- Another icon falls
- Boundary growth ‘betrayal’
- Brumby tackled on urban sprawl
- Future Sunbury growth row
- Her green vision should be hailed
- His home is his castle
- Madden backflips overturning VCAT order protecting Green Wedge golf course
- Minister Madden Still
- Please no second sellout
- Protest against 46,000Ha to be ripped from Green Wedges - Tues 14th July
- PROTEST RALLY - Parliament House - 24th Nov, 12:30pm
- Rezone refused to protect 11Ha grassland
- Stop 'land grab'
- Tax thwarts future plans
- Thin edge of the wedge
- UGB hits families
- What NIMBYs?
What NIMBYs?
It’s reassuring to learn from Tim Colebatch (No room for NIMBY Syndrome, The Age 6/4) that we have abundant affordable housing on Melbourne’s fringe. No doubt we’d have more, closer to public transport and services, if large developers were not land banking and if overseas investors were not speculating in our housing markets.
Tim’s critique demonstrates the folly of State Government efforts to rezone 43,600 ha of green wedge land, including western basalt plains grassland, red gum grassy woodlands and fertile farmlands, when the resulting suburban sprawl would cost taxpayers up to $100b for infrastructure, above and beyond the proposed $2b Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution on landholders, many of whom are unwilling to sell.
But who are these NIMBY “interest groups” that Tim says “keep telling us to zone more fringe land for housing?” Key community planning groups including Planning Backlash, Protectors of Public Lands and Green Wedges Coalition, have worked together to oppose the Government’s proposed extension of the Urban Growth Boundary.
I don’t know anyone except developers and MPs who support the Government’s green wedge land grab. If there are NIMBYs pushing development on the fringe, they must be thin on the ground.
Rosemary West