Reforming Local Councils in Metropolitan Melbourne - the Possibilities for Better Planning and Heritage Outcomes

Local Councils have been in the news again, with a new poll from polling firm RedBridge published in the Herald-Sun this week, showing a majority of Victorians are dissatisfied with the current Council structure, and large number would like to see Councils abolished altogether.

The findings cannot be easily dismissed, but they can of course easily be parlayed into nonsense by a paper that's been waging various ideological wars of its own against particular local governments at what it deems the "woker" end of the spectrum.

So, the Herald-Sun was of course all out to draw qualitative conclusions from research that was ostensibly quantitative in nature, and a few related issues should be dealt with in detail before we look at the actual implications of the data.

The Herald-Sun ran with the implicit spin that Victorians don't want their precious rates being spent on things like public art initiatives, and innovative children's playground forms. Something of a hobby horse for the paper, especially in the inner city where Greens representation on those councils can be used as evidence of some brand of crazy "wokeism" at work which can be railed against.

The thesis is apparently not borne out in any of the research, and in the big poll which matters - namely Council elections, there is zero evidence that residents and ratepayers in the inner city reject "wokeism" in any form - they keep voting for "woke" candidates.

The City of Melbourne's new "Boulder Park" at Southbank, and example of Councils enacting best practice, evidence-based and innovative ideas and then having even ABC Radio journos try and override discourse with their feelpinions  

The HUN's Barabarian War on Public Art

In particular the Herlad-Sun should be cautioned by its own data reflecting these anti-Council sentiments are most stronly held by milennial respondents. And if anyone out these has some conception that milennials are out there raging against "wokeism" and don't want public funds spent on public art initiatives, they probably need to conduct a little of their own research.

What milennials ARE deeply concerned about is being able to make their way into the property market, and the fact that relatively smaller and declining numbers are doing so, means that a lot of people who aren't actually ratepayers are having words put in their both by both Ratepayers Victoria and the Herald-Sun in order to fit their own narratives.

Milennial Vibes

The perception amongst milennials most likely stems from the not inconsequential impost of council rates is yet another barrier to home ownership, and a perception that Councils act to artificially constrain the new housing supply, which when you look at the way the Neighbourhood Residential Zone, restricting residential development across the geographic majority of Melbourne to in most cases two storeys, is a readily supportable argument.

So, let's not allow any perception that councils enacting things like public art initiatives or innovative playspaces for kids is the problem. 

You might be able to make folks who don't live in the area laugh at a skeletor banana sculpture, but the residents of Yarra, who actually paid for the thing are the ones whose feedback actually matters, and it matters most every four years when the entire suburb is polled at election time. And inner city voters are not voting at any scale for "focus on taking my bins out" candidates. 

In fact it is LONG since overdue for the City of Melbourne to revive the sort of large-scale public art programme that was enacted at the time Swanston Walk was created, which  gave the city some of its most-loved public artworks, and much of its contemporary character and brand values. 

Retaining that kind of point of difference relative to suburban shopping malls is critical to the revival of the CBD in a its new post-COVID challenges. So, enough with the barbarian raging against  public art, and let's deal with the real issues.

Local Government and Economies of Scale

I actually began writing this blog many years ago but never really finished an investigation into the challenges that are faced by suburban coucils relative to the City of Melbourne. 

Having spent enough time involved in the planning space, as administered by various councils, I think the inescapable conclusion is that suburban Councils, in spite of the agglomeration effects achieved via the Kennett reforms in the early 1990s, which amalgamated 200 Victorian councils down to 78 still lack the critical mass and resources to deal with planning matters specifically in a timely and effective manner.

I based this conclusion on seeing the effectiveness of Melbourne City Council in being routinely able to assess and process planning applications in a timely manner, and in no small part because they have an exponentially higher number of actual planning staff and departmental budgets relative to suburban councils, and the very obvious conclusion from this is that the Local Government Areas (LGA) covered by suburban councils are too small for those bodies to be effective.

And what's true of planning is true of really all other areas of council to some degree or other. Activities are being replicated - the wheel is being constantly being re-invented at several places and to several varying degrees of effectiveness, and learnings about such effectiveness remain silo-ised in a local geography rather than rolled out as best practice at an urban scale.

So, here's what I would do - 

The Wombat Plan for Reforming Local Government in Metropolitan Melbourne 

We are leaving out any changes to regional councils, as I think regional Victorians would most likely tell us that they see the need for a body that operated with a level of local knowledge and capable of a level local advocacy, such that doubling the size of the LGA would not afford.

And we are setting aside the idea that it would be most effective for EVERYTHING that local governments currently have responsibility for would be more effectively handled by being rolled up Victoria-wide into the State Government and its already task-bloated public service bodies.

I think an "abolitionist model" would absolutely rolled-gold guarantee that when RedBridge did a follow-up survey in 10 years time, that even higher numbers of people were dissatisfied with how the government for instance handled planning issues, and people would wind up feeling more dissatisfied, unrepresented and that their rates were just disappearing into a giant consoloidated revenue cauldron, and they had zero sense of getting any value for money.

I think it still does and always will make sense for there to remain a separate elected tier of government that specifically has responsibility for local-level administration, and which depelops capabilities and critical scale in effectively delivering local-level government functions, and I don't think the whoelsale abolition of local government would deliver positive outcomes for anyone. 

I am guided here by the principle the Melbourne is and should be moving to establish a series of major local activity centres in the suburbs

1. Planning for greenfields estates and metropolitan activity centres should be taken (somewhat in the vein of the legislation accompanying the Suburban Rail Loop) out of the hands of councils entirely. Those planning powers should be handed to a new body within the already-far-too-bloated Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, that is ACTUALLY (and that emphasis is there to suggest that the backgrounds and expertise of the people we routinely see pumping planning assessments out of DELWP are just pen pushers and yes-people with no genuine policy expertise in effective planning outcomes, based on the content of the majority of those assessments "oh yes, we need to greenlight the demolition of the supposedly protected Jack Dyer Stand because the government has already committed funds to the project). The new body should be staffed by people with actual expertise in placemaking and EFFICTIVE (whereby the metrics are actually around design quality and "20 minite city" type outcomes rather than just volume of development) tactical urbanism, and its KPIs should be mostly derived from the qualitative, rather than the quantitative domain.

2. Similarly, responsibility for the LISTING of heritage overlays, should be taken away from local government and handed to a properly-resourced Heritage Victoria, which then moves to undertake a series of Melbourne-wide thematic studies that ensures that ALL the important typologies are univerally protected to the same methodology across the entire state of Victoria, rather than the arbitray swiss cheese hodge-podge that has arisen under the current "system". Planning applications for those properties can still go through the regular planning processes, but the actual application of heritage overlays needs to be taken out of the political/council domain, where Councillors have shown themselves far too responsive to the supposed needs of a small number of affected residents when they squeal about having their award-winning mid-century modernist building listed.

3. The State Government should go completely back to the drawing board with zoning - reform the Neighbourhood Residential Zone to allow as-of-right development to FOUR storeys, and set targets for the application of zoning typologies across municipalities that significantly reduces the places where NRZ zoning winds up being applied. So, we rely on HERITAGE protection to retain neighbourhood character in important locations, while saying those places can then also be signifcantly densified (demolition, not redevelopment being the enemy - and that's specifically what heritage practice gives effect to).

4. Amalgamate all Councils in Metropolitan Melbourne to just FIVE. One Greater Melbourne Council, covering All of the current Cities of Melbourne, Port Phillip and Yarra, plus the innermost areas of Stonnington, Boroondara, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Merri-Bek, Moonee Valley and Darebin, and then four outer suburban councils - North, East, West and South.

5. Simultaneously remove the business gerrymander in the City of Melbourne, which was only ever instituted by the Brumby government because they were scared of giving the Greens some sort of permanent role. Which IS the same principle by which republicans try and disenfranchise the votes of people of colour in the US. No matter how much you dislike the Greens, it's as pathetic and immoral (albeit not actually racist) for the ALP to disenfranchise inner-city voters in the same way. The expanded boundaries should have similar dilutionary effects, anyway.

Case Studies from the Heritage Arena

I may as well publish a slightly redacted form of the original article I was writing on this which coincided with the State Upper House's 2022 enquiry into heritage protection in Victoria. That process ultimately turned out to be pointless, as the Commitee seemed to be working to a brief that it wasn't going to even countenance any sort of revision of the system - one in which every stakeholder from Councils through to Heritage Victoria was apparently more interested in defending their own vested interests than actually looking at the wholistic (or even potentially best) operation of the system. 

Giving the pollies easy cover to dismiss anything through "well Heritage Victoria don't see the need for any change, and so neither do we" ...

So, let's take a SECOND CHANCE to seize some initiative to deliver better outcomes across myriad areas of planning and let's take a look at shaking up the entire planning regime, at the same time as we look at addressing voters' concerns in relation to the operation of local councils.

Apologies if the next section which looks at some of the failures in council heritage management is a little disjointed from the rest, but that's how it was born, and its pointless having it all sit there in draft format when the topic seems so pertinent to currently-open policy windows.

Graffiti spary painted across temporary hoardings outside the recently demolished 1880s mansion at 34 Armadale St, Armadale, left unprotected by Stonnington Council

Heritage in the State of Victoria can be a confusing beast. It's a mish-mash of responsibilities ascribed variously to every level of government in Australia.

A handful of sites are protected under Federal legislation. The Heritage Council of Victoria also maintains a far more extensive inventory of buildings deemed to be of "State-level significance" called the Victorian Heritage Register (VHR).

But confusingly for many, the Heritage Council also mainatains an online database called the "Victorian Heritage Directory", which also lists many "local-level significance" sites, and records sites which have actually been demolished and have no ongoing heritage protection - usually on the basis that the site may still have some archaeological significance, sometimes just by way of the fact that the site may once have had a National Trust listing, but the significant building has been long since demolished.

Many Victorians are surprised to learn that a National Trust listing has absolutely no weight in law whatsoever. The National Trust is a private organisation that has both a lobbying role, and which owns and maintains a large number of sites throughout the State, which it manages effectively on the public's behalf, but it has absolutely no formal role in the heritage protection process.

Further confusing the matter, nominations to the VHR are actually made through a separate body - Heritage Victoria.

The recently demolished 1880s property at 34 Armadale St, Armadale

But for anything which is deemed to be of "local-level significance" - which is upwards of 80% of all heritage sites in Victoria, responsiblity falls on local councils to commission heritage professionals to conduct heritage surveys which provide reasonably in-depth assessments of all applicable properties within their municipal boundaries.

It is then up to Councils to use those recommendations to advise the State Planning Department which sites deserve a formal Heritage Overlay, and the Planning Minister then has final veto on all of those listings.

Once a heritage overlay has been approved by the Minister, it then appears in the Melbourne Planning Scheme, which is actually the only definitive reference for all protected heritage sites in Victoria.

To complete the mish-mash, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) sits across all of this as an avenue of appeal, in practical terms virtually exclusively for developers, who may appeal any rejection of any development proposal by any Council (or indeed even by the Minister) directly to that body, and which has in the past shown itself willing to set aside Council heritage listings if they are able to find anything which they deem to be flawed in the process (and that can include simple failures by Councils to retain the necessary paperwork).

It is the belief of this author that the very existence of VCAT is profoundly anti-democratic. An unelected body comprised exclusively of a handful of elite lawyers (definitionally NOT therefore representatve of anything but de facto pro-development, process-driven, well-to-do individuals) sits above every single decision ever made by every level of government in Victoria - including the Minister.

This is "shadow democracy" stuff. How can there possibly be any higher body than our elected officials, who are accountable to the community for every decision they make, every four years when we all come together to express our collective will at a general election where every eligible citizen has a formal say? But this is veering off-topic for this particular blog, I'll dish out a more extensive critique of VCAT in a forthcoming post.

Heritage Chalk and Cheese 

- Melbourne City Council vs Local Suburban Councils

I began my heritage activism days involved with Melbourne Heritage Action (MHA), which is actually part of the National Trust, but which the Trust established in 20##, following the appalling decision of Robert "Demolition" Doyle's Melbourne City Council to approve the demolition of Lonsdale House on Lonsdale Street for the entrance to a flipping shopping centre. MHA's role is to undertake lobbying exclusively of Melbourne City Council on heritage issues affecting largely only the CBD and Southbank.

MHA has had a commendable degree of success in lobbying Council variously for the protection of individual sites, and for a comprehensive review of its heritage inventory. So much success, in fact that it can be stated with some confidence that probably something north of 95% of the sites which the community would expect to be protected by a local heritage overlay within the boundaries of the City of Melbourne Local Government Area (LGA) now in fact have that protection.

And it is based on that success that I decided to set up an equivalent body within my own LGA - the City of Moonee Valley. But it is based on my contrasting experiences in lobbying the two very different bodies that I now delare that local suburban councils are categorically not up to the task of maintaining our local heritage inventory, and it is for this reason that we have seen the slew of recent media headlines around outrageous demolitions of clearly significant heritage properties in our suburbs.

Wreckers move on the former Idylwilde mansion, built in 1915 in St Georges Road, Toorak

Victorian Council budgets range from the lowest resourced, with an annual budget of just $11.7m all the way up to Melbourne City Council's massive budget of $660m. Rural councils have an average budget of just $69 million, while metropolitan councils have an average budget of $201 million available to them.

Considering how much of the state's valuable heritage is actually situated outside metropolitan Melbourne, where former goldfields cities like Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine are important heritage hotspots in their own right, the resource issues as applicable here  to suburban Melbourne councils are obviously even more dire in regional areas.

Put another way, Melbourne City Council has over three times the resources of the average Melbourne suburban council and fully ten times the resouces of the average rural borough. By my own very basic intuitive estimates, that would also approximately reflect the disparity in resources allocated to planning between them.

This is reflected on a practical level in many different ways which I will delve further into below, but the real effect of this disparity in resources is that within the Melbourne CBD, 95% or more of the heritage properties which the community rightly expects to be protected do have some protection.

While in the suburbs which form the built environment where the majority of the community makes its home, where families are raised, and daily life is most usually lived - our LOCAL communities, the heritage coverage level is extremely patchy at best. And all the recent headlines have shown that coverage to be on average FAR below community expectations.

And this failure has wider practical implications. In that community support for the present levels of population growth that are largely the driver of all our recent economic growth (and which are necessary to sustain an aging population) is being seriously eroded by a sense that the character and nature of the built environment in our suburban neighbourhoods, that in many cases represents the very reason why families have chosen to situate themselves there at all is being too severely compromsed, and generating unnecessary anxiety about population growth overall.

The property at 5 Tiuna Grove, Elwood, which Port Phillip Mayor Dick Gross stated "should have been protected by a heritage overlay, but appear(s) to have been mistakenly left out." (my emphasis)

It has been put to me by several little birdies recently that the State Planning Department is extremely irritated by the recent slew of piecemeal, ambulance-chsing, wise-after-the-event requests from suburban councils for one-off, case by case interim heritage listings only once a demolition proposal is active on a particular property. The very strong implication is that councils are actually using these requests as a proxy anti-development measure, and so the Department is pushing back against these requests, and only granting them in the most rigorous of circumstances.

In one breath, I understand the Deprtment's frustration. One needs to remember that all the Department's decisions still have the spectre of VCAT looming over them, and it needs therefore to necessarily be very process driven. It's a waste of everyone's time and scarce resources to go through all these processes if developers are still going to get the outcome they are seeking through the expense and rigmarole of a VCAT hearing.

The 1885 Currajong House at 337 Auburn Rd was saved by the Planning Minister's inetervention, after being left unprotected by Boroondara Council

And the reality is that local Victorian councils have very specifically had responsibility and power for protecting local level heritage in this state since 1984, fully 35 years now. Where the brickbats tend to fly in the media at the Minister for not intervening in a lot of these cases, it's actually councils who truly deserve to be copping it most directly.

Neither the Department nor the Minister have any history of refusing the findings of council heritage surveys if properly conducted (VCAT's record on this is patchier, but again that's for another day).

The roles and responsibilities of the various parties are very specifically outlined under the current regime. All the unprotected 19th century properties that are cited in this post have all been standing there unprotected, every single day since 1984. Every iterative day of those 35 years has been another opportunity missed for local councils to commission the necessary heritage studies to dial adequate protections into the Planning Scheme.

The 1890s house at 55 SEYMOUR RD ELSTERNWICK was recently demolished, after being left unprotected by Glen Eira Council

If the finger should systemically be pointed anywhere, then it is definitely at our local councils. There have recently been a series of strident and overly politicised calls for the Minister to, for instance remove the planning "loophole" which prevents the application of an interim heritage overlay on a property where a demolition permit has already been issued.

I would strongly suggest that this "loophole" does in fact revert onus too strongly back in favour of developers, and should be removed. But as I am fond of saying, the great thing about having a rigorous and comprehensive heritage regime is that it provides absolute certainty to all parties.

Developers and purchasers are able to act knowing exactly what can and cannot be demolished, and make a proper assessment bearing that in mind when looking at any property aquisition. In this sense, a comprehensive heritage regime actually performs a vital economic function.

But our elected representatives also exist at every level to stand up for the community's needs in the face of the necessarily highly process-driven machinations of governance. However you may wish to apportion blame, it is DEFINITELY NEVER the community's fault that their local council has been derelict in their responsiibility to protect the heritage within its remit.

This four-bedroom Hawthorn brick Victorian at 4 Victoria Avenue, Canterbury, has no heritage overlay. Photo: Jellis Craig

While it remains the irreplaceable fabric of our neighbourhoods that is ultimately on the line in these decisions, it is not good enough for the Department to be knocking back requests for interim protection merely because of a lack of timeliness in the request. The Minister and the Department must act both systemically and in response to individual requests to collectively protect the community and our heritage from these serial failings at a Council level.

I will look in more detail below at some better suggested Departmental responses which could easily be enacted today in order to better improve the operation of the system overall. But to address those in-depth requires first  a deeper analysis of the myriad ways in which our local councils are routinely failing to uphold their end of the bargain.

It was put to me recently in some discussions on the Moonee Valley Heritage Action Facebook page that there really ought to be no issues around council resources owing to the strength of the present development wave because they should all be receiving an equally large uplift in rates received. There are several reasons why this is not the case.

Firstly, the one routinely and necessarily lags the other. Heritage studies are relatively in-depth processes, and as we shall see shortly are in many cases taking several years to deliver what would otherwise seem like relatively simple and readily self-contained reports. Whereas the new ratepayers don't spontaneously appear as soon as a new development proposal is received.

Furthermore, there are only so many qualified heritage professionals practicing in Victoria, and the demands on their time have never been higher.

But most importantly rates only represent on average 55% of councils' annual budgets, and have been capped in their growth (and you as ratepayers yourselves of course actually applaud this) by the Andrews Labor Government to approximate CPI increases.

Suburban Councils Lack the Reseources to keep their heritage inventory up to date in the face of the largest development and growth wave that Melbourne has ever seen.

• studies are not performed often enough
• there is no imperative for Councils to have conducted reviews of all periods
• the scoping process for inclusion in heritage studies is inadequate
• the studies take far too long to deliver, owing to lack of resources
• the studies that are performed are constrained in scope

The Death of Melbourne's CBD has been Greatly Exaggerated

Google any news article to do with Melbourne CBD in the last 12 months, and you'll find 95% of those articles pertain in some way to its prophesied demise.

There's no question that the CBD is going to be doing it tough for the forseeable future, but there's also no question in my mind that Melbourne will actually be back on a pre-pandemic trajectory over the medium term, provided enough sound policy to nudge it back in that direction.

Reasons why Melbourne CBD would naturally be expected to recover over the medium-term

1. It's Central to Potential

COVID has accelerated the public acceptance of the desirability of a 20 minute nighbourhood. The CBD is the geographic centre of the city, and all of its surrounding suburbs have been densifying markedly over the past decade. We have already seen COVID strengthen demand for medium density office and residential development in those areas, and this actualy bodes well for strong future demnd for development on the scale and density that is proposed for the Fishermans Bend and Arden- Macaulay redevelopment zones.

Melbourne CBD has really only in recent decades reaped the rewards of having been surrounded by acres of marshland to its south and west. The CBD will remain effectively part of the 20 minute neighbourhood for all these areas, as well as a densifying north, east, west Melbourne, Carlton, Flemington, Kensington, etc. I also believe tremendous potential exists for redeveloping the Dynon rail yards and later the remainder of Docklands, but we will discuss this in more detail at a later date.

2. It's Still the Geographic and Economic Heart

Critical Mass matters. In planning and in Economics. The CBD is now home to something in the order of 80,000 residents. Many of those were international students, but regardless, we keep forgetting that we broke the "doughnut city" model in the 1990s, before the international students arrived en masse. The CBD IS the 20 minute neighbourhood to tens of thousands of people now, and while the projected pre-COVID growth for CBD high rise apartments will almost certainly take decades to recover, this now presents further opportunities, as we will discuss shortly.

In spite of the trend towards work from home, we've already seen other Australian CBD occupancy rates rise above 80%. So you'd have to say work from home is actually ultimately going to impact by something like that quntum. I also believe that firms are going to cruch the productivity numbers on work from home at some point, and we will actully see pressure being placed on employees to minimise work from home over the medium term. 

There seems to be a curious inversion of the power relationship right now evident in the comments section of all these articles that suggests people are convinced they are actually going to be able to dictate the future extent of work from home to their employers. I think this remains to be seen.

The question of economic critical mass cannot be overstated, either. Regardless of how many companies downsize or leave the CBD, it will still be by far the largest employment geography, with all the attendant economic activity that necessarily comes with that. Moomba will never be moved to Chadstone, for instance.

3. The Projections Don't Map to Current Evidence

The CBD over the medium term WILL recover to 80%+ occupancy, just like Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and overall economic growth has almost already rebounded to pre-COVID levels.

The borders will eventually be opened again, and the internatioinal students will return, but it remins to be seen in what quantum.

Immigration will also return, population growth will resume and once more accelerate that economic growth, immigrants will also tend to be overall more accepting of higher density living arrangements, and will tend overall to settle in Melbourne and Sydney.

4. We've Seen it All Before

The effects of the influenza pandemic of 19 were not dissimilar upon CBD activity, yet history seems to suggest learned pandemic behaviours are quickly shed. 

Especially given the growth trends were so strong pre-COVID, I for one expect things to gravitate back towards the old trends faster than most commentators assume, notwithstanding the clear and ongoing trend towards work from home means it won't necessarily return to quite the same hectic levels, which is frankly going to be better for maintaining the CBD's long-run amenity, regardless.

5. Pre-COVID Growth was Spectacular

The CBD was already under severe growth pressure pre-COVID, the Property Council were screaming at the Planning Minister that his new CBD controls had left only a hndful of developable sites in the CBD.

So, I think all of the above suggests we are going to see levels of activity within the Melbourne CBD back at pre-pandemic levels naturally over the medium term.

But I also think it suggests some specific policy directions to ensure that we get there within the shortest possible timeframe. Announcing the ...

Wombat Melbourne Fightback Plan ...

Pause and Re-Load

We should declare the CBD now essentially FULL in terms of the scale of further development allowable. Melburnians love their CBD, but the consensus was clear that most people felt the scale of development seen since the late 2000s was threatening the character of what they loved. 

Rendering the pause on lrge-scale development semi-permanent is thus critical to the maintenance of "Brand CBD", especially considering demand for development on that scale - both office and residential is at best set for an approximate decade-long pause. Even more especially considering we have such ample tracts of development land now becoming available at the CBD fringe.

We should seize this opportunity to say "the CBD is at the limits of its capability to retain its heritage character, and its urban amenity in terms of sunlight ever hitting the footpath". Our task now is to get the fabric that we are dealt with here back to its earlier state of vibrancy. That will take some time, but simply adding supply to the mix seems like the worst possible strategy. 

There are large projected vacancies in the B, C and D grade office stocks, opportunities will exist to refurbish those buildings (which in general tend to contribute least to the existing urban fabric anyway) by way of maintaining supply.

Further demand, and indeed the demand for residential and office development more at medium rather than higher density within a well planned neighbourhood can then be taken up by Fishermans Bend, e-gate, Arden-Macaulay and potentially Dynon and Docklands 2. These areas would then become part of a "greater CBD" and activity from the new development areas would naturally contribute to revitalising the neighbouring CBD/Docklands areas, and indeed giving Docklands the geograpic focus it has always been lacking.

New Social Housing Focus

The State Government is already buying up CBD apartment stock for social housing. There is no better location to place people with social housing needs than the CBD, from where they have access to virtully the entire metropolitan employment market without the need to own a car. Social housing tenants are another sector that are going to be more accepting of high density living arangements, and many would view the grade of housing stock on offer in the CBD as vastly superior to the social housing norm. I think the opportunities to actually solve some of the city's more critical housing issues is one of the silver linings hidden in the pandemic cloud.

A lot of artists and creative industries have been pushed out of the CBD in recent years through gentrification, and the opportunity exists to use the glut of both apartments and retail spaces to re-instate the CBD's role as a space where adventurous creative industries can thrive and put their product before an audience on a cost-effective basis, whilst at the same time enhancing those points of difference for CBD retail that Chadstone will never be able to compete with.

Retail Revival

For retail, I'd suggest we need to stop all these people out there rubbishing the CBD in the comments section of all these articles. The CBD needs to be THE place to shop again, even if folks do it late night or weekends rather than during their lunchtimes.

Melbourne has always struggled to make late night shopping happen systemically, but it's the point of difference relative to Chadstone (which can't effectively cater to anyone in the western suburbs), only the Melbourne CBD could transform itself into more of a late night or even 24 hour shopping destination for the whole city. The Council should think about policies that can push us more in this direction.

The opportunity also exists to seize the initiative to create a proper pedestrian retail environment the entire length of Elizabeth Street, in line with previous Wombat plans to create "the Asia-Pacific's largest outdoor mall". I think this emphasis wants accelerating. I think a campaign that emphasises not just that shopping the CBD is ten times more fun and a hundred times more soulful than shopping Chadstone, but that part of the attrction is that everything is OUTDOORS.

How many times have you seen"The Bourke Street Mall" come up as an infection site? Versus "Suburban indoor shopping centre food court", etc? Melbourne should be selling the OUTDOOR nature of its shopping experience, making the most of the MARKET as part of the overall experience, turn the tables on this damn virus and say "Melbourne CBD is the most COVID-safe major shopping centre available to you!"

So how about we put a pause on all the things that we felt were hampering Melbourne before anyway. How about we accept acceerating the push to a 20 minute city will be one of the pandemic's legacies, and we strive to make Melbourne CBD a part of that strategy for as many people as possible? How about we give our transport network the kind of off-peak service frequencies that mean people can turn up and go to the CBD within 20 minutes from Fisherman's Bend, Southbank, Docklands, Flemington, Kensington, Carlton, Nth Melbourne, Parkville, St Kilda Rd, East Melbourne, West Melbourne, etc. but we also from new proximate activity centres - Footscray, Moonee Ponds, Abbotsford, Collingwood, Cremorne, Burnley.

But I tell you what, you CANNOT do that at Fisherman's Bend, without a plan to get both heavy rail and additional tram routes in there via Southbank in the first case and Docklands the latter.

Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn a plan exists for all this too. But that can wait for another day ...

ACTION NEEDED: Save Federation Square's "Shard" from Metro Tunnel and AppleScum

The Western Shard at Federation Square was a compromise to the original design, but it was built largely stylistically integrated with the rest of the square, and is therefore integral to the whole.

I must apologise to the world for the lateness of this post, life moves so damn quickly these days. Tomorrow, Wednesday September 12 is the deadline for submissions to Heritage Victoria in opposition to the awful and unnecessary new Metro Station entrance proposed for Federation Square.

I also apologise the layout on this post is a little haywire but I haven't got time to fix it right now.

I write today encouraging all Melburnians to lift up their pens for what will not be the first time in defence of one of the world's premiere civic spaces, and will briefly run through the core arguments that we feel should inform the public objections.

The core of our objection to the proposal is that the Western Shard is specifically listed as significant in the site's interim heritage listing as adopted by Heritage Victoria. That means it is protected from demolition unless in the most exceptional of circumstances that demonstrate an overwhelming imperative to demolish the structure.

Quite simply, no such imperative is demonstrated in the plans submitted by the Metro Tunnel Project, and therefore the plans must be rejected.

The plans do not demonstrate any need to demolish the structure, because they do not give any valid reason why a station entrance could not be constructed within the existing structure.

A Disingenuous Proposal

disingenuous - adjective. Not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.

It's one of my favourite words - disingenuous. Once you've conceptually grasped it, you start to see it in evidence everywhere if you spend any time at all engaged with public policy. Politicians, of course, are severely recidivist criminals here, but most public servants (especially those with public facing roles) are well trained, both formally and informally in the dark arts of the disingenuous.

So, what IS the imperative to demolish this structure and erect a low-rise, lightweight, see-through structure in it's place? It is VERY obvious that this has been done for Apple (scum), probably at their insistence, because the existing structure, as clearly shown in the photo below, would block sightlines to the Apple (scum) store from the existing retail strip, and indeed from the entrance to the Square itself.

Image from the submitted plans clearly showing the shard obscures the location of the proposed Apple (scum) store from the existing retail strip.

The entire proposal is therefore both disingenuous and in bad faith to both the public at large, who are being sold a lie concerning the reasons why this project is deemed necessary, and to the processes of Heritage Victoria, which are being gamed.

Precedent Shows This Must Be Rejected

The clear precedent for Heritage Victoria decisions is that arguments of mere economic convenience to the applicant or one of the applicant's stakeholders should not be accepted as the basis for demolition of a protected structure. Without any pressing argument to this effect contained in the proposal's business case, Heritage Victoria must reject the proposal.

The heritage citation for the site, as adopted in interim by Heritage Victoria clearly states:
"The Western Shard The Swanston/Flinders Street corner of the site is occupied by the Western Shard, a glass-walled pavilion which provides access to the underground Melbourne Visitor Centre. The entrance features interactive news tickers in colour LEDs and small screens promoting current activities."

The proposal posits that "as it is not an element that reflects the original design intent, we consider that the proposed demolition and replacement with another sympathetic structure is acceptable." We find this an appalling statement from a heritage professional. Where the feature in question is specifically cited as significant, trying to second guess that citation after the event and now argue the feature is not significant does not represent a valid argument.

Attempting to Alter a Protected Heritage Place

Furthermore the proposal itself concedes that the proposed structure is also not stylistically consistent with the original design intent for Federation Square (a position that is completely undermined by the previous argument), stating that "architecturally, the proposed eastern station entry for the Town Hall Station draws on the same ‘NewModern’ functionalist architectural tradition of Federation Square without attempting to replicate the Deconstructivist architectural forms of the Lab/Bates Smart design."

Coupled with the proposed introduction of yet another new design style in the form of Apple (scum) store, we can clearly see how through the complete raft of changes proposed for the space, that  their effect would be to take a coherently-designed world-beating, deeply symbolic, major architectural space of tremendous significance to most Melburnians, which even in its short lifespan is already iconic to the city, and replace two of the existing buildings replaced with new structures in TWO COMPLETELY NON-COHERING STYLES, and thereby literally ruin the entire whole, as we explained in an earlier post.

How Can I Help?

So, we urge all caring Melburnians to urgently get tapping on their keyboards and make these points politely and succinctly to Heritage Victoria by close of business, Wednesday September 12.

To make your submission, email [email protected]
Please reference "Permit Application P29470, Federation Square" in the subject line.
View Metro Tunnel's plans online

And don't forget the Rally in the Square to oppose the Applescum Store - next Wed September 19 at 5.30pm

BETRAYAL, or ABROGATION? Melbourne City Councillors Sell Out Community, Listed Heritage

Crs Rohan Leppert and Cathy Oke (Melbourne Greens) and Cr Nic Frances Gilley (Indpependent) last night voted to demolish the C graded heritage structures on Thierry Street.

As predicted, Melbourne City Council last night voted to approve its own development on the Munro site adjacent to the Queen Victoria Market, and within the Queen Victoria Market overlay. CLICK HERE for the full background.

Cr Rohan Leppert, who has made considerable mileage out of his past efforts in support of heritage, and with some real rationale to that claim, appears astonishingly to have commenced his Mayoral bid by voting to demolish all the C grade listed heritage along Thierry Street.

He did move a curious motion of his own, suggesting that the plans that he had just voted to re-affirm would need to be brought back to Council in future, but his opportunity to listen to the community and stop these plans - which are completely unsupported by his constituency - was last night.

And so, we hereby withdraw our previous suggestion that we would endorse his Mayoral bid if he were to revisit the market proposal overall. Nor will we endorse any Councillor who voted for this in any future Council ballot.

Once again, we would like to ask which of these 9 Councillors is going to be willing to front up at VCAT and oppose the developer who wants to demolish any other "unprepossessing" C graded heritage from the City North Review, or indeed any other C graded heritage anywhere?

The precedent Councillors have willingly and knowingly created here is dangerous in the extreme, and for any of these Councillors to make any claim in future that they represent the interest of our city's heritage will now be wholly invalid.

Guilty as predicted - Team Doyle, including sitting councillors Kevin Louie, Beverley Pinder, Aaron Wood (acting Mayor) and Chair of Planning Nicholas Reece . Also depicted: Smudgey Mc SmudgeFace and Some Dude

Since yesterday's post, it has become clear that the bulk of the proposed new development at GROUND LEVEL, even if you ignore the 18 storey tower sitting atop the podium, will very markedly alter the two storey industrial streetscape and replace it with (another) modern apartment frontage. In short, Councillors have voted to wreck the heritage precinct by destroying the contributory nature to the precinct of the entirety of Thierry Street.

The latest iteration of the proposal, as approved by Councillors last night.
The heritage precinct is to be trashed in scale and form. Retaining the existing facades would have
clearly strongly mitigated these effects.

This is the most cretinous of possible outcomes. While we expected Team Doyle Councillors (and Liberal, Phillip le Liu who essentially always votes with them) to bow down to the memory of the man who left them listing so leaderless and rudderless, the behaviour of Melbourne Greens Councillors in particular, given how much noise they routinely make about a) heritage, and b) listening to the community rather than the vested interests of business are particularly damned.

Also Guilty: Liberal Party member Phillip Le Liu

So, while the wider community has been completely unsupportive of the proposed changes to the Queen Victoria Market, last night Council voted 9-1 to approve everything.

Shutting voices completely out of representative debates, and instead delivering results that would have embarrassed Saddam Hussein is exactly the vehicle via which voters' faith in the processes and politicians becomes eroded.

Thank GOD or your relevant conception of a higher power for Cr Jackie Watts, who has once again proven the sole representative on Council not completely tone deaf to the interests of her actual constituents. But what's to be done if even the GREENS can't grasp the basics of the concept.

Cr Jackie Watts - sole voice for the community's concerns

We look forward at this point to Cr Leppert's mayoral bid, during which we shall be routinely reminding him of his vote last night. Likewise should any of these Councillors deign to ever seek re-election.

Snouts in the Trough: Melbourne City Councillors Prepare to Demolish Listed Heritage Buildings for Their Own Benefit

As if there's not enough going on in the world right now to make a Wombat want to return to hibernation until the asteroid hits ...

Melbourne City Council are tonight preparing to vote to demolish heritage structures that they only recently voted to protect - by way of the inter-war commercial buildings on Thierry St that are acknowledged as highly contributory to the Queen Victoria Market Heritage Precinct.

For the Wreckers? Thierry Street Shopfronts, with character brick 1940s facade and arched brick interiors

These are C graded Heritage structures, designated as such in planning amendment c198, which adopted the findings of the City North Heritage Review that Council itself commissioned to make sure we don't lose any important heritage as this part of town was coming under enormous development pressure.

And why? Because Council wants to maximise the value it can extract from PDG corporation, who was the sole bidder for the Munro Site tender. That's right. Councillors are so shame-scared that their entire Queen Victoria Market Redevelopment will become even MORE of a fiasco than it already has become via the rank amateurism of its protagonists, that they are willing to let a developer completely rip up the entire basis of heritage protection in Melbourne for a few pieces of silver.

Councillors in Utopia

In what might generously be considered a discarded script line from the comedy series Utopia, Councillors are preparing to replace the C graded 2 storey brick heritage structures fronting Thierry Street with new 2 storey brick structures "reflecting the heritage of the area".

Let's be clear. These are C graded Heritage structures, and if Council allows their demolition, it is by precedent allowing the potential demolition of all the existing C and D grade structures on its inventory. In this day and age, permission to fully demolish any listed heritage structure should only be granted in the most exceptional of circumstances, and the proposal in no way demonstrates this imperative.

In fact, what it demonstrates is how Council have dim-wittedly sleepwalked themselves into this position. Council's Chair of Planning Nicholas Reece actually sat directly across the table from yours truly in a meeting and said "Oh I don't think they are actually listed buildings." The Chair of Planning. This is how much scrutiny and care clearly went into drafting the development brief.

Given how desperate Council appears to be to secure PDG's involvement, without which its entire, already shaky Queen Victoria Market redevelopment would doubtless fall over - we would hardly be surprised to learn that the brief document read something a la "yeeeeeehaaaaw! You boys do what you want here ..."

Is there ANY rational reason why THIS (above) ...

Can't be incorporated into THIS, given the identical form and scale?

Throwing out the Basis and Meaning of Heritage

To support this demolition, a clear argument needs to be made that at least the facades could not be incorporated into the new structure. Given the proposal appears to support replacing this structure with buildings of almost identical scale, form and material, there appears to be no such sustainable argument.

The proposal's assertion that "despite their grading of “C”, the shops are quite unpre- possessing architecturally" is not apparently supported by any heritage professional. The first question that needs to be asked is why the heritage assessment has apparently been carried out by Bates Smart, where an independent assessment by a qualified heritage professional would normally be required at the very least, in order to be even contemplating demolition. The impression left is that they were unable to find any professional unethical enough to sanction this.

Furthermore there is no such thing as "despite their grading of C...". These buildings are graded and therefore PROTECTED. Full stop. Councillors will be grossly negligent of their duties if they fail to uphold this.

The citation for heritage overlay HO7 that covers the entire market site and surrounding streets states "What is Significant? ... the south side of Therry Street between Queen and Elizabeth Streets (nos 97-141)." So the buildings HAVE been assessed by a heritage professional as significant, and there is no professional argument tendered to the contrary. Bates Smart and PDG apparently simply know better about matters completely outside their profession than the authors of the City North Heritage Review.

Councillors must surely at the very least require a professional heritage assessment to the contrary to dismiss the findings of the City North Review, otherwise the basis of the entire review can be called in to question.

The Mercat Cross Hotel. Same difference?
"yeah, we'll keep this bit cos people like pubs 'n' that. But not the actual pub ... just the facade ...
we need to make $$$$ from this thing ..."

If the Mercat Cross Hotel facade (which is really identical to the rest of the streetscape) can be retained and incorporated into the development, why can't the other significant heritage buildings?

While the development proposal would have it that these buildings "make a minimal architectural contribution to the precinct", they would never have been listed if that were the case. Furthermore a building's being "unprepossessing architecturally", setting aside the utterly cretinous nature of the statement, must be countered by the absolutely established principle that - particularly for industrial structures, this is NOT the criterion by which we assess heritage. The buildings have been listed by dint of being a typology worth preserving and which contributes to the traditional market ambience that is the basis for the entire overlay. If we can start knocking over C graded buildings for not being beautiful, then Councillors are placing large swathes of the city's heritage at risk.

Which Councillor would care to stand up at VCAT and argue against the next developer who wants to knock over any one of the C graded buildings in the City North Heritage Review (most of which are industrial in nature and not very 'prepossessing') after this?

Put simply, any Councillor who votes to demolish buildings that Council itself only recently nominated as C grade structures will be tendered to the wider community as having placed the entire basis of heritage listing in peril, and find themselves positioned alongside PDG, whose brand will enter into the growing lexicon of troglodyte, heritage-wrecking developers.

Thierry Street, from Queen Street intersection.

We cannot make the point strongly enough, this is a MAJOR heritage litmus test, and it will, if allowed to proceed, set an APPALLING precedent for the demolition of listed structures. This cannot be allowed to pass without consequence.

To date Cr Jackie Watts has been alone amongst current Councillors in opposing the Queen Victoria Market from the outset. This is some testament to how anti-democratic a body Melbourne City Council already is. There has been ample media commentary recently highlighting the fact that it makes more decisions in secret than any other Victorian Council.

PDG - Proudly Destroying Goodness

... and DEATH to heritage ...

The gerrymander handed to the business community, whereby unlike any other democratic election in the country, votes of these non-human ratepayers are given twice as much weight as actual human beings has not surprisingly resulted in electing a group of people who don't represent the community's view, which has been resolutely against the market's redevelopment from the outset (and yet somehow the redevelopment is going to inject $2b dollars into the state's coffers once people are served up the redevelopment that they don't want ... no we don't follow either ...)

And now these same people are preparing to vote to preserve their collective arses by wiping their own heritage rules off the map, because if PDG picked up their bucket and spade, it would certainly be curtains for a fiasco that has already lost its progenitor and Chief Advocate in the former Lord Mayor.

The Ghost of 'Demolition Doyle' Stalks the Corridors

We expect Team Doyle will all vote in unison, and the reality is they have the numbers. We know Cr Jackie Watts will be continue to abide by her record in standing up for the community ahead of vested interests and oppose it.

The Greens have been locked in with Team Doyle over the redevelopment so far, but Cr Rohan Leppert - who has made much of his record on heritage cannot possibly commence his Lord Mayoral bid with a decision to knock over listed heritage buildings.

We therefore look to the Greens and independent Cr Nic Frances Gilley to at least go on record as opposing the unconscionable.

Any Councillors who vote to demolish listed heritage structures for the benefit of their own redevelopment will most certainly find their record regarding this vote placed repeatedly and prominently in the public arena.

Tune in tomorrow, friends, to learn of the outcome ...

An Open Letter to the Office of the Victorian Government Architect: "Sack Yourselves"

To whom it may concern,

I write in relation to learning of your role in the assessment process for the proposed Apple Store in Federation Square.

I am not - other than a couple of Fine Art History subjects, a trained architect, but I am about to be able to tell you in fairly clear and rational terms how your Office has so demonstrably totally voided its entire mandate, such that I write today to demand, on behalf of architecture, your resignation.

This is the city's premier public space, and was created by international design competition. Something almost unprecedented in terms of major projects in this city, but widely regarded as architectural best practice. Your recommendations therefore stand foundationally against architectural best practice even before any of their detail is scrutinised.

So on this basis already it appears that you do not understand that your entire role is to apply architectural best practice to the maximal possible extent in this city, and to advocate as much to government. The alternative is you do understand this, but have chosen for whatever reason to bend to the political wind, or you don't care enough to do your job properly. All conclusions suggest you need to be removed from this role for a fundamental failure of purpose.

Moving on to some of the architectural impact. The importance of this space is established and largely not contested. This space is SO important not just because it won a design competition, but more because of its significance in civic affairs, and that it was designed as a coherent space that had its own spatial symbolism, with stone hewn from all the states being sourced.

That you as an architect can suggest a civic SQUARE (the single urban spatial typology most relevant to an at scale planned coherence) could be improved by having one of the complete coherent set of buildings replaced by a building in an entire other style, and with no architectural logic whatsoever.

That you as an architect can give approval to Norman Foster's, copied and pasted (and he CLEARLY hasn't even TRIED put any contextual design into this) design beggars belief.

The building's balanced zen and extended lines seem calculated to be as violent a jar as possible against the existing style's wildly angular and tesselated postmodern patterning. If you can look at those two building styles in tandem and suggest the architectural realm has been improved, you need to return to architecture school. These are not two neighbouring buildings in a streetscape, these are two parts of ONE SQUARE.

This is a HERITAGE BUILDING. Federation Square would eventually have been listed. Your stylistic intervention, by the principles laid down in the Burra Charter, actually JEOPARDISES THE FUTURE HERITAGE LISTING OF ARGUABLY THE CITY'S MOST IMPORTANT CIVIC SPACE.

You have not thought this through, you have not, once again done any of your duty to uphold good architectural principles in relation to preservation. We are continually losing or seeing compromised (qv IM Pei's Collins Place) important modernist and postmodern buildings before they are listed. The appropriate job for your office here was to ensure this known policy trap within the urban arena did not adversely effect the outcome.

So, the bases on which I believe all individuals within the Office of the Victorian Government Architect with any responsibility for this decision are unqualified to continue in the role are these:

• 1. This is the most important decision you will ever make, as the public interest has never been more imperiled by politicians' and corporations' vanity, and you have chosen to aid its imperilment
• 2. You fundamentally only had one job to do at 1, and failed at the most important moment
• 3. You've thrown out the results of an international design competition for a coherent premier public space
• 4. The thing you've given the thumbs up to is abysmal in any architectural langauage, and by any assessment.
• 5. Thinking a non-coherent space is better than a coherent one, and for not comprehending a square needs to be coherent
• 6. The co-option of Don Bates, and your disrespect to the two dead architects who are spinning in their graves today
• 7. Failure to consider the heritage impact
• 8. The absolute obvious inappropriate violence of the juxtaposition of styles

Although, in conclusion, there could be ONE possible out for you in all of this.

We need to be clear that you do actually know where Federation Square IS, yes? CITY square is the one with the right angles ....

The Wombat Comes out Boxing from the Heritage Corner on Doyle's Queen Vic Market Stink

Submission to Heritage Victoria regarding
Queen Victoria Market Redevelopment
VHR Registered Property - VHR0734
Permit application P27642

Submission by
Adam Ford,
Former Media Officer, Melbourne Heritage Action
Former Council Candidate, The Heritage Agenda

I am writing in submission of my recommendation that Heritage Victoria reject this redevelopment proposal on the grounds that it does severe violence to the architectural integrity of one of the State’s most significant heritage structures on a wholly spurious and unnecessary basis.

Furthermore this entire proposal and the way it has been formulated represents a fundamental disregard for heritage values in tandem with leaving too many questions of the proposal apparently deliberately unanswered because they likely entail severely negative heritage outcomes.

I am personally unable to properly assess the heritage impact of the proposal based on the submitted documents. I only hope the panel has greater success in this.

1. BUSINESS CASE AND BROADER CONTEXT

Council’s own tendered documents show that the Queen Victoria Market has experienced significant and consistent revenue growth over the past two decades. There is therefore no evidence that the general Victorian public see any imperative for major renewal, and certainly not of the scope proposed here.

What exists in ample evidence is poor management, in that the market’s profitability has demonstrably declined to the point where this is now the real issue management faces. Costs having blown out are therefore actually the issue here.

It would be considered fairly unconventional management practice to address the issue of a rising expenses bill with a massive capital works program that doesn’t come coupled with any concrete future traffic projections nor any short medium or long run plan to control the real issue of cost-overruns.

Only in public service land would this be considered smart decision making. This is exactly the sort of decision-making that dug the existing management, which by dint includes Council, into the massive hole in the first place. The reward for this should not be “OK, you therefore have a valid imperative to trash a structure that is flagged as preserved in its entirety, flagged at the highest level of State significance.

2. DISREGARD FOR HERITAGE

Melbourne City Council, and all supportive Councillors have shown the shabbiest and most outrageous disregard for heritage through this entire process. They have deliberately sought to shield as much detail of their destruction from public scrutiny as possible.

This project has effectively been split in two for purely political reasons, the panel would therefore have been given no opportunity to consider whether Council’s originally proposed 200m tower looming over the outdoor environs would void the VHR’s listed market’s state heritage significance. I’m not suggesting it would, but I am underlining that Council wouldn’t have cared if anyone did.

Heritage destruction is now to be wrought all along Theirry St, with that entire row of non-VHR, but significant buildings being demolished without any public input having been allowed whatsoever.

The two storey heritage structures are all being replaced with two storey BRICK structures “in order to reflect the heritage of the area”. We are in TV series Utopia territory here. However, I as screenwriter, would be unable to submit this script as ‘too corny’.

We first learned of this when photos of the destruction were released by Council to the Herald-Sun. I directly asked Cr. Rohan Leppert on that day to comment on how much destruction appeared depicted. He advised me he was unable to comment as “commercial in confidence”. This remained the case until the Planning Minister approved the development. And these are our ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES talking to us like this about what they’re doing with our money and our heritage. This is completely outrageous.

The destruction of the heritage buildings on Thierry Street was never notified to anyone except the photo editor at the Herald-Sun, and presumably the Minister. No public input into the process on the Munro site was enabled because Council deliberately voted to hand its powers on the site to the Minister and therefore void any public input. This outrageous disregard for the heritage community should not be considered outside the context of the current proposal.

3. ATTEMPTING TO ‘GAME’ THE PROCESS

Council has systemically sought to buy off stakeholders through various stages of this process, and have even recently induced the National Trust to issue a mealy-mouthed statement that once again allowed Council to excise the destruction on Thierry Street, which was once again not even mentioned.

If tamecat heritage bodies that have become useful merely to serve tea and sconces at Ripponlea to the blue rinse set, aren’t capable of applying adequate scrutiny here, then it becomes ever more imperative that Heritage Victoria step into this breach and ask for the detail of the applicants that they have refused the general public.

The plans that have been submitted are manifestly inadequate to judge the visual impact of the proposed changes on the shed interiors in general, and Shed D in particular. Yet the plans exist in triplicate, as attested by other parts of this submission. The systemic effort to game the process thus far should therefore lead the observer to conclude that this lack of detail is deliberate, and that it conceals the fact that the addition of the lift housing to the shed interiors WILL fundamentally alter their heritage character and their key sight lines.

The panel is therefore advised to apply a severe degree of scrutiny to the internal visual amenity impact of the proposal, because we the general public don’t have this detail on which to actually submit today, and nor have we been able to scrutinize our elected representatives for this detail.

The panel is therefore also entitled and recommended to assume the worst about the visual and heritage impact of anything it has not been given the necessary detail to judge, and that includes most of the proposed interior changes.

4. DETAIL OF THE PROPOSAL

The four main detailed concerns as I see them are as follows:

• 1. The visual impact on the shed interiors created by the addition of floor to ceiling lift wells, and the inappropriateness of permanently situating such machinery at such scale within the market’s heritage context.
• 2. The significant and obvious impact (not depicted) of the removal and replacement with presumably replica (not stated) elements of the supports in Shed D to allow for basement access.
• 3. The significant and obvious impact (not depicted) of the addition of an automobile-sized entrance ramp in Shed D to allow for basement access which will require concrete side protection walls on either side.
• 4. The appalling attempt at heritage integration that is the proposed new structure on Peel Street, which appears to consider the job done via the inclusion of some bits of wood painted to reflect the heritage roof paneling. Only those elements are triangular, and the new ones are rectangles, and precisely how difficult would even that much have been to reference? The remainder of the structure makes no attempt whatsoever to integrate even in a token sense.

In conclusion, the requirements around basement access necessitate the majority of the heritage vandalism. But the need for these improvements is not proven by the business case. These may improve amenity for traders, but how will they improve profitability? If this cannot be demonstrated, then no imperative for ANY destruction to, nor degradation of the heritage context of a very significant structure on the Victorian Heritage Register should be entertained.

Thank you for your consideration of my submission.

Yours sincerely,
Adam Ford.

SUBMISSIONS CLOSE TODAY - OCTOBER 25
CLICK HERE to submit

Walkable Retail is Winning Retail - Time to Pedestrianise Melbourne's Elizabeth Street

It drives me to utter despair, particularly as someone who's been a lifelong evangelist for the sector,  when retailers perpetually oppose anything to impact traffic flow on their surrounding streets.

It makes me even madder when those same people retail in the CBD. How many drive-through  establishments are there in the CBD?? What proportion of your traffic arrives at your store by foot? And what percentage of that traffic came to the CBD by car?? And for what proportion of that traffic would the location or proximity of the carpark be a factor in their purchase decision?

I'll answer. There are ZERO drive throughs. ONE HUNDRED per cent of your traffic arrives at your store by foot. A MAXIMUM of fifty per cent of them have a car already parked somewhere in the CBD. Approximately NONE of them are in your store because they were able to get a car park out the front.

So, here's the rule. Improve your urban realm for pedestrians, and ALWAYS reap retail rewards. And that of course, is exactly what retailers learned when Swanston was closed. Do we hear any of them calling for its reopening?

Foot traffic on Swanston Street today rivals Oxford Street in London, and the Bourke Street Mall has some of the highest retail rents per square meter in the world.

Car usage is a massively inelastic behaviour. Getting people to change their car usage habits in any direction is REALLY hard. So say all the statistics. And that's why it's perfectly simple to design spaces that significantly improve the urban realm for pedestrian/cycling/public transport without terribly much impacting car usage, and most importantly why doing so will improve overall volume for the critical retail metric - on street foot traffic.

And here's a recent case study from the US that has specifically borne this out. Foot traffic doubled, and retail sales up 9% ... and that's massive in terms of being a factor of a single policy initiative not even specifically directed towards that outcome.

I would make some exceptions for the Queen Victoria Market, which is unique within the CBD in that it does see a lot of car-dependent traffic, and is about the only specific-destination retailer in the CBD. So while it is important that access to the market carpark would be undisturbed, closing Elizabeth Street would in no way impact that. Nobody is not coming to the market because they have to use Queen instead of Elizabeth to get to the carpark.

Yet we can’t afford to continue putting the car at the top of our planning priorities, particularly in Melbourne’s CBD. Nobody who lives anywhere within Zone One has any excuse for driving to the CBD. Ever. Full stop.

So, I am calling today once again for the maximal pedestrianisation of Elizabeth Street its entire length from Victoria to Flinders Street, closing the street to both car and bicycle traffic permanently.

Visions of a pedestrian future for Elizabeth - Swanston Street today

I first mooted this plan at Council elections last year, but it sank into the broader discourse. I did, however get absolutely massive engagement for my sponsored Facebook posts on the topic, with the majority giving it a giant thumbs up.

A smaller number were defending the status quo without much concrete evidence to show how the present is better than my imagined future. Most appeared interested in mounting aggressive defenses of why their special circumstances meant they should have a right to drive to the CBD.

Elizabeth street carries almost no vehicle through traffic today, and as much has already been acknowledged by the RACV's Brian Negus, who already supports closing the street from Flinders to Bourke. Making those who were opposing my plans more troglodytic than the State's peak road lobby group. Ponder that for a minute.

My plan would effectively link most of Melbourne’s biggest drawcard retailers within a “walkable pedestrian core”, making the area bounded by Swanston and Elizabeth streets, and including the Bourke Street Mall one of the world’s largest car-free outdoor shopping destinations.

The plan was also linked in to new retail marketing initiatives, seeking to make the "small scale Victorian" nature of the majority of shopfronts on Elizabeth and Swanston a unique selling point of Melbourne CBD retail. This was also connected policy-wise to new CBD-retail-specific marketing initiatives.

And it’s not just hot air. With the recent arrival of some big international names and the size and concentration of our retail core, Melbourne now has a real claim to being the Asia-Pacific’s premier retail destination, and we should be making this our unique civic selling point within the region. My policy called for specific regional marketing campaigns supporting this.

Melbourne's Proposed "Walkable" Retail Core
-see bottom of article for legend

My plan would have seen footpaths widened, and new street furniture and tree plantings between Victoria and Flinders Streets.

The scheme would also have seen the loss of short term car parks and loading zones compensated for by seeing the City of Melbourne begin strategically buying up long-term car-parks around the CBD for this purpose.

The plan envisaged the creation of market-style kiosks along the redeveloped strip, to attract independent retailers, hawker-style food outlets, local designers and artists, highlighting the diversity and range of Melbourne’s unique retail offering.

The plan did not envisage encouraging cycling along the strip, instead focussing on concentrating cycle traffic on to Swanston Street as the city's designated North-South cycleway.   

It's also an opportunity to create a new plaza entrance for the Queen Victoria Market, something that is sorely lacking from the current redevelopment plans, and more obviously to do something really creative with the "disreputable stretch” of the street at its Flinders Street end.

Have you got any better ideas for pedestrianisation initiatives for Melbourne? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments here.

Retail Core Map (Above) Legend
1. Queen Victoria Market
2. Melbourne Central
3. Emporium
4. H&M
5. Myer
6. Block Arcade
7. David Jones
8. St Collins Lane
9. Collins 234
10. Centreway Arcade
11. Degraves Street