Melbourne’s City of Port Phillip won no less than three awards and one commendation at the Victorian Division of the Royal Australian Planning Institute/Local Planning Association Awards held in August. Mayor Dick Gross said the awards confirm the City’s outstanding leadership and path breaking work in urban planning and design.
Port Phillip is located on the inner urban fringe of Melbourne’s CBD and is bordered by bayside beaches. It is highly prized for ‘development opportunities’. Council’s Manager Strategic Planning and Facilitation, Steve Dunn, said Port Phillip has aimed for balance in its approach to planning. He said it is experiencing pressure for redevelopment due to the large number of people who wish to move into the area.
While there is ample room for development to take place, particularly on old industrial sites, Council and the community want to retain other valuable aspects of the area. “We held extensive consultation with residents, in the form of six well attended forums, to ascertain the community’s preferred future for the area,” he said.
With the assistance of these forums Council identified the parts of the City with special heritage characteristics, those areas that could accommodate change and those that could not. “The challenge is to accommodate the development push in a way that protects valuable aspects that are already here,” Steve Dunn said.
Projects which received the Awards were the Neighbourhood Amendment Scheme, which allows for research on the heritage and character of an area plus height and development controls, the Port Phillip Community Housing Program, Kerbside Trading guidelines and the Shopping Centre Management and ‘Think Tents’ project.
The latter brought 3,000 comments from local people on planning proposals. Mayor Gross said the RAPI judges were ‘bowled over’ by the City’s Community Housing Program. “So many people are being forced out of Port Phillip by sky rocketing rents and the conversion of rooming houses into apartment buildings or individual residences,” he said.
“Our community housing program is a key initiative in retaining traditional residents and ensuring a proper social mix. “It is now the largest Local Government housing program in Australia and the most innovative.” Steve Dunn said a strong message was delivered in the forums that residents have a high degree of support for community housing projects
Dick Gross was also gratified that Port Phillip won the Urban Planning Achievement Award for its Neighbourhood Amendment to its Planning Scheme currently being evaluated by an independent panel appointed by the State Government.
“If you listened to some of the more rabid elements of the development community and their highly paid QCs you would think our planning scheme will destroy civilisation as we know it,” he said. “Instead, it merely seeks to nurture appropriate and sensitive development.”
For further information contact Steve Dunn, telephone (03) 9209 6666
