Yarra River – Bulleen Precinct Advisory Committee

7 June 2019

Dear Committee members

Birrarung Council submission : Draft Yarra River – Bulleen Precinct Land Use Framework Plan.

The Birrarung Council, created under the 2017 Yarra River Protection (Willip-gin Birrarung murron) Act, provides advocacy for the protection and preservation of the Yarra river.

The establishment of the Council represents the first time, in , that such a strong champion and guardian of a critical waterway has been established. Council is charged with providing advice to Government on how to protect the River, and secure its health for the generations to come. Importantly, Traditional Owners form part of the Council, which serves as the ‘voice of the River’, and acts as a champion for community and Traditional Owner aspirations for it.

In 2018, the Ministers for Water, Planning and Environment also launched the Yarra River 50-year Community Vision and received a copy of the Water Policy (Nhanbu narrun ba ngargunin twarn Birrarung -Ancient Spirit and Lore of the Yarra). These documents describe the aspirations of community and Traditional Owners to care for the river and its parklands, as a single living and integrated natural entity. They provide the strategic direction for all future planning and management decisions that will impact the Yarra corridor.

The Council has previously advocated for a land use plan to help realise the aspiration set out in the Government’s 2017 Yarra River Action Plan, for the Bulleen Banyule River precinct to become an ‘internationally significant cultural precinct, centred on the relationship between the arts, nature, and Traditional Owner heritage’. Council sees its role as actively supporting and championing the changes that need to happen in order for this vision for the precinct to be achieved, consistent with its overarching role to help protect and preserve the entire River. It believes implementing this vision for the precinct will be a significant step towards implementing the Community Vision and Wurundjeri Water policy.

Significance of the Yarra River – Bulleen Precinct

The precinct is unique in environment, culture and heritage and significant not just to but also the nation. It is home to extensive parklands and distinctive natural and cultural places. It contains the last significant remnants of the network of billabongs and riparian woodlands as well as centuries old River Red Gums. It has inspired generations of artists associated with the and modernist art movements. The Wurundjeri have identified the development of this Bulleen Plan as an immediate priority and has expressed aspirations to recreate the billabong systems which were pre historically, historically and remain contemporaneously an important feature along parts of the Yarra.

It is also an area in need of strong protection. Urban redevelopment and infrastructure projects can threaten the layers of cultural history in this precinct. Careful planning will be the key to achieving the vision for an internationally significant cultural precinct.

Initial comments on the Land use Framework Plan

Council has reviewed the Draft Yarra River – Bulleen Precinct Land Use Framework Plan (the Draft Plan) and wishes to make several initial comments.

Firstly, Council fully supports the vision, principles and objectives set out in the Draft Plan, and the identification of culturally significant sites in the precinct. However, we note that further work needs to be done to realise the potential of the precinct. This is critical in order to deliver on the 50-year Yarra Community Vision and the Wurundjeri Water Policy (Nhanbu narrun ba ngargunin twarn Birrarung -Ancient Spirit and Lore of the Yarra).

Council supports the proposal for the long-term land use change from private land into open space parkland. We are concerned that some areas earmarked for active recreation may not be compatible with the proposed adjacent land use of parkland with ecological values and cultural sites. Recreational uses should be sympathetic to the parkland and cultural contexts.

Council would welcome further detail on the proposed mixed-use development, and specifically how this use will support the vision and principles set out in the Draft Plan. Council also sees the village concept as key to the planning of recreation and mixed-use development within the precinct, allowing people to move in and out of different areas easily and with flow between all recreational and cultural areas creating an attractive visitor experience.

The vison contained in the Yarra River Action Plan, to create a new internationally significant cultural place, centred on the relationship between the arts, nature and Traditional Owner heritage, is also at the heart of the the Draft Plan . The importance of achieving this vision cannot be overstated, and Council sees this element as a central and fundamental component of the Draft Plan. Council has recently had a presentation by Maudie Palmer AO and Eugene Howard, contemporary art curatorial consultants, on a concept for a Bulleen Cultural Precinct. The concept incorporates elements of contemporary and environmental art, and encourages recreation use as well cultural appreciation (see Attachment 1). We believe this is consistent with the vision of the Draft Plan and support further consideration of this concept, as the Draft Plan moves into its next phase.

In addition, Council has a clear view that all trees of significance should be protected as far as possible. Developments of our urban landscape and infrastructure may pose more challenges to significant trees, but it is important that appropriate protections are incorporated into the land use planning for the Yarra River – Bulleen precinct.

Conclusion

There are significant pressures on this part of the Yarra to rezone land for urban development, plus a legacy of land development and use, that are clearly inconsistent with the Community Vision and Traditional Owner values for the River. The Land Use Framework Plan is a significant opportunity to establish a new River precinct that is as substantial in its impact on Melbourne as the Southbank precinct and the reorientation of the CBD to the River which occurred in the 1980s.

It is important that the central vision of a cultural precinct is not compromised by inappropriate siting of active recreation or residential development.

Council would welcome further opportunities to provide comment on the Draft Plan as it is progressed.

Sincerely

Chris Chesterfield

Chair Birrarung Council

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