THE completion of the Kingston portion of the Bay Trail has been delayed again due to an appeal to VCAT.
The Kingston Residents Association lodged a “last minute” appeal to the administrative tribunal after councillors voted in August to grant a permit to remove vegetation to build a 1 kilometre section of the Bay Trail between Charman Rd and Mentone Life Saving Club.
Councillors have been split on how much tea tree and scrub should be pulled out to pave the way for the shared bike and pedestrian trail.
Cr Ron Brownlees said the KRA’s “last minute” intervention was “a pretty ordinary turn of events”.
“It’s fairly disgraceful that a group who claims to represent the community would try to deny the use of the Bay Trail to so many Kingston residents,” Cr Brownlees said.
Kingston councillors have been debating the best way to build the municipality’s section of the Bay Trail for more than seven years.
Bayside and Port Phillip councils have finished their sections of the Bay Trail.
The state government advised Kingston Council in early 2011 that VicRoads would have “no objection” to narrowing the four-lane parallel section of Beach Rd since the outer lanes are 3.7 metres wide, more than the 3-metre minimum requirement.
Councillors have rejected that option.
Cr Brownlees said the section of the Bay Trail between Charman Rd and Mentone Life Saving Club could have been completed “by Christmas” if the KRA had not lodged the VCAT appeal.
KRA president Maureen Lim did not return telephone calls from The News requesting comment.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News
A subsequent letter from KRA president Maureen Lim was published in the Chelsea Mordialloc News dated 29 October 2014:
No need for Bay Trail delay
WHEN the Kingston Residents Association appealed the decision by Kingston Council to clear vegetation during construction of the Bay Trail, we did not intend to delay its construction. Nor do we believe this will be the result.
This decision still has to be approved by Planning Minister Matthew Guy, who took more than 12 months to approve the Mentone Structure Plan. So, it is hard to see how the council would have had approval to have the job completed by Christmas, as Cr Ron Brownlees claimed.
All of our groups want the back-of-kerb Bay Trail that council resolved to construct in February 2013.
Our groups and the four minority councillors want the council to minimise the removal of native vegetation for the trail.
Council is planning to remove as much vegetation as possible, and to take more vegetation for an extra parking lane on the gravel verge, despite the fact that cars could still park in the left-hand traffic lane as they do elsewhere on Beach Rd.
No doubt some beachside residents will be pleased if their views are improved by the removal of this foreshore vegetation.
We appealed to VCAT, requesting mediation, so we could have a discussion with the council which has not engaged in any meaningful consultation over the Bay Trail, or even, it seems, discussion with their councillor colleagues, except perhaps with their beachfront friends.
Had the council agreed to mediate a compromise, there would have been little or no delay, but it has refused to mediate and I have called a meeting of the appellant groups to decide where we go next.
