Level Crossing workshop - more talk?

Recently Vicroads has been widely letter dropping in all the affected areas details of a forum/workshop they are conducting at Carnegie Library on Tues 6th September 630-830pm on level crossings on the Dandenong line.

All local residents in the area know this is the biggest issue in the area right thru from Caulfield to Oakleigh and Im not sure of the value of further 'workshops' -
Everyone knows what the problem is and what the solution is.

There needs to be a solid committment by the State Govt to fund this grade separation as soon as possible - Presently for the M/Beena rd crossing re previous posting there is $2.5m allocated to plan/study in this term and a further $150m if re-elected in 2014.Will be interested to see the outcomes of these workshops,

Community Environment forum Wed 31st Aug

The 2011 Glen Eira Community Environment Forum will be held on Wednesday 31st August 730pm in the Caulfield Cup room at the town hall - cnr of Hawthorn and Glen Eira rds. - all welcome!

This is an important annual forum that will provide many of the priorities and actions for next years Environment Sustainability Strategy (ESS). It is also important to hear feedback on how the current ESS is performing and what changes are required to produce more effective results.

Recently Council has dealt with issues around public open spece, tree protection, including better environmental design in planning applications and sustainable transport and these and others are sure to be dicussed on the night.

The draft Carbon Reduction plan is currently out for public scrutiny until Sept 6th and this forum will provide further opportunity for comment.

The current ESS is listed in links bottom right.

draft Carbon Reduction plan released

At last Tuesday's meeting Glen Eira's first draft Carbon Reduction plan was released for a 28 day public submission and comment period.

The plan is Item 9.3 in the minutes bottom right of screen.

In moving this motion and welcoming public comment, I outlined in my view the strengths and weaknneses of the draft plan- On the plus side the street light changeover over the next two years (reducing council's emission by 11-14%) is a major step forward with $2m budgeted over the next two year to change to more energy efficient T5 globes.

Other measures articulated in the action plan include the purchasing of hybrid council vehicles, Greenpower for 25% of councils electricity needs, increasing the uptake of the Eco-Buy purchasing program by 10% each year and utilising best practise low emmission manufactures concrete.

The Sports and Aquatic centre (GESAC) at Bentleigh about to come online presents a challenge in managing emmissions. This 24/7 facility will be powered primarily by convential sources ie brown coal- In the design of this facilty there is capacity to transform to co-generation energy sourcing and I will certainly be advocating for this in future years.

The major flaw with the plan as I see it is a lack of targets and vision about where GEs emissions should and will be in future- despite the actions it would seem to be an ever increasing upward trend!- will look forward to comments.


The annual Evironment Community Forum will be held on Wed 31st August 7pm Caulfield Cup room -

Back on line on Thurs 11th Aug

Will be back on line after a short break with all the news on Thursday 11th Aug,
Cheers Neil

Community gardens in Glen Eira

In response to several enquiries one of the potential projects i am currently looking at is the establishment of community gardens or urban orchards in our muncipality.

One very successful example is the gardens at the Uniting Church in Murrumbeena rd that have been estabilshed on previously vacant space surrounding the rear carpark-many groups young and old have gained hours of enjoyment and satisfaction from tending and caring for these lots.

Other great examples of what can be achieved include the gardens in Ringwood and St Kilda- see links bottom right.

This issue had been raised from time to time without much progress- there are wonderful opportunities for gardens such as these to become community focal points which i will continue to explore.

update GESAC/Bailey Reserve carpark extension approved

In a disappointing decision at last night's meeting Councillors voted 5/2 to approve the proposed $450k GESAC(glen eira sports aquatic centre)car park extension into Bailey Reserve Bentleigh resulting in the loss of approx 1400m2(two house blocks)of public open space and the relocation of the present childrens playground.

I spoke of the need for a new Open Space strategy in Glen Eira (see prev post) that would define, value and plan for public open space- and would hopefully prevent ad hoc decisions like this where at the 11th hour and before a facility is even opened a demand is placed on our parkland.

Last year Council purchased two house blocks in Packer Park to improve, expand and complete the park frontage on Oakleigh rd.
Cr Tang correctly identified that this extension would break up Bailey Reserve in two and was at odds with the reasoning behind Council's previous decision in Packer Park.

Open Space vs extra GESAC car parking

At this Tuesday night's meeting Councillors will vote on whether to extend further the new GESAC car park into Bailey Reserve with the relocating of the present playground.

Item 9.10 (under links bottom right) lists two carpark options - the first being a multi-level complex on the present planned carpark - to my mind a trojan horse option.

I have requested details of the amount of public open space that will be lost by the proposed extension-

GESAC is yet to open and its success quantified- nothing has changed since the amount of carparking was determined as an appropriate balance between the new facilty and surrounding open space. At the eleventh hour to make such changes I feel is poor policy and in line with my previous posting on the need for a new Public Open Space strategy in Glen Eira