On Sunday 17th November 2024, I had attended a community walk in Brighton to send a message to the Allan Labor Government that we say “No to Labor Towers”.
It was an extremely fabulous turn out. Mr James Newbury MP, Member for Brighton and Shadow Minister of Planning estimated about 2000 people turning up to have their say.
We are yet to organise something for Boroondara at the time of this blog post.
Background
On Sunday 20 October 2024, the Allan Labor government announced a further 25 Activity Centres are close to Train Stations and Trams. This announcement is the first part of an overall announcement of 50 Activity Centres to be announced by the Allan Labor Government before the end of this year.
This group of Activity Centres promotes the development of density of up-to 20 stories in the activity centre core, and then 3-6 stores in the catchment area. It was announced in August 2024 that there would be catchment area is a 800 walkable distance (10 minutes) from each activity centre.
This announcement was to leverage the work completed by the Victoria Planning Authority with collaboration with the Department of Transport and Planning via the Community Reference Group for the development of the 10 Initial Activity Centres.
I was a member of the VPA Camberwell Junction Community Reference Group (CRG). I had participated in the two workshops (May 2024, September 2024). In my own experience, the CRG was a ‘Consultold’ process. It was a heavily guided facilitated workshop. The VPA did not allow the discussion of objective views on appropriateness, discussion of current infrastructure and the future needs of Infrastructure. We were heavily encouraged to put forward ideas in how we can ‘sell’ to our community to Love This proposal. I am not alone in my experience, a number of other participants have also expressed their concerns.
Initial Activity Centres
For those who have followed closely, Activity Centres development started with the initial 10 Activity Centres announced in March 2024. These Activity Centres include:
- Broadmeadows
- Camberwell Junction
- Chadstone
- Epping
- Frankston
- Moorabbin
- Niddrie-Keilor Road
- North Essendon
- Preston-High Street
- Ringwood
What had been proposed with this Activity Centre’s is the development of the Core Activity centre to include more density in the core activity centre, to allow the development of more apartments to allow “more people to live where they love to live”.
The initial plan for Camberwell Junction, would allow encouragement of up-to 12 Stories to be developed directly in the catchment area. They also planned for a scaled down development outside of the core Activity Centre of 3-6 stories. Further details on what would be called the catchment area would not be detailed until August 2024.
“As part of our landmark Housing Statement we’re enabling 60,000 more homes to be built across established suburbs, ensuring more Victorians have access to affordable housing close to services, jobs and transport. We want to hear from communities on how best we can accommodate more housing choice, while ensuring their suburbs maintain their liveability.”
The next group of Activity Centres
With the announcement of 25 further Activity Centres, here in Boroondara (Impacted suburbs including: Camberwell, Canterbury, Hawthorn, Hawthorn East, West Hawthorn) we share the despair that is being experienced in those communities.
In Boroondara, there was the further announcement of 3 Activity Centres being Auburn (Auburn/Hawthorn East), Glenferrie (Hawthorn) and Hawthorn (West Hawthorn) Train Stations. This brings significant development of Catchment areas in Boroondara.
We are receiving signals via the Premier and the Minister for Planning that this plan will proceed without the need for further ‘Genuine Consultation’. This will provide significant change across our communities which we already have significant heritage across these areas. This will also place an significant amount of the 69K housing target for Boroondara within this locality.
The additional communities announced include:
- Serviced and will benefit from the Metro Tunnel
- Carnegie
- Hughesdale
- Murrumbeena
- Oakleigh
- Middle Footscray
- West Footscray
- Tottenham Station
- Belgrave/Lilydale Line
- Hawthorn
- Glenferrie
- Auburn
- Blackburn
- Nunawading
- Mitcham
- Frankston Line
- Toorak
- Hawksburn
- Armadale
- Malvern
- Sandringham Lne
- North Brighton
- Middle Brighton
- Hampton
- Sandringham
- Glen Waverley Line
- Tooronga
- Darling
- Gardiner
- Glen Iris
- Centres
- Toorak Village
This is not the end of announcements to be made by the Allan Labor Government. There have been some signals raised by the Premier about developer contributions being shared across Victoria for Infrastructure, not just in the locations impacted by densification. More will be said about the ResCode changes over the coming weeks, which is a significant change in its own right.
In December 2024, we are also expecting the recommendations from the initial 10 planning centres being delivered to the Minister for Planning I would not expect a long period of time to pass before the Minister is to provide a ministerial direction to change the Planning Schemes for each of the 10 Activity Centres. We also might get a little more answers on whether the Allan Labor Government will preserve Heritage Overlays for which 48% of the Camberwell Junction Activity Centre catchment area includes.
A Movement in Photos
Residents in Brighton are looking to voice their concerns about the proposal ‘decision’ by the Allan Labor Government. The rally was large to include the concerns of residents from Boroondara, Stonnington and even residents from Ballarat also turned up to show their support. This is in fact a State-wide movement. A movement that is and should not be wedged in political colours.
Residents have also been looking for avenues to share their voice and to then voice their concerns. Residents have not been consulted on these proposals.
The decisions of the Allan Labor Government have been carefully planned and crafted during the time of Local Elections. Also whilst council is not an effective advocate during this time, this is designed to quell community opposition to these significant changes.
For Boroondara’s experience, the announcement of the catchment areas were made extremely close to the caretaker period of council, which effectively does not allow council to conduct advocacy during the election period, as this can be seen as electioneering by current council taking favour with current sitting councillors.
More Information
- Premier Announcement: 29-Mar-2024 - First Look At Housing Plans Across Ten Melbourne Suburbs
- Premier Announcement: 22-Aug-2024 - More Homes – Faster – Near Jobs, Transport And Services
- Premier Announcement: 20-Oct-2024 - We Need More Homes Close To Train Stations And Trams
- City of Boroondara: Victorian Government changes to planning
- Change.org - We need Proper and Genuine Consultation for the Camberwell Junction Activity Centre
- Camberwell CRG - VPA Workshop 2 Presentation
