We still need to see the Minister about outstanding issues and Kevin did meet with him as part of a delegation yesterday (15 November).

The review will consider the appropriate number of the councillors for the municipality and whether the City should be divided into wards.

For more information click here: http://www.vec.vic.gov.au/reviews/Melbournerr.html

Please read the attached document which gives you some background about this review, including:

• What will the Melbourne City Council Review cover.
• What is the electoral representation review process for Melbourne City Council.
• How to make a submission to the Melbourne City Council.

Representation Review?

We would like to canvass member’s views about this review.  If you have any input on any issues that are of concern to you, or comments or questions, please email us.  It is important that membership views are included in any submission that we make.  We will inform you of any
process that we may adopt to formulate a submission.  This will no doubt involve our monthly meeting on he 15th November.  Please note that submissions need to be made to the VEC by the 24th November 2011.

We encourage members to consider the issues that we have had with the Council over a number of years, particularly over planning, with issues such as Woolworths, Latrobe Close, Zagame, Structure Plans, Royal Children’s Hospital and the loss of parkland, its priority for heritage with issues such as  the demolition of the grandstand at the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve, to mention a few.  We also need to consider social issues such as the reduction in funding to The Centre in Errol Street, North Melbourne and the North and West Melbourne News.  Questions like whether our views and interests been adequately represented on Council need to be asked. How does the Council need to be reformed to improve the quality of decision making in this City and to make the Council more accountable to its electors and not the top end of town?

The plans include two residential towers of 16 and 10 storeys, a supermarket of over 4000 m2 and an attached bottle shop.  Also include are 9 specialty shops and a restaurant and 645 car parking spaces, about evenly divided between the residents and the supermarket.

The Association is very concerned about the precedent that this proposal establishes for this area of North Melbourne.  Being over 25000 m2, it is to be decided by the the Minister of Planning.  The Council will make a representation to the Minister on its views of the project.

We have put in an objection to the Minister and have written to the City of Melbourne Councilors.

We are concerned that the Council does not repeat its process on their input to the Windsor Hotel decision where their submission was developed behind closed doors and where there was no transparency.

We have obtained electronic copies of the plans for all to see:

• Book of Plans, April 2011 (24MB) – here
• Urban Context Report, July 2011 (94MB) – here
• Traffic Impact Assessment, July 2011 (3.9MB) – here
• Waste Management Plan, April 2011 (2.9MB) – here
• Environmental Wind Assessment, June 2011 (2.1MB) – here

There have been a number of briefings already held but the Association believes that the implications of these Structure Plans for our suburb and community are so profound that we we need to work strongly on raising public awareness of their contents.  They do not conform with our views about how the future of our local area should be managed and  so we need to be clear on what is being recommended and what avenues are available to us to make inputs into their adoption process.

You can view the documents on the plans at the City of Melbourne website.  Please use the following links.

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/getinvolved/StructurePlans/ArdenMacaulay/Pages/ArdenMacaulayStructurePlan.aspx

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/getinvolved/StructurePlans/CityNorth/Pages/CityNorthStructurePlan.aspx

We encourage all members to attend and please invite any other committed North and West Melbourne people who are interested in our future.

We congratulate the Melbourne Leader on the support that it has provided to raise awareness of these issues around the performance of the City of Melbourne.

Please refer to the following links:
http://melbourne-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/melbourne-council-review-after-10-years-of-difference/
http://melbourne-leader.whereilive.com.au/news/story/city-faces-shake-up/
http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/1055-electoral-review-of-melbourne-city-council.html
http://corba.org.au/CORBA/DEMOCRACY_files/CoRBAPosition.pdf

Marchers pacing up and down in front of the car showroom clearly made the point that we would not be going away. Car horns sounded their support.  A resounding “No” was sounded by attendees to the following statements: Did we like the development including ten storey boomerang and 259 units?  Should the authorities allow the proposal to go ahead?   Has the City of Melbourne done enough to support the West Melbourne Structure Plan?  Does this proposal respect the requirements of DDO29, keeping the height limit to four storeys?

Emphasis was made of the need to be prepared to attend the Central City Standing Advisory Committee, possibly on the 21 of December at 5.00pm.

We are inviting all candidates for election to the House of Representatives Seat of Melbourne to participate. Nominations have only just closed.

Please put this date in your diary.

Regards
Kevin Chamberlin
Deputy Chairperson

Around thirty local residents of this Roden Street vicinity attended a briefing meeting in the Zagame showroom on Monday, 26 July at 6.00pm.  The meeting, hosted by the Zagame Family and their advisors, outlined the details of their application for the residential development of their very large 5000m site – Remember;  large sites equal extra large developments. The application has been made to the State Department of Planning as the project is over 25000m2 in size.

The project features 259 units             -           119 one bedroom

                                                                        118 two bedroom

                                                                        8 three bedroom

                                                                        Plus a number of multi-storey units facing the streets.

The boundary units are the only part of the development which conforms with the current Design and Development Overlay(DDO) over this area in that they are not over 14 m(4 Stories) in height.  Unfortunately, the main body of units are part of a ten storey ‘boomerang’ spine that stretches from close to the Roden King Streets corner to the middle of the site on the south west boundary ( allowing for a 5m setback) and then parallel with that boundary toward Stanley Street.  It is this ten storey development that is of most concern to the residents.  It is completely out of kilter with the heights that have been traditionally part of this area.  We do not need this sort of Docklands style development in West Melbourne.

Other concerns that come immediately to mind.

1                    If we believe the developers, and we do not have much reason not to, they were strongly encouraged, by both the Council and the State Department of Planning to develop this site to this level of density and height, and possibly even more.  This is our State Government and our Council, so democratic in their image,  that are so clearly working against us as residents.  The up-coming State election in November provides us with the opportunity to test the responsiveness of all candidates, and especially the incumbent ALP, on these matters.  As for the Council, we have been dudded by both the Kennett and Bracks/Brumby Governments who ensured that the Council does not represent us as resident ratepayers.

2                    The developers seem to believe that resident objections are only based on their loss of lines of sight toward the City.  Our concerns are broader than that.  Privacy and overlooking are certainly part of this, but this was trivialised by the developers at the meeting.  We are also concerned that we do not need the shadows cast by these towers denying broad areas to the south access to the sun.  The designers thrive in a planning environment that stipulates all shadow diagrams should be done at the equinox and ignore the rights of others who are overshadowed badly through the winter months around the June solstice.  This project shows commendable commitment to using solar energy on its rooves.  However,

• How many other sites are they disadvantaging through the shadows that they create, unless they go higher and higher. 
• How many lines of sight will also be lost by this wasteful competition?
• And what about aesthetics?  What ugliness and bulk do we have to look at on a daily basis! 
• What congestion do we have to tolerate on the streets and in the shops?  There are not enough car parks on site for one for each unit.

3                    When placed under some resistance to their plan, the developers threatened to ignore the residents and plough ahead with the support of the Department of Planning and the Council.  They claimed they did not have to brief us.  They did not concede that this proposal would have benefitted, had they consulted with residents before the plans were prepared.  When questioned, they stated that they would not compromise on height.

•  When will the locals have some constructive say in the future development of the ‘community’ in which they live?

4    The orientation of the high rise does not utilise the northerly aspect in an efficient way.

Where to Now?

The developers agreed to inform all participants who provided their email and postal addresses of where they could access a copy of the plans.

Future Action

1        We have a list of email addresses to form the basis of future communication

2        We need to clarify the right to object and the process we must follow with the Department of Planning.

3        We need to maximise the number of objections and letters to the press and appropriate authorities.

4        We need to work on the Minister’s process for making a decision and try to make it transparent, in terms of how and where the decision is made and the criteria on which it might be based.

5        Do we want to appeal the Department of Planning decision to VCAT, should it go against us, as it may well do?  We will not have the Council’s back to ride on as we did with 87-101 Roden Street.

6        Our activities do need to have as much support as we can generate. Every one must be prepared to pull their weight and provide funds, if necessary.

7        Do we need to exert political pressure especially on Bronwyn Pike as our local member and a senior Minister in the Government that allowed these projects to be taken out of the hands of the Council?

8        Do we wish to organise some public protest meeting/s to let the politicians know what we think of their planning scheme?

9         We also need to consider the future impact on our area of the Council’s new Municipal Strategic Statement (MSS) It has the potential to make the planning of this area between Roden Street and Dudley Street much worse in terms of allowing height limits to increase and towers to proliferate.  The developers made indirect reference to these proposed changes in justifying the project.

10    Dare I suggest a meeting to consider these issues?

CORBA had meet with Lindsay previously on the issue of Melbourne City 
Council (MCC) reform. He was very supportive of the need for reform 
and offered strong views on some aspects of the problem. The CORBA 
position paper on MCC reform, supported by the NWMA , is on the 
website of CoRBA ( www.corba-melbourne.com )and this may be reached through the link on the NWMA website.  www.nwma.org.au

Lindsay pointed out that he had raised the matter with Richard Wynne, 
the Minister for Local Government, who advised that the Government was 
satisfied with the current  MCC structure and electoral system and no 
review would take place. The NWMA understands from a number of sources within the 
ALP that Richard Wynne actually wants the MCC reformed, but our Local 
Member Bronwyn Pike and the Premier John Brumby do not. Hence, the 
Cabinet position of no reform prevails.

Lindsay undertook to discuss the matter further with Richard Wynne after he had met with CoRBA and to write to him again requesting a comprehensive review of the MCC.
For example, the election  system and structure of the MCC is so unjust, as it is never required to be reviewed.  Every other municipality in Victoria is  required by the Local Government Act to be reviewed every two terms.  A  number of other aspects of the MCC election system and structure are  also of concern as they are designed to reduce the influence of small  business and residential groups and hence undermine the democracy and good governance in our Council.

Please refer to the CORBA position paper for a comprehensive 
presentation of all the reasons for reform of the MCC. You will be 
very surprised at how undemocratic the system is and how the Labor 
State Government actually made the system worse than the one left 
behind by the former Liberal/National Government.

Several other matters affecting individual CoRBA members were raised generally supporting the CoRBA dissatisfaction with the Council structure, voting system and consequent performance. These included:

• Latrobe Close and the use of Federal stimulus money to provide social housing in a way that excluded community input, ignored the planning scheme and would be to the long term detriment of the intended occupants;  
• the housing scheme on the Carlton Public Housing Estate creating an exclusive gated community;
• the thwarting of the purchase of a suitable facility for a community centre in Carlton;
• the decision on the Swanston Street upgrade, involving a process that failed to take into account the needs of  affected business interests, especially small business;
• the process for the purchase of the JH Boyd site in Southbank, by the City of Melbourne, which has failed to provide much-needed open space for this intensely developed area by selling off a major part of the site for further intense development and has failed to consult properly with local residents; and
• totally inadequate consultation with the community by the Council.