Media Releases

Protecting Green Wedges in a parallel planning universe - GWC AGM

The Green Wedges Coalition (Green Wedges Guardian Alliance Inc)  AGM is being held on Thursday 24th November 2022 at 7:00pm by Zoom (see link details below).

Guest Speaker: "Protecting Green Wedges in a parallel planning universe" by Emeritus Professor Michael Buxton, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University

Click the Zoom link  to attend.

Last call: THE GREEN WEDGES NEED YOU NOW

Please email or submit online to the Government’s consultation

Closing date for submissions: Friday 5th February 2021
 

The Green Wedges are under the most serious threat since the 2010-12 land grabs and the 2013 removal of protections. If you are having problems with the long-form on-line submission guide we sent out earlier, please try the attached short-form submission guide, or use it as a pro forma for a submission you can submit by email.

The State Planning Minister, Richard Wynne's 2018 election pledge was that “A re-elected Andrews Labor Government will permanently tighten controls to better protect Melbourne’s green wedges against over development, with the protections enshrined in legislation”

But some of the options his Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) has put out for consultation would spell death by a thousand cuts around the edges of the Green Wedges as illustrated above. Their proposed "transition" area would blur the Urban Growth boundary with a grey border of suburban sprawl, rezoned to Rural Living zone or Farming zone, where urban uses like concrete crushers, data centres, schools, places of worship, bars, motels, car washes and motor repairs would be encouraged as shown above, and the Green Wedges would shrink  to half their size.

AGM Presentation by Professor Michael Buxton

Warm thanks to the 44 members and supporters who attended our AGM by zoom on 8/12/20.  After the existing committee  was elected unopposed, we heard from our patron and guest speaker, Emeritus Professor Michael Buxton, planner par excellence and author of more than 80 books and papers and 20 research projects. His latest book is  The Future of the Fringe: The Crisis in Peri-urban Planning.  

Highly relevant to his AGM topic, the latest government options paper: Planning for Melbourne’s  Green Wedges and Agricultural Land, which sets out to improve Green Wedge protection but has some disturbing options.

Introducing Prof. Buxton, our president Kahn Franke suggested his next book could be titled: The Precarious future of the Fringe. 

Please click below to hear Professor Michael Buxton presentation to the AGM

AGM reminder

This is a reminder that the Green Wedges Coalition (Green Wedges Guardian Alliance Inc) is being held on Tuesday 8 December 2020 at 5.30 pm. A copy of the agenda is attached. It is being held remotely by Zoom (see link details below).

Most importantly a presentation is being given by Professor Michael Buxton, Centre for Urban Research, RMIT University on Green Wedge and peri-urban issues.

Minister breaks election pledge to protect Green Wedges

Green Wedges Coalition

    -  a vision for Melbourne                                     

                                                                                                                       2/12/ 2020

MEDIA RELEASE

 

Minister breaks election pledge to protect Green Wedges

 

The Planning Minister Richard Wynne has broken his election promise to protect the Green Wedges from inappropriate development by:

Allowing schools in bushfire prone green wedges puts children’s lives at risk

The semi-rural hamlets of Narre Warren North, Narre Warren East and Lysterfield are reeling from a sudden influx of five proposals for places of worship and schools in this tiny corner of the Southern Ranges Green Wedge, and the Western Port Green wedge is experiencing its first threat in Devon Meadows.

For six months or more, the ferocious fires devastating our eastern states have dominated the news. Why then are schools and places of worship still permitted uses in Melbourne’s high risk Green Wedge Zones?

This is especially inexplicable in the Southern Ranges Green Wedge where the whole region is in either a Bushfire Management Overlay (BMO) or a designated bushfire prone area, with large tracts of forest to the north through to the west. Bringing large numbers of people – especially children – into such a heavily timbered area on a regular basis is a recipe for disaster. (Ref: Addendum 1. Bushfire Risk)

How to vote for Green Wedges

MEDIA RELEASE

How to vote for the Green Wedges

The Green Wedges Coalition has recently met with the planning spokespersons for each of the State parliamentary parties, with generally good results. 

All parties support a permanent Urban Growth Boundary to protect the Green Wedges from urban development.  We hope this encourages land-bankers and developers who have bought up Green Wedge land in the hope of windfall gains from rezoning to sell to genuine farmers and conservation landholders.

Green Wedges to be protected and refreshed in latest Metropolitan Planning Strategy

The good news in Minister Wynne’s new Plan Melbourne Refresh is that Melbourne’s Green Wedges are safe, behind the locked-down Urban Growth Boundary that was an election pledge of the Andrews Government.

More good news is that the new plan builds on and provides much-needed detail to former Minister Guy’s original 2014 Plan Melbourne, which also committed to a permanent Urban Growth Boundary.

RALLY TO STOP THE PLANNING DISASTER

Matthew Guy is proposing planning changes that would “urbanise” ​​our precious green wedges by allowing schools, medical centres, service stations, hotels, shops and other suburban facilities to be built anywhere across the countryside.

 

PROTEST RALLY - Parliament House - 24th Nov, 12:30pm

If we wish to retain the environmental assets of the Green Wedges it is now time to make a stand.

This is our last chance to stop the Green Wedge destruction and landholder rip-off legislation now before Parliament. 

Please join 

Green Wedges Coalition, Taxed Out, Protectors of Public Lands and Planning Backlash

 

in a demonstration on the steps of Parliament House

At 12.30 for 1 pm next Tuesday 24 November.   
 

Speakers will include: 

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