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.

The minutes for the July Meeting will not be circulated until the September Meeting.  The September meeting will also host Kate Greer from Climate Communities, Sustainability Victoria, as a speaker, to follow up on initiatives in the inner area of Melbourne and  on the issues raised in the vertical gardens proposal, which was discussed at the July meeting.

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

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.