Retrofitting the West
Council is participating in a fantastic initiative led by the City of Maribyrnong to supply, and install a suite of residential retrofit services to maximise state and fed rebates currently available eg. solar hot water, free energy/waste/water assessments/green loans info/insulation etc

Aboriginal Artefacts in Brimbank
After many months of trying to get Council to facilitate contact with Aboriginal Affairs to acknowledge a local resident (in my ward) who has discovered aboriginal stone tools along our local section of creek, Aboriginal Affairs are finally coming to Brimbank to take a look next week!

Community meeting
I have called a community meeting for this Wednesday night with our local Greens branch to discuss the Ombudsman’s report and other local emerging issues in Brimbank. This will be the first time the community has had a chance to discuss these important issues in a public forum like this.

Sunvale PS site
This is a complex issue that on the face of it looks like it supports increased housing development in an area that is close to a train station etc and would be in line with Greens policy. I have opposed the Council’s position on this development because on closer inspection it is simply supporting a sell off of the primary school site to developers. There has been no consultation with the Sunshine community over the development of this site but the community have been continually asking for it. When community members became aware of the possible sale, SUNRAA wrote on their behalf to both the Minister and Brimbank Council CEO Nick Foa to outline what they thought the site should be used for. When Council conducted the ‘Creating Better Parks’ community consultations the participants were unequivocal about the need for more open space and community meeting facilities.
Now that Council has decided it will work with the Sunshine community to advocate to the State Government to keep the Sunvale site for community use, I believe we need to ensure that Council’s desire for a partnership is genuine.
We will not be successful in this campaign if we cannot work together and genuinely listen to the needs of our community. When community members became aware of the possible sale, they were led to believe a separate discussion on the development of the site would take place. This has not happened.
Nevertheless when Council conducted the 'Creating Better Parks' community consultations the community said loud and clear that it needs more open space and community meeting facilities
They did not say they wanted a sell off to developers.
Even though councils current position says its preferred option is 0.8 of a hectare retained for public open space, it also says it is open to negotiation and it does not stress the importance of us getting a better deal because of severe disadvantage
It also concerns me that the report is saying we advocate for affordable housing without specifying what that is.
We all know that affordable housing/social housing can mean a multitude of things – none of which have been properly discussed with our community. It can mean a sell off to developers who are going to build what they can most cheaply to maximise their profit. It can mean social housing with tenants that are in supported accommodation. It can mean public housing and it can mean housing that is owned by welfare groups.
The only genuine affordable housing is public housing. But again if this is what we want there needs to be proper consultation - because we all know it has been done very badly in the past .
And if it was going to be public housing, it has to be a project of high quality, attractive, environmentally sensitive houses that you and I would like to live in and that ensures a mix of people live there.
If we push this through as it is we will be missing an opportunity to work with our community and together lobby the state government for a fantastic opportunity to have a great community asset Ecoliving centre support Council recently voted to support the construction of a CERES of the west by VU on council land (for a peppercorn rent).

Watergardens Priority Development Panel (PDP)
Recently Minister Madden has given the building approval process back to Council! We can only hope he is feeling the pressure from community groups all over Victoria...and there will be more of this happening in the immediate future. This step has meant that Council has been able to renegotiate a land deal for community hub/youth space and because of this we look like getting a much better position for the space.
Unfortunately prior to this, the PDP has worked hard to push Council to support increased retail floor space for this gross and unsustainable development. At the last meeting of Council we adopted a recommendation to accept that increase in the retail floor space at Watergardens Shopping Centre. The increase is something the developer, QIC, have been wanting badly as it has enabled them to secure a Myer department store.
While it might sound great to shoppers to have a new Myer in the area, developments like these are not good for local jobs or for the sustainability (walk-ability or liveability) of a neighbourhood. They mean that the shopping centre is 'inward looking' (i.e. an inside development that you have to drive to) rather than being a real town centre that interacts with the local neighbourhood and provides truly local services.
The Sunshine community is very well aware of what happened to its vibrant shopping strip in Hampshire Rd when Council allowed the development of the 2 monstrous shopping centres to be built along the edge of the precinct - and we are now faced with more of the same poor development decisions at Watergardens.

Refugee Week in Brimbank
Sun 14th June - Sat 20th June 2009
Council celebrated Refugee Week with a lunch in Sunshine and lots of useful information from council officers about services for newly arrived families.


Unleashing Melbourne's sprawl - Brumby-style
Plans to contain Melbourne’s urban sprawl are effectively stone dead and the city’s cherished green wedge zones are in danger. I learnt that Planning Minister Justin Madden had plans to seize control of sections of suburban Melbourne and Geelong to speed up development. The Minister's intentions were exposed in Parliament when a key piece of his planning legislation was defeated last week.


RMIT Associate Professor Michael Buxton, a prominent urban planner who has worked closely with the State Government on the 'Melbourne 2030 Plan' (October 2001) has slammed Premier Brumby’s plan to expand 23,000 hectares into the green wedges. Strangely, Premier Brumby said that the blocking of the legislation by the upper house was “the height of irresponsibility by the opposition", and he is planning to reintroduce his legislation to the parliament unchanged.

DACs Out
The State Government has proposed changes to the Planning Legislation Amendment Bill 2009 to establish Development Assessment committees (DACs).

LABOR FAILS IN BID TO STRIP PLANNING POWERS FROM COUNCILS FOR ACTIVITY AREAS

The Brumby Government’s latest attack on the rights of local communities – the Bill to establish Development Assessment Committees (DACs) – was defeated this evening by non-government parties in the Upper House.

The Labor Government wanted to use the Planning Legislation Amendment Bill to strip local government of planning powers and give planning authority to a body of unelected Labor mates appointed by Planning Minister Justin Madden.

I will be watching this space with very closely.

Development Assessment Committees
The Minister for Planning, Justin Madden, announced today Amendment VC56 will take effect from Friday.
The amendment makes him the planning authority for all Commonwealth “Social Housing Initiative” and “Building Education Revolution” projects. Whilst the school projects will be on school land and probably won't have any impact on local amenity, it denies the community any say in how they wish to see these projects develop.

The social housing initiatives are a big worry too. Firstly, it remains unhelpfully vague what is meant by 'social housing'. Are we talking developers building cheap and nasty units and houses on tiny blocks of land that will be sold off at market prices? Are we talking about supported accommodation? If so, what sort of support and services will be provided? Are we talking public housing? If so, are we talking about ghettos of people with high levels of disadvantage being lumped together?

We, the community need to be a part of these discussions and let it be known that we want high quality public housing that is of a standard any Australian would be proud to live in. So that living costs and environmental sensitivity are factored into the design and where people on very low incomes live side by side with middle class people with skills to lobby government for improved services. They must have high quality open space and playgrounds, a town centre (not a shopping centre) and have all the other facilities and services such as schools, community centres, and community health centres within easy walking distance.

Greens Call for New Elections at Brimbank Council. - Letter to the Age