This is the motion overwhelmingly passed last Wednesday at the public meeting at Collingwood Town Hall. It was amended by the 3068 group to add a few other groups to the new committee including themselves, CARA and the National Trust.
MOTION
CITY OF YARRA
URBAN DESIGN FRAMEWORK
PUBLIC MEETING
WEDNESDAY 23 MARCH 2005 at 7 pm
Collingwood Town Hall, 140 Hoddle Street, Abbotsford
On behalf of the Collingwood Action Group I move a motion that:
a) the City of Yarra’s Draft Smith Street Mixed Use Precinct Urban Design Framework (February 2005) content and the process that produced it are severely flawed, should be acknowledged as such and be rejected.
b) real community consultation take place and the process be started again with the formation of a Steering Committee to lead this, composed of five members as follows:
Councillors Jenny Farrar and Stephen Jolly
A member of Council Staff
A nominated representative of CAG
A relevant expert agreed by the above members.
c) progress on the Steering Committee’s formation be an agenda item of Council’s Planning & Community Development Committee (PCDC) on Tuesday 5th April 2005 and that the PCDC monitor the Steering Committee’s progress and support its work.
Moved: Cliodhna Rae, Collingwood Action Group
Seconded: Sivy Orr, Collingwood Action Group
BACKGROUND TO THE CAG MOTION
State Government
October 2002, Melbourne 2030, the State Government’s planning policy, was released, designating Smith Street a ‘Major Activity Centre.’
December 2003, the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) released guidelines for preparing Structure Plans for Activity Centres and invited Councils to apply for funding to work on Structure Plans. It appears Yarra did nothing.
September 2004, the then Minister for Planning, Mary Delahunty, announced that Councils could introduce interim planning controls over Activity Centres if they had got started on Structure Plans.
The process for structure planning
DSE guidelines say that structure planning should follow this logical sequence:
1. Get started by identifying the stakeholders and agreeing with the stakeholders on how the process will proceed from here on.
2. Prepare an analysis of the Activity Centre.
3. Agree with stakeholders on the objectives for the centre which are to guide the structure plan.
4. Develop options for achieving the objectives, and evaluate them.
5. Agree with stakeholders on the preferred option.
6. Implement the preferred option, including any necessary amendments to the planning scheme.
What Yarra Council has done
Late 2004, after 2 years’ inaction, Yarra appointed its ‘principal urban designer’ and a firm of architects to prepare an ‘urban design framework’, not a structure plan. They prepared the draft framework in-house, apparently without either consulting anyone or following the steps set out in the DSE guidelines.
The community has not been given a say about either the process being followed, or the objectives for the centre, in direct contravention of DSE guidelines. Instead, the community is being asked to respond to an incomprehensible document prepared by architects and setting out their own views about how Smith Street should develop.
Yarra says it has started at ‘step two’, but its analysis is based on dated material.
The solution?
What is needed is something that enables the community and councillors have a say in the process, while having access to relevant expertise as needed, in areas such as heritage, planning, and process. We propose the formation of a Steering Committee, possibly modelled on the one that ran the process over the Abbotsford Convent site. It needs to be small to help efficient decision-making, and to represent the public, councillors and staff. The Steering Committee’s:
· Role will be to develop and run an appropriate consultation process and ensure it is done properly.
· Membership is not meant to be representative of stakeholders – it can form sub-groups of specialists in areas as needed.
· Reporting line is Council’s Planning and Development Committee so it is accountable to Council.
