 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| In the month after our October 2002 Annual General Meeting the Bracks
Government was re-elected with an historic majority in both Houses of the
Victorian Parliament. Its posting, to every metropolitan household in the
leadup to that election, of Melbourne
2030 - its plan for dealing with the expected addition of another
1,000,000 people to the Melbourne metropolis over the next 28 years - was
no barrier to its success. That rate of population increase amounts, every
three years, to an extra new municipality of over 100,000 extra people
with all its extra buildings, roads, traffic and demands. That 1% per annum
increase, together with a predicted rate of economic growth of 2-3% p.a.,
is a portent of considerable new pressures on the essentially small, fixed
area of public open space that is the remnant foreshore of Port Phillip.
Most of the nearby hinterland, which is freehold, will suffer further subdivisional
and overdevelopment pressures, and will rapidly become much more expensive
to buy for public purposes. More people, with more to spend, will inevitably
generate strong pressure for many developments harmful to the remaining
natural environmental qualities of that foreshore and the sea near it.
Both public and private organizations seem to be already taking their cue from the essentially unopposed 2030 Plan in working towards introducing huge marina developments in Port Phillip. Frankston Council is still actively persisting with its objectionable 1997 proposal to fill in and build over much of the sea in front of Olivers Hill. Olwen Bawden has ably represented PPCC Inc. in forums on that issue. Mornington Peninsula Shire and the Victorian Government have supported the revival of a plan for a large Safety Beach marina that has been dormant for a decade. The Royal Brighton Yacht Club has been permitted to extend its already large and damaging rock breakwater by 30 metres at the same time as its longer-term plans for a doubling of berths, closer to the shore, have been uncovered, and publicized, by PPCC Inc. and Brighton Foreshore Preservation Association Inc. Earlier plans for a marina, including the use of Council land reserved for the purpose at Duncans Road, Werribee, have been revived and expanded. At least one 18-storey building is now being mooted as part of that marina proposal. PPCC Inc. has written to relevant federal and state MPs urging protection of the former Defence Department land that the Federal Government is selling at Portsea and Point Cook, with weak limitations on its future use. The threat of obtrusively inappropriate use is particularly feared at Portsea, but the Victorian Government has declined to buy that land for public purposes. Fortunately, the welcome Marine Parks and Sanctuaries involved no land purchases. Several Committee members have attended "information sessions" organized by the Victorian Channels Authority, additional to those of the previous 12 months, but these have not worked towards our accepting the channel deepening proposal, as Len Warfe's motion to be debated later indicates. A new, and alarming, aspect of the shifting scenario that the VCA is revealing is a proposal for placing one or more artificial islands in Port Phillip as a way of disposing of the 30 gigalitres of spoil expected, which is totally opposed by PPCC Inc. Policy Statement No. 11. A rare victory resulted from PPCC Inc.'s decision to join certain citizens in appealing to VCAT against a proposed skateboard and BMX installation on the Rye foreshore that would have covered 1000 sq. metres of it with concrete, and that Mornington Shire and the Victorian Government had approved. VCAT ordered this year that a permit must not be granted, on the key ground that the Victorian Coastal Strategy deprecated such non-coast dependent uses. PPCC Inc., in its submission to an Independent Panel, was on the side of a minority of Williamstown residents, who included Hon. Joan Kirner, in opposing the perpetuation of the present vehicle track almost on the beach at the Point Gellibrand Heritage Park. The Panel's recommendation has yet to be accepted by the Minister for Planning. PPCC Inc. and Brighton Foreshore Preservation Association Inc. have submitted to Bayside City Council their view that the Brighton waterfront is an inappropriate site for a missing link in the Elwood to Hampton bicycle road, and have urged an inland route. PPCC Inc. has joined Beaumaris Conservation Society Inc. in pressing for the Beaumaris gap in Bayside's bicycle road to be built entirely on the road reserve for Beach Road. Len Warfe, Senior Vice-President, attended the Association of Bayside
Municipalities Annual Dinner this month, being invited by its outgoing
President, Cr Margaret Bell of Mornington Peninsula Shire, as I was unavailable.
Geoffrey Goode, President
|