think about a treatment plan that avoids the current blowout of follow-on costs in investigations and referrals. Medicare must be reformed. Neither Labor nor the Coalition have the honesty and courage to do this. It is more complicated than Labor's puerile and disingenuous sloganeering suggests.
Dr Philip Barraclough, Highett
I'll give you a hint. It's not the insurance costs.
A couple of years ago I went for an interview at a GP clinic in an inner suburb of Melbourne, in the region of Armadale or Toorak. It was explained to me that the practice tried to limit the amount of time spent with patients and to make up costs by running various electronic, self-evaluating programs, to diagnose various mental health issues, such as depression. The hard-faced GP interviewing me was keen to tease out any tendency I might have to spend time on supportive or other psychotherapy and it didn't take him long to detect these.
"That might be alright for a GP practising in the outer suburbs," he sniffed, "But there is no way we are going to cover costs here and make a profit by spending time with patients. Our mental health nurses here have got it down to a fine art. They use self-evaluation forms as a way of interacting therapeutically with the patients and then they use the same forms for their reports. Personally I think you may be a little too one-to-oneish for this practice."
I needed the job, so tried to sound very flexible on these issues, but he wasn't fooled. He asked me whether I had any political philosophy and, before I could answer, he told me that I really should get familiar with Ayn Rand. He was the first person I have ever met, outside a novel, with the exception of some 'counter-culture' heroine addicts in the 1980s, who had ever expressed any open approval of this writer. I had heard that Rand's 'objectivist' philosophy had enjoyed a resurgence with US and other neocons, but I admit that I was shocked to find her lurking in a Melbourne GP clinic. I guess that made me naive, however, if I knew my GP was an avid fan of Ayn Rand, I would run a mile!
But, anyway, the thing that most interested me about this job interview was the acknowledgement that the cost of rental and real-estate in Australia, particularly within the inner suburbs, was so prohibitive that a doctor wishing to succeed simply could not afford to spend time with patients and, furthermore, artfully deployed gimmicks and electronic questionnaires to take the place of proper physical and mental examinations and treatment.
Because the major cost of doing business in Australia is the cost of land and rents. A business-owner must pay for two premises: the one he or she sleeps in and the one they do business at. Furthermore, they must pay their staff high enough wages for their staff to be able to afford Melbourne's high rentals and house prices. Australia has some of the highest land prices in the world and that goes a long way to explain why small and medium business enterprises so frequently fail. It also explains why Australian manufacturing is in decline and unable to compete with overseas products which do not have nearly as high costs. And high land prices drive up the cost of everything else, including power and water. Even insurance goes up because it must meet this inflation.
And it explains why medicare rebates are no longer adequate to cover patient visits and why GPs practically give you the bum's rush out of their offices almost as soon as you enter, why they won't let you tell them more than one thing that is wrong with you, and why they won't take time to discuss their diagnosis, and why their diagnosis is so often wrong!
Service quality probably increases with distance from the city as the land and rent costs diminish. Maybe some city GPs tak refuge in Ayn Rand in order to rationalise their increasing exploitation and degrading of social capital in an effort to make ends meet.
And whose fault is this? It is the fault of the growth lobby, which has succeeded in raising immigration rates so high in Australia that there is permanently rising inflation of land-prices. Both major political parties and the Greens are responsible parts of this lobby. The first two have massive investments in land-speculation and financing. The Greens utterly refuse to say anything against the engineering of massive population growth in Australia.
This bad news is from Whitehorse where some areas are famous for their bush areas and trees and now the government plans destroying a lot of it and people are angry - do add your voice in support. We are supposed to grow more trees not destroy them like vandals.
Dear Friends of the Trees in Whitehorse
The trees and vegetation along the railway corridor in Laburnum, Blackburn, Nunawading, Mitcham and Heatherdale are under dire threat due to the level crossing removals at Blackburn and Heatherdale Roads and the construction of the southern route for the shared use path from Middleborough Road to Heatherdale Road.
A total of 450 (out of 550 trees within the project works zone) will be lost in Blackburn and a further 200 of 250 trees in the Heatherdale area will be removed or are threatened with removal in the near future. Indeed many trees have already been removed.
The natural landscape of our suburbs is being destroyed arbitrarily by a consortium that views trees as mere impediments to their 'development at all costs' mentality.
The 80+% of trees slated for removal within the Blackburn level crossing removal project works area is an absolutely appalling figure.
As most Blackburn residents know the carnage has already started with the loss of many trees near Blackburn Station including beautiful 100+ year old Oak Trees and other trees of great historic value.
Even the trees that the tree society committee thought had been saved following six months of negotiations with the level crossing removal authority (LXRA) will now be removed. We had reached an agreement with the authority that 47 of the 63 Cypress Pines on council land in Morton Park could be saved however at a site meeting two days ago an authority spokesman stated that the trees will now have to be cut down. These historic trees are over 100 years old and need to be saved.
The spokesman gave dubious reasons for their removal - so much for negotiations 'in good faith'; the Blackburn and wider community has been treated cynically and very shabbily by the LXRA.
In addition it appears that all of the trees in the Blackburn Station Gardens will be removed except for the Palm Trees and two small trees near the rotunda - the Blackburn Village is being destroyed before our eyes!
Can you allow this to happen without putting up a fight?
There are a number of initiatives that you can be involved with to help mitigate this tree and vegetation vandalism by the LXRA:
1. Help establish a fighting fund to support an independent consulting arborist assessment and report on the trees as well as any legal and expert witness fees associated with an anticipated VCAT Hearing. You can do this by donating money to the Blackburn and District Environment Protection Fund targeted specifically to the 'Save the Trees' campaign. Please donate online at www.blackburnenviro.wordpress.com or send a cheque to the fund via PO Box 210, Blackburn, 3130. Your donation will be most welcome (and it's tax deductible).
2. Write and/or email to express your anger and concerns to local ALP upper house MP Shaun Leane at [email protected] or PO Box 4307, Knox City Centre, Vic., 3152.
3. Write and/or email to express your anger and concerns to the Premier of Victoria, the Hon Daniel Andrews at [email protected] or 517A Princes Highway, Noble Park, Vic., 3174.
4. Write and/or email Whitehorse council stating how devastating this loss will be and urging council to become more active in the fight to save the trees - particularly those on council land and in private ownership. You can also advocate for council to fight for suitable replacement planting programs locally and fair financial compensation to council and local residents for any tree losses on their land.
Letters to council should be mailed to Jeff Green (General Manager City Development), cc'd to the CEO (Noelene Duff) and local Ward councillors Andrew Munroe and Denise Massoud ( for Blackburn) and councillors Philip Daw and Ben Stennett (for Mitcham and Heatherdale).
The Whitehorse Council mailing address is:
Whitehorse City Council
Locked Bag 2
Nunawading Delivery Centre VIC 3131.
Email addresses for council officers and councillors follow the same format as that for Jeff Green i.e. jeff.green[AT]whitehorse.vic.gov.au
5. Contact the Blackburn and/or Heatherdale Level Crossing Authorities to voice your concerns. The Blackburn Level Crossing Removal Authority contact is Kerilyn Wyatt at [email protected] or telephone 1800 762 667.
The Heatherdale Level Crossing Authority email address is [email protected] or telephone 1800 762 667.
6. Also write a letter or email the Whitehorse Leader on this issue (feel free to use the information provided above in your correspondence). The contact journalist is Paddy Naughton at [email protected]
7. Contact 'The Age' and/or 'Herald-Sun' newspapers via the Letters to the Editor section or through their Urban Affairs/Environment journalists.
8. The tree society will probably be organising a Public Rally in Morton Park and/ or the Blackburn Station Gardens in the near future to show our support for the trees and our local natural landscape. If you want to help organise or participate in this rally please contact me by return email or phone 0413 457 184.
Please forward this information through your networks and send your emails and letters of protest asap as suggested.
We need to show the Level Crossing Removal Authorities and the ALP politicians that we have the weight of numbers on our side.
Thank you in anticipation.
Regards
David Berry
President
For the Blackburn and District Tree Preservation Society Inc. committee
0413 457 184
Here cdb poet, Brolga-Brolga, tells a moral tale of how a number of neighbours clubbed together to speculate on their adjacent land, but when they tried to buy again, they were already priced out of the market. With homage to Barry Humpreys who wrote The Highett Waltz, sung by Dame Edna, and linked to here.
The pressure is on in our quiet locations
The people who come here are not on vacations
They’re here to stay or so they believe it
The traffic’s horrendous no laws can relieve it
Our peaceful suburbs are in constant disruption
As developers demolish and dig deep for construction
The roads are adorned with red tape and “no access”
Impeding our progress with no sign of success.
Because all the hordes buy our houses galore
One group of people saw their chance to the fore
They got together all 8 neighbours next door
And conjured a sale, a bonanza for all
With planning awry it was well worth a try
To ruin the street but escape with their prize
A premium was paid for these 8 in a row
But for the old friends and neighbours ‘twas a terrible blow
The 8 Bay Road vendors raced away with their gains
And searched the bay suburbs, taking great pains
To find houses in line with their new found riches ,
With sun-decking, en- suites and brand new kitchens
Alas and alack they found only thin pickings
The houses all small and in very poor settings
As month after month they searched the “for sales”
The prices raced right past their premium gains
Meanwhile back in Bay Road, the 8 modest houses
Lie in ruins amid the remains of their gardens
They will be replaced with a 6 storey building,
of 50 apartments, the council unyielding
To grief stricken neighbours, their lives all in tatters
And the council kept saying "what on Earth does it matter?"
So, it’s no longer just normal and quiet ‘round Highett,
It’s constant construction, you just cannot fight it
The neighbours who stayed in Bay Road are defeated
Some internal peace needs be created.
But there will be no peace with those who absconded
and left them the mess to which they are now bonded
These 8 made so little in real estate terms
It’s a hard lesson and one we should learn.
With high immigration the prices will rise
and your fat sum of 1 million will soon take a dive
"Oh only a million, you might try a flat .."
Forget house and garden say "bye- bye to that."
At the Planning Backlash and Boroondara Residents Action Group "Mad as Hell event" in Camberwell on Sunday 29th May, 2016, BRAG introduced the following draft Resident's Rights Bill. To indicate your support please email drostmary[AT]gmail.com. Among other things it calls for the setting of population growth targets within OECD averages. It thus nails a continuing problem of the moving target in previous population policy claims. Australia lacks a civil rights code, unlike Europe. Our civil rights used to be implicit in our publicly owned resources and services, like water, Telecom, and power. This draft Residents' Bill of Rights is truly impressive in its ability to identify gaps in Australian residents' rights.
We, the current residents of Melbourne, country and coastal areas of Victoria, call on the government and opposition at all levels to act to protect our homes, communities and cities from over-development.
• Population growth targets to be limited to sustainable levels based on OECD averages which is currently around 0.63%. (Australia’s rate of growth is currently around 1.7% ).
• Infrastructure be upgraded to meet current needs and kept ahead of requirements to meet our cities population growth requirements.
• A bipartisan planning environment that provides certainty and protects residential areas against densification in any form.
• Councils to be the sole “responsible Authority” for issuing planning permits and building permits.
• VCAT’s role to be confined to resolution of legal planning disputes and ensuring that lawful planning regulations are met.
• FIRB rules and penalties designed and strictly applied to prevent destruction of existing housing stock and neighbourhood character by foreign nationals.
• Expansion and development of regional cities and associated infrastructure to support population growth and lifestyle quality.
• Developer donations be deemed illegal with mandatory disqualification, forfeiture, or dismissal from or of any current or future development.
• Protection of current open space and tree canopy with requirement to retain or replace vegetation on all new or redevelopment sites.
• Government, at all levels, legally required to assess and protect the interests of residents ahead of developers’ interests.
• All planning committees and reference groups must have at reasonable resident representation.
• Legislate to ensure permits can be refused where a poll of residents/owners living within 300m radius of the proposed development indicates objection by the majority of existing residents/owners.
• A national uniform code be developed to define minimum dwelling size, minimum open space per bedroom and maximum occupancy limits.
• Enforceable minimum Victorian building standards regulations administered by an independent authority.
• Any breach of a planning permit or building standards should result in a prosecution by the relevant authority or the State or local Government to ensure proper rectification
• Developers to meet infrastructure costs necessary for new developments including drainage, sewage, water supply, telecommunications, gas and electricity.
• Developers to be required to contribute to a general community/Council infrastructure fund, , based on number of bedrooms or estimated improved value of the property.
• Neighbourhood character, architecture and heritage requirements to be met by every new residential development.
• Establishment and enforcement of resident and visitor car parking standards, for new multi-dwelling developments, at the rate of 0.75 spaces per bedroom, for residents and 0.25 spaces for visitors.
• Character protection for heritage and traditional local shopping strips.
Published & authorized by PLANNING BACKLASH, on behalf of it’s 250
supporting residents' groups in Melbourne, country & coastal areas.
PO Box 1034 Camberwell, Vic. 3124
See inside for a fascinating video account of the history of the law on church land grants in Victoria. A North West Melbourne group is asking for support in their battle to reclaim land for a public park land given by the crown to a Baptist church which no longer wants if for a church. The land now has a value of about $15m and the Baptist organisation wants to sell it off for a dense appartment block. The residents feel that if there is no longer need for a church, the land should revert back to the Crown and citizens and the law seems to clearly support this (see the video). People in North Melbourne are desperately short of open space and need a public park. The church never paid for the land and broke the law many times since the 19th century grant in changing its use. The group fighting for the land to be made public again suggest several ways that you could help them. Editorial comment: There is a long history of churches acquiring land then speculating on it in western history, making them rich and powerful institutions, travelling under cloaks of charity with different tax status. Churches tend to encourage mass immigration and benefit from this situation like other growth lobby members with landbanks.
This is about a fight against the Eight Day church apartment redevelopment in our local neighbourhood.
We really need help urgently please.
Video clips have been produced outlining the Crown grant law and Transfer of Land Act law in the state of Victoria and how the Eighth Day church sect have broken those TRUST laws.
Our hope of stopping the apartment development now rests on getting our message out to social media and to the Attorney General of Victoria, to encourage the State Government to resume the land from the Eighth Day church sect and return it back to the community as an open park for the residents and visitors to North and West Melbourne.
There are 3 ways you can help us.
1) Posting the link for our video clips below and write something along with your post. To make it easy for you please feel free to copy any of the text options below to your social media page, also ask others you know on social media to assist us in our fight please.
Link to video clip: https://youtu.be/
a) Attorney General the Crown grant on the Eighth Day land in West Melbourne is no longer being used for religious purposes it states “it shall be lawful for persons duly authorised by the Governor or other officer administering the Government to re enter upon the land and to hold possess it as if this grant had not been made.” North and West Melbourne really needs a park.
b) Attorney General if the pastor and congregation of the Eighth Day church sect in West Melbourne do not continue to use the church land solely given to them for religious purposes, the State Government of Victoria has the legal right to step in and take back full control of the land and resume ownership as per the wording of the 1866 Crown grant. North and West Melbourne really needs more open space and a park.
c) Attorney General in relation to the Eighth Day church in West Melbourne, The Transfer of Land Act of 1958 clearly states in section 42, 2: the land which is included in any folio of the Register or registered instrument shall be subject to the reservations, exceptions, conditions and powers contained in the original Crown grant of land. It’s time the State Government resume the land for a community for a park in North & West Melbourne.
d) Attorney General regarding the Eighth Day church sect in West Melbourne, Act 391 of 1871 clearly states title to the land was issued to the denomination on the basis that the land remained subject to the limitations and conditions of
d)the original 1866 Crown grant and the land can only be used for a church and nothing else. It’s time the State Government take back the land for the community to be used as a park.
2) Post a link of the video clip/s and any of the text options above of your choosing onto our Facebook page or onto Martin Pakula’s Facebook page, and ask all your friends to please do the same please. However if his page blocks you please feel free to join our facebook page to keep up to date with our fight against the Eighth Day church sect and other happenings. https://www.facebook.com/
Since 2002 when Melbourne 2030 was quietly introduced by the Bracks’ government (which was intended to be a 30 year plan for Melbourne to make it a more compact city) there have been another 1 million people in Melbourne and 16 new plans introduced in 14 years. The latest is “Plan Melbourne Refresh,” very quickly followed by “Managing Residential Development,” which is a review of the Reformed Residential Zones. You would think that our planners could come up with a long term plan but obviously they are responding to different agendas set by developers. Planning Backlash invites you and your members to a public forum to voice your concerns about the way development is happening in Melbourne. To be held in the Parkview Room, Camberwell Civic Centre, 340 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Sunday 29th May 2016, 2.30 PM.
Dear Friends all,
This is an invitation to a Forum that is long overdue and this time it will be in the Camberwell Civic Centre on Sunday 29th May at 2.30 pm. Please pass this around to the members of your group, we must pack the hall to show the government we are seriously fed up. And it will be free. We will not be asking you for money as Boroondara Residents Action Group offered to finance it for us – thanks BRAG. Come and have your say. Oh by the way I did invite the Minister but he declined. - I look forward to seeing you then.
Mary Drost.
It seems that every time there is a change of government there is a change of planning strategies, and rarely are these changes for the benefit of residents.
Mostly they are for the benefit of developers, the construction industry and investors but our concerns are virtually ignored, Frustrating isn’t it?
Since 2002 when Melbourne 2030 was quietly introduced by the Bracks’ government (which was intended to be a 30 year plan for Melbourne to make it a more compact city) there have been another 1 million people in Melbourne and 16 new plans introduced in 14 years. The latest is “Plan Melbourne Refresh,” very quickly followed by “Managing Residential Development,” which is a review of the Reformed Residential Zones. You would think that our planners could come up with a long term plan but obviously they are responding to different agendas set by developers.
The time has come for all of us residents to take a stand and loudly shout out, “We’re as mad as hell and we’re not going to take this any more.”*
We need to respond to the pressures applied by the development industry, aided of course by 'political donations' made to gain favoured treatment.
Do you want to have some real input into development in your neighbourhood? Well here’s your chance.
Venue: To be held in the Parkview Room, Camberwell Civic Centre, 340 Camberwell Road, Camberwell. Car park at the rear in Inglesby Road.
Date: Sunday 29th May 2016, 2.30 PM.
This event is an initiative of Planning Backlash and is sponsored by the Boroondara Residents’ Action Group (BRAG).
*The quote “we’re are as mad as hell” comes from the film Network in which actor Peter Finch lets out his frustrations and urges his viewers to open their windows and shout out, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore”.
Here is an update on current overdevelopment trends in Melbourne, by Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, with references to height and density, the Property Council of Australia, safety and a new activist group, Victorian Building Action Group.
Well finally the government say they are going to limit building heights in the city. Bit too late as far as I can see. Imagine that we have higher density in our city than New York or Hong Kong!!!!!. And they also say they are going to consult with developers and residents. Can you imagine what the developers will be saying? Let us see if the government has the courage to do it against the wishes of developers. But it seems they are not setting height limits, only density.
http://www.theage.com.au/
The Property Council at it again. They are now demanding that Councils hand over land for development. What a cheek. Peoples rates buy the land that is used for car parking and the land is needed.
Well, banks are stopping lending to foreign buyers - that is good news and in another item, the government are increasing the tax on foreign buyers. Still not high enough tax to be a deterrent. Not like smart Singapore who put on a 20% tax, and that stopped it.
There was recently news of the wall collapse. Now there's another one. Here is the link.You might also like to look at the Facebook of the Victorian Building Action Group, whose issue is the shonky building going on in Victoria and what it is doing to people.
Here is some information on the wall collapse:
These ‘accidents’ are a daily occurrence – here are two on one day!
Re the wall collapse – here are two links: (1.) The Age 20 April 2016: ‘Wall collapse: How the system failed’: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/wall-collapses-at-
This has a short video attached.
(2.) 20 April 2016 Wall collapses at North Melbourne building site: WorkSafe on the scene’: http://www.abc.net.au/news/
Our record on safety, just like our record on building, is worse every day!
To keep up-to-date, Victorian Building Action Group Facebook
at:https://www.facebook.com/vicbuildingactiongroup/
Estonian House, West Brunswick, 24th February
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The crux of this meeting, as presented by Moreland planning staff, is that the previous agreement was voided root-and-branch by the State Government, and in the newly planned Neighbourhood Centres, the allocated zones have been changed somewhat (no-one seemed to recall being given prior notice) and also the previously agreed 3-storey limits (all achieved by quite verbally violent public activity!) have morphed into 4-storey. In the course of the meeting it turned out that 4-storey was not 4-storey mandatory but 4-storey discretionary! The council "hoped" they could make them mandatory. It was impossible despite direct and explicit questioning to find out what was the actual upper height limit is right now, or even if there is an upper height limit.
As previously, there was the muffled threat that this new version of suburban planning, which can only increase occupier density in a municipality with the highest or second highest density in greater Melbourne, was driven by State Government (of a different stripe, but the threat remained the same), and the heavy implication that it might be worse if we did not agree.
There was much volatile discussion around the apparently arbitrary re-drawing of new boundaries---there must always be unfortunate residents who end up next to or surrounded by, possible huge overshadowing apartment blocks whereas across the road it is different.
The Planning guy ( who seemed rather embarrassed; I felt a bit sorry for him) admitted the historically, and also recent, appalling standard of erections in Moreland and also said the Council wished to enforce more stringent standards of good design and superior build quality, but again admitted on questioning that these would also be discretionary.
Others raised the issue of the effect of massive 1-2 bedroom blocks on the current family demographic of this pocket of Moreland. And obviously the failure to account for parallel improvement in infrastructure, most notably public transport but also water, sewage etc. was acknowledged but this point was avoided because all this was a matter for the State and not the Council. Likewise the effect on rates was avoided.
Others had direct stories of fighting developers, achieving modifications on paper which were ignored in concrete, and achieving no redress because what standards there were could be flouted. The stress and anxiety caused by these fights at council and VCAT levels, and the necessity for constant vigilance, were raised quite emotionally by a couple of unfortunates.
An interesting but telling tiny detail was that there were a number of booths set up in Estonian House with Council brochures (the ones with the ridiculously scaled artist's impression illustrating the wide and gracious Boulevarde de Melville). Some residents (who had after all paid for the rent of the hall) also placed sheafs of counter-suggestions and blanks for letters of objection to the proposals in these booths. These disappeared immediately, some were replenished and again they vanished within a minute or two. The presumption is they were taken by council staff who were roving around at all times.
Another interesting detail was that, as far as was visible, we were not graced by the presence of a single councillor.
I went to the one [meeting] at Pascoe Vale neighbourhood Community Hall. People were hostile. They [Council staff] said they were seeking community input for their submission. One resident said;
'Is it going to be like last time when you had the Moreland Rezoning Community consultations. You didn't give an accurate account of our opinions in your submission. No mention how residents opposed increased density, wanted greater protection etc. Instead you said things like, residents wanted better quality apartments etc. What a load of bullshit, you lot are going to do what you want?'
Another lady… said:
'I'm reading through this handout. This is basically a bribe. You're telling us to accept the four storey height limit, because if we don't we'll end up with ten storeys. '
Council officer tried to deny it, but the lady kept pressing and pressing the point that this is a bribe, until the officer admitted in a round about way 'as it stands, developers can apply to build beyond 4 storeys, if we don't have height limits, so we have to put something in place. '
In the draft 1.1 of Neighbourhood Centres Strategy, it states that Plan Melbourne promotes density in defined locations to support a 20minute neighbourhood, where residents will have access to a wide range of local amenities and services. My husband (a Brunswick boy) stood up and said:
'This 20 minute concept was intended for new estate areas. Any residents living in Moreland can already access services and amenities within 20minutes. Within 20min I can be in Brunswick, Coburg, Hospitals in Parkville, Airport West, Essendon DFO, Northland, Moonee Ponds. We don't need density to support the 20min neighbourhood concept. We have it already.’
The artist impression showed block after block of 4 storey apartments surrounding the Pascoe Vale Station, where supposedly people will be able to shop and work near where there live. The station is at the bottom of Gaffney Street hill and commuters take up a lot of parking at the station and in surrounding streets. So where will people park to do their shopping and how many people will walk back up the hill with their shopping? Zilch! They'll go to supermarkets with big car parks. Someone asked if any of these shops and offices, beneath these apartments are going to provide jobs that can pay the mortgage or rent. Are they going to be big volume employers like manufacturing firms in the past, who employed a lot of local residents? Then the officer said:
'The nature of employment has changed from the manufacturing of the past. We're seeing more self employed looking for workspaces close to home. For example, there's a Brunswick artist who is renting a studio close to home.'
Someone sarcastically asked: 'so this artist is going to employ a lot of local people?'
In his Moreland Rezoning submission, Ernest Healy, a former researcher in planning and population at Monash University, has pointed out that 85% of Moreland residents worked outside the municipality. He questioned Council's ability to encourage Moreland residents to work locally.
Questions were also asked about where schools, infrastructure, waste management and services, for example ambulance and hospitals, came into play with all this density. They are becoming overstretched. Strathmore Secondary had to knock back 200 students, including those in the zone. Four portables had to be delivered to Strathmore Secondary and Pascoe Vale Primary, encroaching in playgrounds. Many schools are converting storage areas, locker bays and shelter sheds into classrooms. If density continues, the children won't have a playground. A paramedic I know said hospitals bypasses are increasing…
This madness has to stop. [The mess on] rubbish days in some streets around here is getting worse. So much for the Greens thinking high density is environmentally friendly.
Moreland residents are presently being treated to a new round of ‘consultations’ throughout the municipality, and being indoctrinated by Council staff on the assumed benefits of residential rezoning (radically increased residential densities) and of neighbourhood activity centres as a central feature of the ’20-minute city’. Under this new feudalism, it is expected that residents will access all of their basic material needs and services within a 20 minute walk, bicycle trip, or by public transport. Superficially this may seem a nice idea. On closer scrutiny it is fanciful, so expensive that the necessary additional infrastructure will never be provided, and little more than a pretext for an atrophied Australian business culture dependent upon population growth and capital widening; incapable of building a genuinely modern economy. Selling dirt to China and building a national ponzi economy based on population growth and making each other cappuccinos. Dumb and dumber dressed up as community building and environmental responsibility, but, very politically fashionable – so much so that the left enthusiastically does the economic right’s public relations for it. The Greens on the Moreland Council are a case in point.
That the Moreland Council is conducting a new round of ‘consultations’ on the new feudalism is curious. This is because of the abject failure of the previous round of ‘consultations’ on residential rezoning under the Napthine Coalition government and the subsequent betrayal of Moreland residents on the issue by the Andrews Labor government. The overwhelming message from residents to the pro-density fundamentalism of Council and the Victorian government the first time round was an emphatic rejection of higher residential densities. At the time, the resounding rejection of higher densities by residents served to expose the faux democratic sentiment of the Council planning elite, when Council was subsequently advised, in an official report on the rezoning consultations, that Council should not feel bound to follow mainstream opinion on the rezoning issue anyway.
The latest round of faux consultation is all the more curious because Council’s 2014 rezoning proposal (put to the Coalition government in mid-2014), which at best represented a compromise between the densities that the Moreland city planners were promoting and resident objections to higher densities, was subsequently rejected by the new Labor planning minister, Richard Wynne. As detailed below, the newly elected Victorian Labor government essentially gutted the Moreland compromise rezoning proposal of the key measures that would have preserved some semblance of low-density neighbourhood character in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone.
As thing stand, the current ‘consultations’ are being conducted in a climate of angry disbelief on the part of residents who carry feelings of insult from being treated contemptuously the first time round. Yet, Council and the Victorian Labor government simply proceed as if residents have the word ‘idiot’ tattooed on their foreheads.
From late 2013 to mid 2014, a drawn out and at times heated struggle took place between various resident groups within the municipality of Moreland and the Moreland City Council over the implementation of new residential zones, which foreshadowed a radical increase in residential densities within the City.
Prior to the demise of the Bracks/Brumby Victorian Labor government in late 2010, Labor had indicated that it would pursue a policy of limiting residential growth in some suburban locations within Melbourne, facilitating rapid residential growth in other areas, and allowing intermediate growth in others. On coming to government, the Coalition ran with this three zone residential policy approach, which became a source of heated, ongoing contestation in several local government areas. Moreland was amongst them.
Under the Coalition Government, local governments were charged with formulating proposals for the implementation of three residential zones largely differentiated by the levels of density that each zone would facilitate. Moreland city Council therefore also undertook this task. Generally, the Council and Council planning staff showed themselves to be enthusiastic advocates of increased residential densities, despite resident resistance, on the misguided premise that this would represent municipal progress.
After a series of exhausting public consultation meetings, conducted by the City of Moreland, where the overwhelming sentiment of residents was that increases in residential densities should be kept to a minimum, particularly in the ‘low density’ Neighbourhood Residential Zone, the Moreland Council lodged a rezoning proposal with the Rezoning Advisory Panel of the then Minister for Planning, Matthew Guy.
The proposal that was lodged was a significant compromise, which many residents considered unsatisfactory in so far as it allowed for residential density increases in excess of that considered compatible with the preservation of valued neighbourhood character. Nevertheless, key aspects of the Moreland Council proposal, which rendered this compromise acceptable in some degree to some residents, were the inclusion of minimum lot sizes for new dwellings and minimum private open space requirements in the Neighbourhood Residential Zones (the proposal formulated two variants of this zone – one for the North and one for the South of the municipality). These provisions would have facilitated a significant increase in housing stock within the ‘low-density’ Neighbourhood Residential Zones, while still preserving a semblance of neighbourhood character. In most cases, these provisions would allow single detached dwellings on a single lot to be replaced with two, and in some cases three dwellings.
As the Moreland Council proposal had not been accepted by the Napthine Government before it lost office in late 2014, the proposal subsequently came before the newly elected Andrews Labor government and Planning Minister, Richard Wynne.
Wynne accepted the Moreland Council proposal, but only after the minimum lot size and minimum open space requirements had been removed from the proposal. Therefore, what was already a tenuous compromise between the aspirations of the majority of residents and the pro-density predisposition of the Moreland Council proposal was substantially undermined.
Wynne’s removal of these provisions has effectively gutted the hard won compromise reached between Moreland residents and the Council by mid 2014.
A number of issues are raised about the Minister’s bastardisation of the Moreland residential rezoning proposal.
1. The removal of minimum lot size and minimum private open space provisions of the 2014 compromise rezoning proposal has essentially removed any meaningful protective measures against the type of residential density increases that the majority of residents see as an attack on their areas' liveability. Unwanted development will continue unabated, perhaps now even accelerated. It is simply insulting that Council now describes the Labor Minister’s prescription of 4 dwellings per lot (regardless of lot size) as a formula for ‘minimal’ change. Under these conditions, even in the lowest-density zone, the change will be drastic and destructive of the neighbourhood character that most residents seek to preserve. Such language is bureaucratic manipulation at its worst – again, taking the public for fools.
2. In Opposition, Labor Party figures at times aligned themselves with resident protests against proposed Coalition density increases. That a Labor Government should subsequently impose a rezoning outcome worse than many residents would have expected from the Coalition will almost certainly breed cynicism towards Labor in Moreland at a time when Labor should be presenting itself a Party of meaningful alternatives. This is a missed opportunity. One Victorian Labor parliamentarian was silly enough to add insult to injury to assert to a meeting of informed residents that Labor had saved them from the residential density excesses they would have suffered under a Coalition government.
3. Victorian Labor now represents a greater threat to suburban amenity in terms of density and over development than the Coalition had been. Residents may now begin mobilising against Labor in the same way they did against the previous Coalition Government. Labor party members and supporters will be amongst those mobilising against the Labor government on this issue.
4. Victorian Labor appears to have learned nothing from residents' fierce opposition to the proposed residential density increases under the Coalition government. Labor has just picked up from where the previous unpopular Labor minister, Justin Madden, had left off, as if there were no history in between. The take away message from Richard Wynne's treatment of the residential density issue in Moreland is that the Labor government offers no alternative to the Coalition and has no regard for the struggle of Moreland residents against the contempt of the Coalition government on this issue.
5. The negative impacts of rapid population growth on urban amenity, and growing metropolitan dysfunction, played a significant part in the downfall of the Brumby Labor Government in 2010. Given this, it is extraordinary that the current Labor Government had demonstrated a willingness to ignore the aspirations of residents in a way that will almost certainly reduce its chances of winning the seat of Brunswick at the next Victorian election. Some of the most fierce opposition to increased residential densities was from West Brunswick.
What is Minister Wynne’s attack on suburban amenity in Moreland likely to yield in terms of the built environment? Established separate detached dwellings in Moreland are now dropping like flies as small scale, medium-density developers run riot, reaping the windfall benefits of reckless policy. The photo below provides an example of what is likely to become the norm. This site is just under 570 square meters, which until recently had a modest single detached dwelling on it, with a small yard and garden. Whereas under the Moreland City Council’s original rezoning proposal, this site would likely have been allowed only a single double-storey dwelling, in keeping with Richard Wynne’s bastardisation of the Moreland rezoning proposal, permission has been granted for three double-story townhouses.
Despite the Minister’s fatuous claim that Labor’s rezoning provisions in Moreland will protect valued neighbourhood character against over development, Labor has now ensured the continued destruction of the neighbourhood amenity that the majority of residents wish to protect. Political sophistry at its worst. It is little wonder that many Australians rank politicians with used car salesmen.
Even given the irresponsible levels of population and household growth expected under current immigration settings, in all likelihood, the estimated increase in dwellings required for Moreland would have been achievable under Moreland’s original proposal to the Coalition government in 2014. Wynne’s decision seems to be pure ideology: increased residential density is ‘good’; low-density is ‘bad’.
It is not surprising that Wynne was a senior advisor to former Labor Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe, in the early 1990s. Howe was a zealous advocate of ‘urban villages’, the antithesis of low-density, garden suburbia. To ‘urban village’ ideologues, including those on the Moreland Council, resident wishes are an obstacle to be overcome, not something to be respected. Labor, it seems, is quickly digging itself into a political hole again on urban policy.
AD Good morning listeners, time to think about getting up. (I already have). Just a few news items before we move into the program and here’s GH with the traffic report.
GH Traffic has built up already on the Monash freeway, it's at a crawl along Flemington road due to a pile -up near the Royal Children's Hospital and to cap it all off the morning traffic and commute nightmare, trains on the Sandringham line are suspended due to a derailment at Gardenvale and a signalling failure has caused the boom gates to be locked down on Grange Road Carnegie. Traffic is banked up about 1 km. Apart from these hitches things are running normally in the metropolitan area. Well I suppose this IS normal! ( Laughs ruefully).
AD Thanks GH and now to the weather from CB.
CB It’s warming up now currently 28 degrees with a maximum of 39 expected with, a north wind towards 4.00pm but no cool change on the horizon today. Please don’t leave your children or dogs in the car even for a minute!
AD Thanks CB and now to some environmental warnings, over to the EPA What’s happening?
EPA Well, AD most of the Bayside beaches are closed due to high e-coli measures. If you can, we recommend cooling down at an ocean beach such as Portsea or Torquay and if you have a backyard ( what a quaint expression) swimming pool, then lucky you (few)! For the rest of us, well a cold face washer and a fan is the best I can suggest.
AD Thanks EPA, Well listeners - a scorcher today and very few options for most of us to cool down. I hope people don’t run out of fuel caught in traffic. Well we want to hear from you 1414141 is the number. Today ‘we’re talking about school fees which will now set parents back half a million dollars for one child at a private non Catholic school. How important is it to you to give your kids private school education? How will you be able to afford it? Alternatively please ring in to let us know your "keeping cool" ideas. Now we’ll go to a music break; here is a real oldie from the late Nat King Cole “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.” Anyone remember those days?
The song is played … and AD returns
AD Very nostalgic ….so much so that few of us will even remember when it was current, but those 60s live on, don’t they?
AD Maddison has rung from Carnegie, Hi Maddison, you’re still waiting to get through the boom gate in Grange Rd. How long have you been stuck?
Maddison Hi AD. It’s been 35 minutes now and I can’t even make a U turn to try a different route traffic is banked up bumper to bumper in both directions.
AD That’s very frustrating to say the least. Have you turned the engine off or are you poised ready to go?
Maddison I’ve turned the engine off, but I’m still poised ready to go. I’m a speech pathologist and my first client is due in 5 minutes. Even without traffic I’m still 10 minutes from my place of work. I’m very stressed as I will lose money, if my client goes or I will run late all day if she waits!
AD Thanks for ringing in Maddison. let’s hope you can get through that barrier soon! Now Robert is calling from Frighton regarding school fees. What are you going to do Robert, opt for the local high school? I believe it was once used in a TV series so it has a certain prestige!
Robert Hi AD. My family is really wealthy so if my father sold the bathing box on Dendy street beach we’d be laughing and my son could attend Frighton Grammar from kindergarten to stumps and then my daughter could attend the exclusive Burbank Girls School on the income from my father’s rental properties. But I can see it is a problem for most people to find this kind of money. What I say is that if you have to consider Frighton Secondary then you can’t afford to live in Frighton! Ha ha!
AD Glad things are so easy for you Robert By the way what business is your father in?
Robert Well as you may be able to guess, he is in the property industry. He is a developer and real estate agent. Things have been going very well for us since PM John Howard stuck his foot on the immigration pedal. Of course many of the beautiful homes in the area have been demolished and redeveloped with high density, but at least we still have the family home and I have one just as good. I’ll be splashing around in the pool this afternoon that’s for sure!.
AD Thanks Robert, it’s more than we can take. After the next call we have the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, another Robert - Lord Mayor , Robert Boyle. He's going to talk about where to get a good cup of coffee.
The Lord mayor is regularly invited to 774. He is up- beat about Melbourne's future as a populous international 24 hour city growing fast and furiously. The Lord Mayor likes the city to buzz and he intends to do his bit for the all important ingredient in a city worth of the name, "vibrancy".He is there to give Melbourne its medicine to counteract, with his official status, the influence of citizens' spontaneous expressions of disgust with growth. Welcome as usual, Lord Mayor !
Mark Allen from Population Permaculture and Planning locks horns so to speak with West Australian Planning Professor, Professor Newman, over Melbourne's apartment proliferation, in discussion on the Conversation website relating traffic congestion to GDP rather than to population growth, and where the professor has suggested that increasing low cost, low quality, high density appartments would solve housing unaffordability. (If you wish to contribute on The Conversation site, please hit 'newest' on the 'Comments' section to read the latest dialogue at: https://theconversation.com/dont-panic-traffic-congestion-is-not-coming-for-our-cities-45154)
In a post in Mark Allen and Peter Newman's ongoing discussion Peter Newman has written that he believes that housing in-affordability created by urban consolidation can be solved "by building more high density housing at lower cost." He goes on to say that:
"Many people, perhaps you are one, prevent this as they only want to see high quality high density housing. They have been very successful at stopping high rise in Melbourne especially. This means the rich are moving in and the poor out."
So, does Professor Newman mean that if we build cheap low quality high-rise, we will solve all of our social inequity problems?
Mark Allen (Population, Permaculture and Planning) responded:
Very little of the massively overpriced high density in Melbourne is of high quality. Ironically the very few cases that I have seen of affordable housing have appeared at least, to be better quality, possibly because the architects had more to prove in terms of persuading planners and the community that affordable housing would not "detract" from the neighbourhood. If the standards of high density development in Melbourne were to be reduced any more, we would literally be building slums. Please do not assume that the high prices in Melbourne's apartment market translates into higher quality development. Property developers are using the urban consolidation mantra as an excuse to build high density, mainly for the overseas market and property investors. It is a build 'em quick, sell 'em high mentality. There is absolutely zero incentive for developers to market high density to people on lower incomes here in Melbourne and the investors that are being marketed to do not want prices to be brought down by cheaper units being built. Therefore I have learnt that urban consolidation can only work if a major component is, like you suggest, "social housing". I have also come to the conclusion that higher density development should not be constructed to such a scale that the character, heritage value and green spaces of our inner suburbs are adversely effected. I believe that greater emphasis should be placed on constructing European style medium-density town housing in the middle suburbs where many of the houses built in the 50's and 60's are coming to the end of their lives. There also needs to be a greater emphasis on increasing densities on the urban fringe by building TOD urban villages rather than low density suburbs (admittedly without the public transport but at least there would be an economic reason for it to come, even if it means waiting a few years). Finally we cannot ignore the issue of population growth. There needs to be an open and honest debate about how quickly our population should grow and whether slowing it would allow us time to plan more effectively as opposed to trying to keep up with accommodating ever increasing numbers. To promote urban consolidation as a magic bullet solution without looking at the wider context can therefore I believe, lead to really bad planning outcomes as is happening here in Melbourne.
Thank you for the article Peter. I am concerned however that Australian cities do face an increased congestion problem. Here in Melbourne the population is increasing by around 100,000 a year. In fact our infrastructure will need to be doubled in the next 30-40 years. The government's solution is to house this growth by means of urban consolidation, in this case large amounts of apartments close to railway lines. The idea is that people will use existing infrastructure; utilise the train or tram on their doorstep and car usage will be greatly reduced. The reality is sadly a bit more complex. Every new apartment is provided with a parking space for at least one car and many people utilise that space because while having a train on your doorstep is handy for some trips, it does not cover all of them by any means. So by building transport orientated development we are increasing car- usage in the inner suburbs and ironically as the focus is on creating origins rather than destinations along the public transport network, (i.e apartments rather than facilities and places of recreation etc) more and more car journeys are going to be needed as businesses and places of leisure are displaced by apartment building.
Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University, in reply to Mark Allen
Its not what happens. If you build up densities around stations the main thing that happens is that people use local services much more as well as the transit system. The whole area becomes more walkable and less car dependent. Transit services go up and more local economic activity comes to the area. The cars are mostly left at home and eventually some households get rid of them altogether. It would be much better to have fewer parking spaces available from the start but that is often driven by fearful councillors not wanting people to park on the street.
Its 'not what happens' in theory but there is a growing body of research to show that this is what is happening here in Melbourne. The high price of real estate is such that many of the services currently available in transport nodes are being displaced by residential development to the extent that walkability is being lost. I agree that nevertheless people living in apartments in the inner suburbs will and are making far less journeys by car than those in the outer suburbs, but when you take into account the large numbers of people living in these transport orientated developments, you are looking at an overall increase in congestion by the sheer increase in the volume of people. This is despite the fact that per capita car-use is decreasing. I am not against urban consolidation as long as it is not dictated to, as it is at present, by the market. There has to be a component of affordable housing in the mix or else the construction of new apartments only goes to gentrify the areas in which they are constructed. This forces people on lower incomes to the urban fringes where car use is almost essential. Also, 95% of new apartments constructed in Melbourne are one bedroomed and therefore aimed at a narrow demographic which puts additional pressure on the urban fringe for those people who want to start families etc. Unfortunately I believe that the "increased densities around stations" mantra is being exploited by developers (etc) precisely because it is too simplistic and that it hasn't been subjected to enough scrutiny. I recommend that you strike up conversation with Professor Peter Buxton from RMIT in order to learn more about Melbourne's urban consolidation woes. Thank you for your insights.
Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability at Curtin University
I am not talking theory I am telling you what we have measured happening. I am aware of the discussions in Melbourne and the fear of density being generated. I dont see anywhere that those fears have actually led to what you fear.
Mark Allen in reply to Peter Newman:
Professor Kevin O'Connor from Melbourne university recently made a damning assessment of the way urban consolidation is being carried out in Melbourne, citing the Docklands as a prime example. This follows in the footsteps of a similar assessment by Professor Peter Buxton. I am not talking about my fears here. I am basing my assessment on what academics in the field such as yourself, are saying. I understand that your claims are based upon measurements but the parameters are changing all of the time as the apartment boom continues to accelerate. Of course those parameters also vary massively from city to city.
By coincidence, this article was published on the Domain website today: Low-income renters are being forced to Melbourne's outskirts with areas that were once affordable now out of reach.
Low-income renters forced further to the outskirts of Melbourne
"The biggest drops in rental affordability over the past five years in Greater Melbourne were in the east and south-east; in the Mornington Peninsula, Frankston, Latrobe and the Yarra Ranges municipalities, according to the Department of Health and Human Services rental data.
Melton, Casey and Greater Dandenong – areas traditionally seen as some of Melbourne's most affordable – also recorded a significant decline compared to the rest of Melbourne.
The analysis echoes a similar finding in 2013, which showed Frankston, Greater Dandenong and Casey registered the greatest decline.
The data from the DHHS March Rental Report shows that the majority of Greater Melbourne's 32 municipalities had less than 60 affordable rentals".
Because the apartment boom in Melbourne is aimed at people in the higher income bracket without any thought for affordable housing, suburban sprawl is accelerating. It is a massive oversimplification to say that increasing densities in the inner suburbs stops suburban sprawl. If it is developer driven, it increases it.
Peter Newman in response to Mark Allen:
The issue of affordability in TODs or redevelopment in general is a universal one. You can address it by requiring a certain proportion of social housing or by building more high density housing at lower cost. Many people, perhaps you are one, prevent this as they only want to see high quality high density housing. They have been very successful at stopping high rise in Melbourne especially. This means the rich are moving in and the poor out. It does mean that the rich are driving less, and this is why we are seeing peak car, but our cities are becoming less equitable due to the anti-high rise movement.
>Mark Allen in reply to Peter Newman:
Very little of the massively overpriced high density in Melbourne is of high quality. Ironically the very few cases that I have seen of affordable housing have appeared at least, to be better quality, possibly because the architects had more to prove in terms of persuading planners and the community that affordable housing would not "detract" from the neighbourhood. If the standards of high density development in Melbourne were to be reduced any more, we would literally be building slums. Please do not assume that the high prices in Melbourne's apartment market translates into higher quality development. Property developers are using the urban consolidation mantra as an excuse to build high density, mainly for the overseas market and property investors. It is a build 'em quick, sell 'em high mentality. There is absolutely zero incentive for developers to market high density to people on lower incomes here in Melbourne and the investors that are being marketed to do not want prices to be brought down by cheaper units being built. Therefore I have learnt that urban consolidation can only work if a major component is, like you suggest, "social housing". I have also come to the conclusion that higher density development should not be constructed to such a scale that the character, heritage value and green spaces of our inner suburbs are adversely effected. I believe that greater emphasis should be placed on constructing European style medium-density town housing in the middle suburbs where many of the houses built in the 50's and 60's are coming to the end of their lives. There also needs to be a greater emphasis on increasing densities on the urban fringe by building TOD urban villages rather than low density suburbs (admittedly without the public transport but at least there would be an economic reason for it to come, even if it means waiting a few years). Finally we cannot ignore the issue of population growth. There needs to be an open and honest debate about how quickly our population should grow and whether slowing it would allow us time to plan more effectively as opposed to trying to keep up with accommodating ever increasing numbers. To promote urban consolidation as a magic bullet solution without looking at the wider context can therefore I believe, lead to really bad planning outcomes as is happening here in Melbourne.
Please hit 'newest' on the 'Comments' section to read the latest dialogue at: https://theconversation.com/dont-panic-traffic-congestion-is-not-coming-for-our-cities-45154
The Fairfax media sank to a new low recently in pushing its in-house pro-population bias (in The Age) by publishing commentary on this crucial issue from the Australian Population Institute.
Unfortunately, the article, ‘We should look to the west as our population swells’, by Jane Nathan, 16 July 2015, highlights the way in which the left-liberal establishment in Australia, including Fairfax, now sings from the same song sheet as free-market growth maniacs. While it may be claimed that the population-boosting rant presented in this article is the opinion of the Australian Population Institute and not Fairfax, Fairfax, of course, can exercise considerable bias in its selection of opinion piece commentary. It has a broad menu of pro-population vested interests to choose from. It is worth mentioning that material presented as commentary or opinion does not have to stand up to any serious standard of factual accuracy or rationality in the eyes of the Australian Press Council. Commentary, therefore, provides an opportunity to push an in-house view to extremes without being very accountable about it. Fairfax may respond that ‘balance’ will be struck over the longer-term with the subsequent publication of opposing views. Just when this may occur or whether subsequent opinion would directly address the inaccuracies and bias of commentary like this within a reasonable time frame remains unclear.
The opinion piece presents a one-dimensional account of booming population growth in the western suburbs of Melbourne, with no recognition, let alone discussion, of the potential short or long-term damage that rapid population growth may cause. It is unadulterated propaganda. Without any consideration of such challenges, the core message of the commentary is simple: rapid population growth is manageable and beneficial; the suburb of Sunshine in Melbourne’s west is an example to be emulated everywhere; and such rapid population growth is compatible with the creation and maintenance of thriving harmonious communities.
In advocating this mind-numbingly superficial view, a number of spurious assumptions are made. It is stated that the tertiary-educated population of Sunshine has increased from 21 to 50 per cent, and the number of women working has increased markedly. What are we to make of such claims in relation to the issue of population growth? The implication is that rapid population growth has the effect of spreading wealth around – that population growth has lifted Sunshine up from being a down trodden working class area to one of higher social status. The reality is that Sunshine remains one of the most socio-economically disadvantaged areas within metropolitan Melbourne. The 2011 Census showed that Sunshine remained in the bottom decile in the Australian Bureau of Statistics Index of Socio-Economic Disadvantage.
The implied linkages are logically flawed and factually feeble. Levels of tertiary education have risen across the board over time and would likely have risen in Sunshine to some degree, despite its low socio-economic status, in the absence of population growth. As to the number of working women in Sunshine, the growth is presented in terms of raw numbers and not rates. The cited numerical growth in employed women is likely to be a simple reflection of overall population growth and not improved labour market access for women in Sunshine. In any case, historically, the workforce participation rates of disadvantaged women in poor areas have often been high – out of necessity. The question should be -- what proportion of women in Sunshine has access to decent jobs? No matter how this question may be answered, the links to population growth remain tenuous.
Reference is made to the provision of new infrastructure in Sunshine, to serve the burgeoning population. The suggestion is that without population growth, we would not have such wonderful new infrastructure. Again, there is a worrying absence of balance and objectivity in this claim. It is widely accepted that rapid population growth in Australia, and particularly in Australia’s capital cities, has created a situation of chronic infrastructure shortfall in many essential areas. In this context, to simply say that some infrastructure has been provided in Sunshine, without any assessment of the remaining shortfall, and of the social and economic consequences of such a shortfall, is bewildering. The public deserves a much better standard of public commentary than this.
Just how misinformed the Australian Population Institute is may be gleaned from its website, where it is claimed that current levels of population growth will take Australia to between 25 and 27 million people by 2050, which it maintains is far too little. Where have these people been for the past decade! Current mid-range population projections from the Australian Bureau of Statistics point to around 37.6 million people by that year. That is roughly the equivalent of an additional three cities the size of Melbourne in a time frame of 25 years.
It may not be surprising that someone, somewhere, may hold such a silly, ill-informed view. But, that it should be shouted from the rooftops by Fairfax deserves greater scrutiny. “Centre-left”? Not likely. This is Fairfax at its hypocritical best and music to the ears of the growth maniacs who are constantly at the doors of our political leaders demanding ever greater levels of population growth to keep the gravy train of dumb growth rolling along. Don’t let Fairfax’s preoccupation with asylum seekers, human rights and political corruption fool you. On basic issues of the economy and economic democracy, Fairfax is far to the right of centre.
Contrary to the Fairfax’s in house view, population is not a politically neutral issue, whereby population growth may be reasonably advocated by either the left or right of the political spectrum. Unquestioning advocacy of population growth by ‘left’ intellectuals reflects an historic capitulation to the deregulatory, free-market right. This is particularly so in Australia where, because of decades of economic short-sightedness, the only way to keep Gross Domestic Product growth rates high in the absence of a mining boom is population growth and city building (given the serious structural impoverishment of the Australian economy – we sell dirt and a little agriculture to the world in return for elaborately transformed goods). In reality, the Australian economy’s reliance upon population growth is a form of crisis management, from which particular sectoral interests parasitically and disproportionately benefit (e.g. housing, banking and retail). For these sectors, any correction of the structural imbalance in the Australian economy would be perceived as a dire threat.
Reliance upon population growth is dumb growth writ large and Fairfax’s faux humanitarianism helps the free-market right along its way.
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