Green Wedges Coalition - A vision for Melbourne

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.     

 

The green wedges are, as successive premiers and planning ministers have said, the lungs of Melbourne. With a city already gasping for breath, Melbourne's lungs are about to be choked with urban sprawl. This government land grab will be a cancer, not just in the proposed new growth corridors but in surrounding areas, where developers are expected to buy up environmentally and agriculturally significant grasslands.

 

The Green Wedges Coalition calls on the government to call off this plan for gross unnecessary destruction of the environment and of fertile farmland which provides food for Melbourne. It contradicts:

·         promises by the former Planning Minister Rob Hulls that the 11,500 ha of land taken from the green wedges after the Government’s Smart Growth Committee process in 2005 would last until 2030;

·         promises by the present Planning Minister Madden not to undermine his predecessors’ achievements,

·         recommendations by last year’s Melbourne 2030 Audit group (accepted by State Government) that no further change to the UGB should be considered for at least five years.

 

 The Government has also dumped the developer levy it announced to provide for infrastructure in 2005 to avoid development delays and has imposed a new levy on land sales in the new urban growth areas. We doubt this will ever be collected either. 

 

This destruction is unnecessary: please see the attached analysis by Jenni Bundy of the Green Wedge Protection Group which demonstrates that the Government has miscalculated its land supply figures and that there is enough land within the current UGB to last until 2030. Increasing the development density in urban growth areas would also make housing more affordable. Instead, the Government is prepared to hand green wedge land that makes Melbourne a liveable city to developers for McMansions and suburban sprawl.

 

The Government has investigated the environmental significance of this land – so it can if it wishes protect the most significant remnant grasslands and woodlands - but has done nothing to assess its value for sustainable agriculture in relatively high rainfall areas near the city. These investigations were hasty (over one instead of four seasons).

The12,000 ha of grassland reserves to be provided as a trade-off are welcome, but are no compensation for the better quality grasslands we believe will be left inside the new UGB. We fear this is just a green smokescreen for environmental vandalism.