Council Public Meeting on Banco/Smith St - report back

Last night's Council's-run public meeting on the Banco development was a great success for the community. 200+ locals piled into Collingwood Town Hall past an excellent Socialist Party stall and banner, and reading the SP leaflet on the issue at hand.



In our leaflet we supported the community push that led to Council knocking back the Banco development, and we also supported the community having much more input, involvement and control of the process to develop an alternative development plan for the area. We encouraged attendees to support the Collingwood Action Group's (CAG) resolution calling for a 5 person committee to oversee the alternative plan (SP Councillor Stephen Jolly, Green Councillor Jenny Farrar, a CAG rep, a rep from Yarra's Planning Dept, and an expert agreed by all sides).



The meeting started in a very tense fashion with a paid facilitator outlining an agenda that many felt left little time for community input. Cllr Farrar made it clear to CAG and me that she did not support the CAG resolution, despite CAG believing they had reached an agreement with her the previous night.



After a couple of 'official' speakers from the platform, who all faced hard questions and even heckling from the crowd, CAG in effect moved a suspension of standing orders about 45 minutes into the meeting to hear their resolution and debate and vote on it. This was passed overwhelmingly and a debate opened up over the need for a bottom up, not top down approach plus some debate on where Council's draft plan could be improved.



The 3068 community group moved an amendment to add a rep from themselves, the National Trust and a few other community groups on the committee. This was agreed to by CAG.



I spoke last outlining the weaknesses in Council's alternative plan. It is a list of guidelines not binding limits and is therefore next to useless in VCAT. I also argued that the 'guidelines' even if turned into strict controls would need strengthen eg in relation to height limits, developer contributions to social services, setbacks on Little Oxford St, funding for conservation works and more. I argued that the new committee will make the process more democratic and the result better.

Ironically after arguing that the Fitzroy Residents Association (FRA) should be on the new Group, FRA leader and ALP identity Geoff Barbour then voted against the motion!

Unfortunately for the ALP, the amended resolution was passed unanimously leading to great celebrations by CAG, 3068 and many more.



SP raised $28.50 in fighting fund on the night. The meeting was covered by the Melbourne Times, Yarra Leader and Channel 31.