Restore Residents' Rights Rally on the steps of Parliament

This report has been updated (see below).

Our "Restore Residents' Rights Rally on 8th June, held on the parliament steps, was well attended with groups from right across Melbourne and beyond supporting the speakers criticising the negative effects of PLAN MELBOURNE 2017-2050 recently announced by the government.

Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 has changed the protection provided by the zones put in place by the previous government allowing for  more multi-storey residential development in our residential streets. The whole emphasis is on cramming 70% of new development into our established suburbs.

The first speaker, Prof. Michael Buxton, from RMIT, explained how this will affect the existing residents in these areas. He was supported by the Shadow Planning Minister, David Davis, who made the negative issues  very clear.  Several other politicians added their concerns while other speakers were mainly group repesentatives from resident groups across Melbourne. 

We estiimated that over 300 attended the rally based upon the number of handouts issued. 

We will keep up the pressure on Planning  Minister Richard Wynne, who is not sympathetic to the concerns of residents, but continues to approve more and more unacceptable developments that are ruining Melbourne's reputation as a very liveable city.

 LATEST: We have recieved a letter from David Davis, Shadow Minister for Planning, committing the Liberals to restoring  NRZ & GRZ protections if elected. A copy of the letter is attached (see above).

NOTE: Under the changes to Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 10 or more dwellings could now be built on a single block in the Neighbourhood Resdential Zone (NRZ). Previously the maximum allowed was only two dwellings per block.

Would you like a 10 dwelling multy- storey block of flats built next door? We don't think so. 

More recently the media has been flooded with arguments from so called experts supporting population growth pushing developing high rise in the inner and middle suburbs. In addition Infrastructure Australia has come out with a plan to pack high rise into suburban Melbourne from Sunshine to Box Hill. 

We make the point that it won't stop there, the push will continue up and out. Ask you local political representatives if they are in favour of all this growth and, if they are, ask them what happens when we double our population in the next 35/30 years. Do we keep doubling up in the following 25/30 years?

Our political masters must be made to back off and come up with a sensible population policy that is sustainable including a reduction of migration back to the 70,000 pa we traditionally accepted. At that rate we would still lead the industrialized nations for accepting migrants and could not be criticized for not meeting our international responsibilities.