Green Wedges Coalition - A vision for Melbourne

MEDIA RELEASE 27 April 2004
GOVERNMENT HOLDS THE LINE ON GREEN WEDGE ZONES
- environment and community groups back Bracks Government completion of task
The Green Wedges Coalition congratulates the Premier, Mr Bracks, and the Planning Minister, Ms Delahunty on their continuing leadership, courage and vision shown in today’s finalisation of the new green wedge zones. This is a welcome final step in a process to protect Melbourne’s Green Wedges for future generations.

By replacing all of the existing non-urban zones with the new green wedge and rural conservation zones, Ms Delahunty has held the line on behalf of the vast majority of citizens who love and value their green open spaces against a small minority of vested interests seeking to achieve windfall gains by carving up the Green Wedges for real estate subdivision and inappropriate developments.

In the 18 months since the green wedge protection package was launched in September 2002, our coalition of more than 156 environment and community groups has called on government to hold the line drawn at that time and to shore up its gaps. In this time, the government has received and considered a wide range of submissions from Councils, interested parties and concerned individuals and community groups including ours. We have regretted some of the compromises, but we face the fact that the art of compromise is integral to the democratic process.

In that time, some developers and landholders and their friends on councils have orchestrated a campaign to undermine and defeat the green wedge protection package and to exploit loopholes.. We are satisfied that the action taken by Minister Delahunty last week to call in an application for a broiler farm at Rockbank, which would have ruined the amenity of existing green wedge landholders, signals that she will hold the line in cases where green wedge amenity is threatened.

The final consultation with Councils has produced some sensible amendments, eg to clarify the position of green wedge landholders so that prior rights to build on undersized allotments will be maintained. The new zones will bring the certainty for which Councils, landholders and communities have all been calling.

We call on Councils to hold the green wedge line locally and council planners to balance their more obvious role of facilitating development with an awareness of the significance of green wedges for the amenity of local residents, the community at large and future generations, not for the minority of landholders who bought cheap rural land and hope to achieve windfall gains by selling it for development. Melton Council provides a good example by its support for the Rockbank landholders’ opposition to broiler farms.

We have not had time to examine the detail of the amended zone provisions, but we are confident they are strong enough to deter developers who have in recent years spent large sums employing clever consultants to get around the green wedge provisions. More importantly, we are confident that this Minister will provide any necessary further interpretations necessary to block such attempts for instance to introduce de facto residential development
into green wedges in the guise of residential hotels or group accommodation.

Developers should now turn their endeavours to the urban moonscapes and extensive growth corridor land where their efforts will be welcome and necessary if they work to increase the density of new developments in activity
centres and respect the claims of heritage, environment and amenity of existing resident.

We honor the memory of Sir Rupert Hamer, whose Liberal Government first established the Green Wedges in 1971 and who was a supporter of green wedges to the day of his death, when some of our members spoke to him at Parliament House and thanked him for his most valuable contribution. We hope his Liberal successors maintain his vision and assist us to hold the line against inappropriate green wedge development.