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Wedge 1 Brochure: How come we have a Nillumbik Green Wedge and why should you care?
Brochure can be downloaded from here. Printed copies maybe available also: email us.
Professor’s Hill Campaign
In 1982 Ilya Kostetsky, a north Warrandyte resident and architect, applied to Eltham Shire Council for a planning permit to subdivide his land into one-acre lots. The land, Professor’s Hill, was well known for its orchids and floristic diversity. A small part of the Hill was already a reserve managed by the Professor’s Hill Sanctuary Committee of Management.
The subdivision incorporated some good planning design in that Ilya proposed to put the road up the hill with houses sited on the contour on small bitumen drives, to reduce the damage to the land. The alternative of a road along the contour would have meant long skinny rectangular blocks, with long excavated drives cut angrily down the slopes, destroying most of the land. But the community did not want any development.
The objectors
David Cameron, representing the Professor’s Hill Sanctuary Committee of Management wrote to Cr Rob Marshall expressing their concerns about the planned subdivision and appealed for the Council to conserve the land. This started a campaign that led to the Warrandyte Environment League (WEL), taking it on as a test case.
At the time Eltham Shire had a majority of councilors who were sympathetic to the environment, backed by experienced staff in the planning and engineering departments. They accepted the concerns of residents regarding the impact of erosion. The view of the Council was that subdivision could only go ahead with 2-acre minimum lot size. Ilya appealed the decision.
The Appeal
The Planning Appeals Board chaired by Stuart Morris heard the matter on 25th October 1983. WEL’s case was to do with the environmental quality of the land. Doug Seymour led the appeal case on behalf of WEL. As an engineer, with council experience, he carefully researched and assessed the development. At the Appeal hearing, he brought in specialists in soil, drainage, design principles and roads to support his arguments. One of his most persuasive experts was David Cameron, a botanist.
David represented the Professor’s Hill Sanctuary Committee of Management, and presented data on the floristic quality of the land. David’s submission was based on his botanical survey of Professor’s Hill covering the period 1974-83, for all months of the year. Such surveys must be conducted in all seasons of the year, to detect grasses and orchids, and need to be done over as many years as possible as some plants only flower after fire or a good season.
Taking data that were well known for other local reserves and Victorian State Parks, David was able to demonstrate via comparison, that Professor’s Hill had incredible diversity and capacity to be representative of local flora. For example, there were 37 orchid species on Professor’s Hill then, more than any other reserve or Mt Buffalo National Park, and nearly as many as Ferntree Gully
Letter to The Age re the South East Green Wedge 13 June 2017
Concrete green wedges
The Supreme Court has overturned a VCAT decision and approved a large place of worship in the Green Wedge at Carrum Downs. The case turned on whether the development qualified as a place of worship.
The Defenders of the South East Green Wedge objected to this proposal because its scale and bulk would be completely out of place in the open countryside. It consisted of a double-storey hall to accommodate up to 3500 people, two double-storey buildings, a large two-storey guesthouse with a lift, a caretaker’s dwelling and a big barn, all on a 26.3 hectare site.
There are four outstanding applications for places of worship in the South East Green Wedge, including one with towers as tall as a seven-storey building. If this trend is allowed to continue, our delightful green wedges will soon be transferred into an urban-type landscape dominated by large buildings.
Barry Ross, Hampton
About the Green Wedge
“Green wedges” are non-urban areas that surround the built-up urban areas of metropolitan Melbourne and are outside the urban growth boundary
The green wedges accommodate agricultural and recreational uses, as well as a variety of important functions that support Melbourne.
Melbourne’s planning policies have tried to protect the non-urban green wedges for fifty years, starting with Rupert Hamer as Minister for Local Government in 1966, and later as Liberal Premier 1972-81.
In October 2002 the government released “Melbourne 2030 – Planning for sustainable growth”, a 30 year plan to manage urban growth and development across metropolitan Melbourne. It aimed to protect the green wedges from inappropriate development and encourage proper management of these areas (policy 2.4), through a number of policy initiatives:
1. Implement new planning scheme provisions to secure the protection of metropolitan green wedges in the planning system (2.4.1)
2. Work with local councils to support the consolidation of new residential development into existing settlements in the green wedges, where planned services are available and relevant values can be protected (2.4.2)
3. Amend planning schemes affecting green wedges to ensure that recreation-type developments, such as golf courses with associated housing development, are only approved where they support Melbourne 2030 and local settlement policies (2.4.3)
4. Legislate to provide protection for areas of high environmental and scenic value in metropolitan green wedges such as Nillumbik, the Dandenong Ranges, the Yarra Valley, Westernport and the Mornington Peninsula (2.4.4)
The Nillumbik Council Plan 2009–2013 recognised the importance of the Green Wedge for the local economy. It supported actions to protect the environment and landscapes by encouraging appropriate economic development in the Green Wedge including tourism, food production and agriculture.
In addition, Nillumbik Council, though community consultation and research, produced the Nillumbik Green Wedge Management Plan 2010 to 2025.
The purpose of the Plan is to direct the sustainable management of the Nillumbik Green Wedge in relation to all strategic planning and use of the non-urban areas of the Shire.
The Nillumbik community has a strong attachment to the Nillumbik Green Wedge and is keenly interested in safeguarding this special place now and for future generations.
The Plan states that the Green Wedge will be secure and will be valued by the local and wider Melbourne community for its natural and cultural values. The future of the Nillumbik Green Wedge is one in which:
• natural and cultural values are conserved and enhanced
• bush and rural landscapes are conserved and enhanced
• the economic future is sound
• communities are strong, connected and supported and are knowledgeable about the Nillumbik Green Wedge
• local identity and diversity is respected and nurtured.
At the most recent elections a number of Councillors were elected on the basis of their purported support for the Green Wedge. Now they are backing away from this. The Green Wedge has disappeared from the Council’s five strategic objectives, which drive forthcoming annual budgets until July 2021.
Nillumbik shire was established in 1994 as a conservation shire with the Green Wedge as its strategic focus. It is fundamental to the shire’s identity and its responsibility. The current Councillors are ignoring their fundamental responsibility to care for the Nillumbik Green Wedge, the very basis of the shire’s establishment.
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