Last Wednesday, the Legislative Council of Victoria approved C95 for the city of Yarra – turning a large chunk of land on the banks of the Yarra into a prioirty development zone.
The Hansard makes very interesting reading, and we would like to thank Greg Barber (Greens) and Peter Hall (Nationals) for their outstanding support in trying to defeat C95, as well as Peter Kavanagh from the DLP who also voted against it.
(See our original story regarding this development)
We had strongly urged the Legislative Council to vote NO for this amendment, and had sent the following letter to all Victorian MP’s –
Vote NO to C95 this Wednesday (21/11) – Yarra Priority Development Zone
Dear Legislative Council Member (and Legislative Assembly Members, for you info)
As you may be aware, C95 from the City of Yarra will be coming before you for a vote quite soon, possibly this Wednesday.
We strongly urge you to vote AGAINST this planning amendment as it involves establishing a Priority Development Zone on the banks of the Yarra river near the corner of Victoria and Burnley Streets in Richmond.
The community have been fighting this development from the first day we found out about it, to no avail. The proposal bypassed Yarra Council, completely ignored the local Urban Design Framework (developed with extensive community input) intended to protect the banks of the Yarra, and ignored the State Governments hollow rhetoric about protecting the Yarra river.
Essentially, it is a massive tower complex that is going to dominate the surrounding area, including heritage precincts. It should be made more sympathetic to the area by increasingly setting the upper levels back from the river reserve and from abutting established singe-storey residential areas.
C95 will, if you approve it, rezone the area to become a Priority Development Zone. This would mean the development could go ahead without following the normal planning processes – ie, the Planning Minister will become the Responsible Authority, Yarra Council will have no further influence over the project, and residents will no longer have any appeal rights for any development of the land in the PDZ.
Vote NO!
Ian Quick
President
Save Our Suburbs (Vic)
For a copy of the SOS submission to the Priority Development Panel, see http://www.sos.asn.au/files/SOS_VicGardens_Submission_Final.pdf
For our original article on this development see http://www.sos.asn.au/news/VicGardens.htm
Note, the following was in our PDP submissions –
Priority Development Zones are structurally flawed.
The Priority Development Zones deny natural justice to residents, in removing the residents’ right to appeal Councils planning decisions, while RETAINING the developers right to appeal.
This means the developer gets ‘two bites of the cherry’ but residents cannot appeal Council mistakes or interpretations.
Even though the planning system in Victoria is biased towards developers, and the PDP has the function of facilitating and fast-tracking development, this is probably one of the worst ‘features’ in any part of the planning system today.
The PDZ should be changed to either allow all appeal rights to be retained by everyone, or to remove them from everyone (so that the developer HAS to do what Council approves).
The following MP’s voted to stop C95 –
Barber, Mr
Drum, Mr
Hall, Mr
Hartland, Ms
Kavanagh, Mr
Pennicuik, Ms
State MP fights for council rights in Parliament
The Melbourne Times, 31/10/2007
BY BIANCA HALL
STATE MLC for the Greens, Greg Barber will today challenge the State Government’s right to take control of development sites from local councils.
Mr Barber plans to use the Parliament to prevent Planning Minister Justin Madden from having land rezoned as “priority development”.
“It’s a little-known fact that all planning amendments can be disallowed by the Parliament if either house decides to do so,” he said.
The Greens will need the support of all Liberal, National and DLP MPs to win the motion 21 votes to 19.
Mr Madden infuriated Yarra councillors in August when he seized control of the Yarra Gardens precinct, owned by Salta Properties. The decision overrode the council’s controls on building height and river setbacks that had been endorsed by former minister for planning, Rob Hulls.
The effect of the decision was to allow for taller buildings to be built closer to the river.
Yarra is seeking an urgent meeting with Mr Madden, concerned the State Government again intends to wrest planning control from the local authority. The minister has asked the state priority development panel to assess two more parcels of land 601 Victoria Street and 42-50 Flockhart Street for rezoning.
“Council feels that it should remain the responsible authority for the two new parcels of land,” Yarra mayor jenny Farrar said.
“Neither of these parcels is of state or regional significance, and they can be appropriately managed by council through existing statutory controls. Mr Madden has also asked the panel to review the as-of-right retail and office floor area provision in the Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre zoning.
“The council fears this would allow for the expansion of the shopping centre and argues any application should be put to the council, not the Government.
We already have the tools in place to address these issues without ministerial intervention, (and) we want to avoid another situation where the minister’s decision contravenes our approved Urban Design Framework for the area,” Cr Farrar said.