Green Wedges Coalition - A vision for Melbourne

160 community & environment groups across Melbourne have formed a coalition to protect Melbournes green wedges. We regard maintaining the green wedges for future generations as a yardstick for our generation’s commitment to developing a sustainable city in a sustainable world.

GOVERNMENT GREEN LIGHT FOR DESTRUCTION OF GREEN WEDGES

Environmental and green wedge groups call on Government to stop green wedge land grab.

State Government plans to be released tomorrow (Wednesday) for a green wedge land grab of nearly 23,000 ha are the most serious threat to green wedges since the Bracks Government introduced the UGB to protect them in 2002. The green wedge land is to be handed to property developers, following a report last December increasing Melbourne’s population target from 4 million to 5 million.

The plans will expand the Urban Growth Boundary around new growth areas which include some of the State’s best remaining native grasslands. Ecologists say their biodiversity rivals Kakadu, yet Government is giving developers a green light for the destruction of grasslands, wetlands and grassy woodlands.

2009-06-16

Brumby tackled on urban sprawl

PLANS to contain Melbourne's urban sprawl are "stone dead" and the city's cherished green wedge zones are in danger, according to a leading planner who has worked closely with the State Government.

RMIT University Associate Professor Michael Buxton has slammed plans by Premier John Brumby to expand Melbourne's urban areas by at least 23,000 hectares - mostly in green wedge areas.

STOP BUILDING BUSHFIRE FODDER

– Green Wedge groups say keep housing development out of the fire-prone areas.

State Government wants to change the native vegetation protection rules to encourage householders to clear more trees from around their houses (Land-clearing laws to change in wake of fires, The Age, 24/2) yet paradoxically also proposes to release another 23,000 hectares of green wedge land for development, much of it in fire-prone pastures and woodlands.

SUBMISSION on proposed Urban Growth Boundary Changes – Melbourne@5 Million

We wish to object to ANY changes to the current Urban Growth Boundary (UGB).

Areas for investigation the Government has identified have NO STRATEGIC BASIS and are based on flawed policy and beliefs. The majority of these areas are inappropriate for urban development as were many of areas on the outskirts of Melbourne that were devastated this month by bushfires. Numerous consultation and community submissions (including from the Green Wedges Coalition) over recent years have provided the Government with more than enough information to understand the benefits and needs of the Green Wedges, suggesting that this current exercise is merely a political move to grab more land for developers and that any “consultation” will be nothing more than lip-service.

SUBMISSION TO GROWTH AREAS AUTHORITY: URBAN GROWTH BOUNDARY REVIEW

Dedicated to Jenni Bundy, Secretary of the Green Wedges Protection Group
Who died in the Nillumbik green wedge bushland she worked so long and lovingly to defend

1. Background

The 1968-71 metropolitan planning process officially established nine Green Wedges as non-urban zones between Melbourne's main urban development corridors. It outlined acceptable non-urban uses, including recreation, flora and fauna conservation, landscape protection, resource utilization and farming. The protection of public land and of public open space - including Crown and public authority land - is integral to the first two of these uses, but not necessarily to the others.

Why UGB expansion plans are seriously flawed: analysis by Jenni Bundy

Tue, 10/02/2009 - 16:30 — Rosemary

The Melbourne @ 5 Million documents and consequent plan to expand the UGB to provide further green-field residential land from Green Wedges, announced in December 2009, are based on incorrect and deeply flawed land supply estimates. These invalid figures are the basis upon which the Government has deemed it necessary to move the UGB.

The figures require amendment and other relevant planning and particularly, economic factors require re-examination.

The following analysis demonstrates some of the mistakes incorporated into the plan for proposed outward movement of the UGB.

We seek State Government's timely decision and announcement that the proposed review of the UGB IS cancelled for the present lime, and that no further review will be examined internally for at least 5 years, as recommended last year by the Government’s Melbourne 2030 Audit report.

2009-02-07

Rezone refused to protect 11Ha grassland

MELTON councillors have slammed the Department of Sustainability and Environment's objection to the council's proposal to rezone the Truganina precinct.
The DSE has refused the C65 amendment, which would rezone the rural land to industrial, because of significant native vegetation on one of the properties. The department has requested that 11hectares of grasslands on a 77-hectare property be retained and that a native vegetation precinct plan be prepared.

Thin edge of the wedge

GREEN Wedge campaigner Barry Ross fears the State Government's plans to fast-track development in Melbourne's growth areas show it has "capitulated" to developers.

He said he feared Green Wedge land, which includes parts of Keysborough and Bangholme, could be next to go if the land earmarked for the Government's planned Urban Growth Zone was not used effectively.

His home is his castle

A MELBOURNE family are fighting to build their huge dream home in the city's green wedge, after neighbours moved to block the palatial proposal. Keilor's Michael Saba has big plans for his 4ha Sunbury property, with a planning application for a two-storey, 2728sq m home -- including 12 bedrooms and 16 bathrooms -- now with Hume Council.

Horrified neighbours say the mansion will ruin the rural landscape and create an environmental disaster. Led by the property's closest neighbour, several opponents have formed a group, Residents Against Eyesores, to fight the big plan.

Future Sunbury growth row

A SUNBURY developer has called for urban growth boundaries to be extended around the town to ensure Sunbury can push for better health and transport facilities.

Glenn Ingram said last week a population boost for Sunbury would reinforce the need for a 24-hour hospital and electrified rail.

His call to release more land has sparked a debate about the permanence of the growth boundaries and the green wedges, with the State Government insisting that it would not move on the issue.