Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
MEDIA RELEASE 29 JULY 2010
PLANNING CATASTOPHE FOR MELBOURNE AS VC 68 PASSES PARLIAMENT
This morning Planning Minister Madden’s revised Planning Amendment, now re-badged VC 68, was fast tracked through Parliament with the support of the coalition – Liberals and Nationals – who had, over the past year, held out against inducements to approve this toxic planning amendment. (Only the Greens and DLP MP’s stood firm.) This represents a catastrophe for Melbourne as it will see rezoning of land from rural to residential on the City’s fringe and so extend our notorious urban sprawl.
Brian Walters SC, President of Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc. comments:
” The community opposes these changes. Extension of the urban growth boundary will destroy green wedges, the lungs of Melbourne. This amendment will take 43,600 hectares out of the western, northern and Cranbourne South green wedges for housing development, freeways and freight terminals. The losses include: 5,000 hectares of environmentally significant Western Basalt Plains grasslands; the grassy woodlands of the Maribyrnong and Merri Creek catchments, with their magnificent red gums; and 4,000 hectares of the South East food-bowl, where highly productive market gardens using recycled water double as Southern Brown Bandicoot habitat. Our Green Wedges have been sacrosanct for generations. There was no mandate from the people to dispose of this legacy.”
Julianne Bell Secretary of PPL VIC: points out :
“It is also forecast that extension of the urban growth boundary will result in the creation of numbers of “dormitory” settlements without advance provision of infrastructure and services. It will greatly increase car dependency with people needing several cars per family and so worsen Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions. (This is ironic given the Brumby Government’s recent announcement of work to control carbon emissions by the part closure of Hazelwood power station.) Monash University Centre of Population and Social Research forecast that from 1.97 million cars registered in Melbourne in 2006 there will be over 3 million by 2036. Our city will then be in permanent traffic gridlock.”
Community groups are now waiting for another bombshell from Planning Minister Madden – he is reported to be attempting to put through another planning amendment which will approve high rise (22 stories plus) along tram, bus and light rail routes as a means of accommodating the expected 1.5 million more people in Melbourne by 2036. This will result in further congestion of the major transport routes and condemn the population of flat dwellers to ill health. (Anyone who lives within 500 metres of a main road is threatened by developing asthma and cardiac-respiratory diseases.) The Brumby Government is fast turning Melbourne into one of the great unliveable cities of the world.
Inquiries: Julianne Bell Mobile 0408 022 408 Brian Walters SC Mobile 0411 020 967