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CORRECTED VERSION OUTER SUBURBAN/INTERFACE SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE Inquiry into liveability options in outer suburban Melbourne Werribee — 24 August 2011 Members Ms J. Graley Ms L. McLeish Ms N. Hutchins Mr C. Ondarchie Mrs J. Kronberg Chair: Mrs J. Kronberg Deputy Chair: Ms J. Graley Staff Executive Officer: Mr N. Bunt Research Officer: Ms C. Frew Witnesses Cr J. Menegazzo, mayor, Cr G. Goodfellow, councillor, Truganina ward, Mr B. Forrest, director, advocacy, Mr T. Cottrell, senior traffic engineer, Cr M. Mahfoud, councillor, Chaffey ward, and Mr J. Circosta, manager, early years and youth, Wyndham City Council. 299 The DEPUTY CHAIR — Thank you for making us welcome in Wyndham city. I have had a coffee in downtown Werribee, and it was a lovely experience. It is a nice sunny day, so I think we are in a good space today. I would like to extend the apologies of the chair of the committee, Jan Kronberg, a member for Eastern Metropolitan Region, who is unwell at this present time. I know she would have loved to have been here and I know she made every effort she could to be here, but for today I will be standing in as Chair. This committee, as you are probably aware, is an all-party parliamentary committee and is hearing evidence today on the inquiry into livability options in outer suburban Melbourne. We have already visited a few councils, and we have decided to come to Wyndham out west to see what you have to show us today. I welcome you to the public hearings of the Outer Suburban/Interface Services and Development Committee and its inquiry. I must remind you that all evidence taken at this hearing is protected by parliamentary privilege, and the comments you make outside the hearing are not afforded such privilege. I gather we are first going to have a presentation by the mayor and Bill. I would like you both to give me your full name and address and say whether you are attending in a private capacity or representing an organisation, and if so, what your position is in the organisation. Cr MENEGAZZO — Firstly, thank you to the committee for the opportunity to present to this inquiry. My name is John Menegazzo, the mayor of Wyndham City Council, 45 Princes Highway, Werribee. Mr FORREST — Bill Forrest, director of advocacy, 45 Princes Highway, Werribee. I am wondering, as we are going to get into Q and A sessions and there are some other councillors and officers here, whether you want them to give names and addresses for the parliamentary record now. The DEPUTY CHAIR — We might do that. Cr GOODFELLOW — Cr Glenn Goodfellow, Truganina ward councillor. Professional address: 45 Princes Highway, Werribee. Cr MAHFOUD — Marcel Mahfoud, also a councillor for Wyndham City Council. Business address: 45 Princes Highway, Werribee. Mr COTTRELL — Tim Cottrell, senior traffic engineer, 45 Princes Highway. The DEPUTY CHAIR — All your evidence will be taken down and will become public evidence in due course. I begin by inviting you to make your verbal submission. Cr MENEGAZZO — Thanks once again to the committee for this opportunity. We have introduced the people who are here. In the audience we also have our CEO, Ms Kerry Thompson, and Ms Priscilla Mayne, who is the acting director of community services. I would also like to welcome Mr Bill Strong, who is a community representative and a regular attendee at our council meetings. We have allowed 15 minutes for the presentations by me and Mr Forrest and then obviously time for some questions. I am going to talk about some of the key issues and challenges for Wyndham related to livability in the outer suburbs, then Mr Forrest is going to talk in a bit more detail about the recommendations from council and the context of these recommendations. The first point to make to the committee is that Wyndham faces significant challenges in managing our rapid growth. In the 12 months to June 2010 Wyndham’s growth was estimated to be nearly 9 per cent, or around 12 500 people. Birth notices are running at around 60 per week. When we combine this with the outer western municipality of Melton, this region is now the fastest growing and largest growing region in the country. While that is a major challenge and it is certainly not a badge of honour, it is not an insurmountable impediment, provided that it is adequately planned and resourced. Council recently surveyed its residents and asked them what they thought were the top five issues for council to address. The question was open ended, and for this particular slide you are looking at now, we used a clever little computer program called Wordle. You can see from this that a variety of transport-related, safety and infrastructure issues were the most frequent responses. When it comes to the issues of traffic and transport, we are simply not keeping on top of our congestion problems. We think that the outer suburbs are being unfairly treated relative to the inner suburbs and especially that the west is being unfairly treated relative to the east. The next slide shows transport infrastructure provision, particularly arterial roads, freeways and railway lines within an 8-kilometre radius of Werribee and also within an 8-kilometre radius of Flinders Street. From 300 Werribee or Hoppers Crossing station there is a bus service every 40 minutes; from Flinders Street station to places like Elsternwick, Camberwell or Coburg there are buses, trams and trains, and they all run far more frequently. The black lines on the map are arterial roads that are managed by VicRoads. The grey lines are arterial roads that are managed by council. I think it is immediately apparent that ratepayers are shouldering the major burden for arterial roads here in Wyndham and the state taxpayers are shouldering the burden of arterial roads in the inner suburbs. These next two slides compare Werribee with Bayswater and Dandenong. They are similar distances from the CBD on the eastern and the south-eastern sides of Melbourne. Again, what is immediately apparent is that a significantly greater proportion of main roads are being managed by VicRoads. Every dollar the council is spending on building and maintaining arterial roads is a dollar that is not being spent on parks, recreation trails, playgrounds and recreation facilities, and it is an extra dollar that the ratepayers are paying in their rates, which incidentally, as a proportion of property value, are 30 per cent higher here in Wyndham than the state average. In terms of public transport, council is pleased with the program of improvements to rail services and the contributions that are being made by the Baillieu government and the Gillard federal government and also the contribution that was made by the former Brumby government. We now have trains at 11-minute frequencies during the morning and afternoon peak on the Werribee line, and we have a commitment to the construction of a new railway station at Williams Landing. We also have the commitment to build the regional rail link, and we have additional new trains on order. But there is no time to stop and catch a breath. We have plans for another five railway stations here in Wyndham — one in Derrimut on the Werribee line and eventually another four stations on the regional rail link. Arguably there is a need for another station to the west of Werribee. However, our biggest problems now are a backlog of arterial road upgrades, grade separations across railway lines and bus services. We have 10 sections of arterial road that need to be duplicated to cope with traffic volumes. We need two or three grade separations across the Werribee railway line, and a 40-minute frequency of bus services is simply woefully inadequate. The next theme I want to talk about is the livability of our suburbs. This next slide shows housing in Point Cook, and I would point out that it is not an isolated example. What we see is a proliferation of black roofs, asphalt and concrete. There is no tree canopy and no private open space. These houses are probably all around 250 metres square or greater. We have an objective in the planning scheme in relation to unit development about the provision of adequate open private space for the reasonable recreation and service needs of residents. This objective is accompanied by a standard that requires 25 square metres of open space, which only needs to be 3 metres wide. That same standard applies to detached housing. In Point Cook, one in every two households has a child under age 15; that represents 52 per cent. Also in Point Cook, 3 in every 10 people are aged less than 15 years old, which is around 9500 children. I do not think, having a look at this slide, there is any way you could conclude that this standard of private open space provision can meet the reasonable recreation service needs of residents where there are significant numbers of children who are under the age of 15. Your committee has been tasked with looking at health services in the outer suburbs as well, and in terms of public health Wyndham is struggling with higher levels of obesity and people more likely to be eating poorly and less likely to be physically active. In addition, diabetes is increasing rapidly. Livability is not just determined by the capacity to hit or kick a ball in the backyard; a lack of tree canopy also has impacts, in terms of lack of greenness, on psychological health and wellbeing.

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