Australia Day celebrations – Development to close Waterfront City

NewQuay seemed to be the place for celebrations. It was difficult to get through the crowds on the promenade. There were market stalls along the eastern end and of course the major concert on the Waterfront City end, with food stalls behind backing towards Docklands Drive.

As we know only too well, MAB developers have approval to build a multi-storey building on the site facing the water, which will destroy the open area, block the water view and prevent further concerts. A couple of years ago a public meeting of over 100 people was highly critical and opposed the planned development but to no avail, as council, Places Victoria and the Minister all approved it.

When the plans went before council last year, the public meeting and criticisms were not mentioned. But I was happy to remind them. What else is new?!

Poor construction materials – Lacrosse building

After the Lacrosse building fire over a year ago, council asked for our views regarding how to avoid recurrence in terms of balcony use. I said that OC rules, of which there are a number, are rarely enforced; building managers are impeded by not having access to apartments without approval and not being able to see infringements. Of course in any event this does not address shoddy building materials. Whilst there was a lot of talk the issue seems to have died down and I don’t recall seeing anything further from council. We’ll follow-up.

Fisherman’s Bend Forum
A meeting attended by a large number of residents was held in the library on December 8. It was addressed by departmental officers who went through the current planning stages of the Fisherman’s development. Hopefully the experience gained from Docklands and Southbank will encourage the State Government to adopt a stronger control over developments in Fisherman’s Bend.

We Live Here forum

A meeting of a large number of Southbank and Docklands residents was held in the Medibank building on December 14 to voice displeasure with serviced apartments. It was organised by Watergate interests who are still fighting the issue in the courts. The meeting was addressed by State Government members who were sympathetic.

Better Apartments Review

The State Government has announced this review will continue during 2016. A public engagement [input] process ran during 2015. Submissions included one from ourselves.

Findings showed the primary issues regarding apartment design were adequate sunlight, adequate functional apartment space, good natural ventilation, internal and external noise and energy and resource efficiency. The input will help the formation of apartmentv design guidelines.

Consumer Property Law Review

The State Government has issued its first discussion paper entitled Conduct and Institutional Arrangements for Estate Agents, Conveyancers and Owners’ Corporation Managers. Two issues papers will be released in coming months including owners’ corporation management. The OCNV was recently asked by the SCA (Strata Managers Association Victoria) to comment on their proposed submission.  It covers interesting topics including maintenance programs, termination (destruction of) buildings at end of life cycle and short stays.  

In essence we are proposing that maintenance programs should apply for all size buildings with funds provision over a certain size. Regarding  termination/destruction, we believe in tight voting controls with considerable majority votes required, and regarding short stays we propose repeating our position re requiring  minimum seven day bans. Further details will be provided to members and on the net.

Age article - poor publicity

At the December Police and Community Co-ordination meeting, I raised the poor publicity in The Age article of October 18, headed  ‘Ganglands, not Docklands: new high-rises harbour the gang land crowd’ which we said was highly exaggerated. It was generally agreed that it was over the top, considering the relatively low figures provided by the police on crime in the area.

If any reader would like to become a member of the DCA or has any suggestions they wish to put forward regarding activities or issues, they are welcome to contact us on [email protected]. We’re also on Facebook.

If you would like to contact me about any aspect or becoming a committee member you are welcome to email as above.

Regards to all
Roger Gardner
President DCA