THE dream of rural living in Kingston’s Green Wedge is over. A report by consultants Meinhardt delivered to Kingston Council has rejected the idea floated by a narrow majority of councillors.
Council asked Meinhardt to investigate the possibility of a Rural Living Zone in areas of the Green Wedge – between Kingston and Heatherton Rd and Centre Dandenong Rd and on the eastern side of Tootal Rd in Dingley Village – but the consultant noted landfill buffer zones made residential development impossible in the near term in the two areas.
The Meinhardt report cost ratepayers $87,000 despite Kingston Council having previously spent about $340,000 on a Kingston Green Wedge plan by consultants Planisphere that was formally adopted by council in 2012.
Kingston mayor Cr Geoff Gledhill defended the use of ratepayer money to commission a further report on the Green Wedge.
“My view always has been that the Green Wedge Plan that the last council adopted was, to me, unfinished as it left a number of questions unanswered,” he said.
“In many ways it’s a worthy document and a worthy plan … [but] the last remaining piece was never addressed.”
Cr Gledhill said the Planisphere report had never investigated a Rural Living Zone option in the Green Wedge so “naturally we kept getting questions from landowners in that area”.
Councillors have been bitterly divided on the future of Kingston’s Green Wedge during the past few years.
At last month’s public council meeting Cr Ron Brownlees, a long-serving councillor and five times mayor, railed against the establishment of Melbourne’s green wedges by the Hamer government in the 1970s.
“I guess we go back to ask why the Green Wedge zone was put in place in the first place. It was done with little consultation with the people who live in it and the landowners who own 80 per cent of the land because the government at the time were pandering to ‘the greens’, a minority group, to get their support.”
The Australian Greens political party was formed in 1992.
Cr Rosemary West said Planisphere had not investigated the option of rural living because the consultant was working within the parameters of the state planning scheme which prohibits residential development in the green wedges.
“But this council does not respect the planning scheme so this council decided to spend another $160,000 [sic] to get another consultant to provide us with ‘strategic justification for what we want to do’ but it was never possible,” she said.
Cr Tamsin Bearsley was at the forefront of the push to look at rural living options in Kingston’s Green Wedge and noted the Meinhardt report showed landfills in the environmentally-sensitive area had made residential development impossible.
“[Landfills] have always been a large blight in Kingston’s Green Wedge but this report just shows how much they’ve impacted on other people’s land,” Cr Bearsley said.
“I’m glad we all agree on phasing out the landfills and that we are making it happen. However, the impact of the landfills will be felt by our community, particularly by our private land owners, long after the last hole has been filled.”
Crs Bearsley, Brownlees, Gledhill, Paul Peulich and John Ronke backed the production of the $87,000 report from Meinhardt. Crs Tamara Barth, David Eden, Steve Staikos and West had opposed the move (‘Wedge report ‘a waste of money’’, The News 17/12/14).
Cr Peulich admitted “concerns with the costs” of the report to ratepayers.
“I do think the community bearing the cost of $150,000 [sic] for extra strategic work is unfortunate,” he said.
“Should those affected in the community be contributing? Quite possibly and I would most certainly advocate for that in the future.”
The Meinhardt report did leave open the possibility of land at Springvale Rd and Governor Rd in Braeside being rezoned for residential development.
Councillors agreed to write to Labor Planning Minister Richard Wynne and the Metropolitan Planning Authority to ask whether this is possible before spending further ratepayer funds on more consultants’ reports.
Early last year The News revealed Mentone Grammar had written to Planisphere requesting the consultancy firm consider recommending its Keysborough playing fields in the Springvale Rd area be removed from the urban growth boundary, potentially paving the way for the sports fields to be sold off for residential development.
Planisphere recommended the playing fields remain outside the urban growth boundary and council kept the elite private school’s submission confidential.
Mentone Grammar was forced to write to students’ families to confirm the school had sought “maximum flexibility for possible future uses of the land in contrast with the current zoning’s more limited uses” after The News revealed its confidential submission.
Cr Gledhill told The News last week there had been no recent correspondence between the school and council about the playing fields.
At last month’s council meeting Cr Brownlees noted businesses and landowners had asked council to investigate rezoning parts of the Green Wedge.
“If people make money out of it, so what? People make money out of changing land use and selling businesses every day of the week. That’s their business and that’s their right providing they do it within the law,” Cr Brownlees said.
“Sometimes you have to make a difficult choice and I choose the lives of those people who live in the Green Wedge and have made that request to us.”
The Springvale Rd land, including the Mentone Grammar playing fields, will remain outside the urban growth boundary if the Planning Minister dismisses council’s latest query about rezoning the area.
This article was amended on 5 August 2015. The earlier version stated “the Meinhardt report cost ratepayers $164,000” and “Crs Bearsley, Brownlees, Gledhill, Paul Peulich and John Ronke backed the production of the $164,000 report from Meinhardt”.
Kingston Council has advised Meinhardt was hired to do work to the value of about $160,000 but the contract was split into two parts, the first part (stage one) was the technical feasibility report and this cost $87,000, not $164,000 as originally stated.
First published in the Chelsea Mordialloc Mentone News – 5 August 2015
