North and West Melbourne Association » Traffic and access

Update on Proposed Woolworth’s Development

Bill — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:17:43 +0000

The local resident’s group RAID, Residents about Integrated Development, have organised two major meetings in their campaign to modify the proposed development for site at 101 – 117 Canning Street, North Melbourne.

The following link gives a brief report on these meetings and outlines the eight major questions the group wished to ask the Woolworth’s representatives at the meeting: Woolworth’s update20oct11

The Group has produced a poster which highlights what is and is not acceptable as development in our local area. The Association is supportive of the principles underlying this approach to planning: FINAL_RAID Poster

Woolworths development proposal – Canning St, Vaughan Terrace, Macaulay Road

Bill — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 06:18:32 +0000

A $110 million North Melbourne development proposed by supermarket giant Woolworths.

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

Structure Plan Briefings at June monthly meeting.

Bill — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:17:52 +0000

The Association has arranged for David Mayes and the Strategic Planning Team from the City of Melbourne to brief members and other interested residents on the contents of the two structure plans that affect our area. These are the City North Structure Plan and the Arden Macaulay Structure Plan. The meeting will be held at the Library at 7.30pm on June 21 with general business until 8.00pm when we can move into the larger upstairs library space for the briefing on the Structure Plans.

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.

Rally At Zagame site.

Bill — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 04:29:02 +0000

On Saturday 20th November 2010, a crowd of over 80 attended the protest rally at 577 King Street, West Melbourne. It was great turnout and many attendees held placards to inform both the Zagame staff and the passing traffic of the issues relating to this ten storey high rise development located in a Design and Development Overlay zone that is supposed to be limited to four. Unfortunately, the media failed to arrive but some active discussion and questioning took place during the rally, reflecting the serious concern of those attending.

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.

Meet the Candidates.

Bill — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:57:18 +0000

A very successful event was held in the Supper Room of the North Melbounrne Town Hall on Tuesday night. All seven candidates were in attendance and most questions were responded to by all. The attendance was around 150, which was anticipated by the Association which negotiated the larger space than the upstairs meeting room. We had the usual interjectors but there were some outstanding questions from a broad ranging audience, including many from Kensington.

Protest Rally – Zagame’s at 577 King Street

Bill — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 02:52:03 +0000

The group in West Melbourne who are opposing the ten storey development on the Zagame site at 577 King Street, West Melbourne are organising a pre-election protest rally on the site on Saturday 20 November 2010 at 10.30 am. Interested Association members are invited to attend.

Have a look at their website www.nohighrise.com

August and September Meetings

Bill — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 06:46:07 +0000

We confirm the earlier advice that the August monthly meeting on Tuesday, the 17th at 7.30pm, in the library, will host a Meet the Candidates for the Federal election for the seat of Melbourne. Most of the candidates have accepted the invitation. Members are encouraged to bring neighbours and friends.

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.

TPM-2010-15 Zagame – Corner Roden and King through to Stanley Street.

Bill — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:54:20 +0000

West Melbourne has been jolted into the reality of planning politics in the twenty-first century with official support for the ten storey development on the Zagame site in King Street by both the State Government and the Melbourne City Council. If approved, this project establishes a precedent for wholesale high rise redevelopment of West Melbourne and North Melbourne, at heights and shapes that were not possible under previous planning regimes. It introduces all that is ugly, intrusive and inefficient in building form and will do little to raise overall standards of amenity for inner city residents. Look at Docklands and Southbank as the models.

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?

Municipal Strategic Statement Consultatiion

Bill — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:32:25 +0000

The City of Melbourne is holding a consultation on the MSS at the Melbourne Town Hall.

This is a matter of great importance to the planning regime that will exist in the future for North asnd West Melbourne and for the whole municipality. See the City of Melbourne Website www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/BuildingandPlanning/Planning/planningschemeamendments/Pages/C162.aspx

Information sessions

Information sessions will be held at the Yarra Room, Level 2, Melbourne Town Hall, 120 Swanston Street, Melbourne, on the following dates:

Residents

Wednesday 21 July

6pm to 7.30pm

RSVP by Friday 16 July to mss@melbourne.vic.gov.au

Planning professionals and all businesses

Wednesday 28 July

8.30am to 10am

RSVP by Friday 23 July to mss@melbourne.vic.gov.au

Regional Rail Link community information sessions

Bill — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 04:25:48 +0000

In line with the recent announcement of major transport plans, an NWMA member (and

presumably others in Railway Place) received in the letterbox on

Monday 13 July a further update about the Regional Rail Link. Items of

interest include:

• the two new tracks between Southern Cross Station and Sunshine will

be built at surface level largely within the existing rail corridor

and through the Footscray area

• a new rail bridge will be built over the Maribyrnong River

• there will be new dedicated rail tracks from West Footscray to Sunshine

• existing V-Line track will be used between Sunshine and Deer Park

• some privately held land will need to be acquired for the rail

link’s construction

• major works are expected to begin in 2010

Information sessions are being held at several locations between 15

and 20 July.

Our local one is at North Melbourne Town Hall next

Friday, 16 July, between 3.30 and 7.30pm. Regional Rail Link team members will be in attendance.

The community is encouraged to attend and to provide feedback on the project at the information sessions. There will be feedback forms there. We can also make written submissions by

Thursday 19 August 2010, addressed to:

Mr Corey Hannett, Executive Director

Regional Rail Link

Department of Transport

PO Box 2797

Melbourne Vic 3001

More info from:

W: www.transport.vic.gov.au/rrl

E: rrl@transport.vic.gov.au

P: 1800 107 925

Please disseminate this information to everyone you think should know

about it.

Department of Transport Website www.transport.vic.gov.au