Oct 19 2024

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What’s Happening in the Northern End of Port Phillip?

During the current Council elections, it is striking how much variation there has been across Port Phillip in the nature and level of debate about community needs (and who can best deliver them). In the residential areas to the south and east of Port Phillip, local issues – shopping villages, bike lanes, dog parks, the eternal triangle – seem to have regularly garnered headlines and attention.

But things are different in the northern wards – Montague, South Melbourne, and Port Melbourne – where community identity is perhaps not always as clear cut. These wards are diverse, embracing commercial and industrial precincts as well as residential areas, high-rise as well as low-rise housing.

Their location in the shadow of the CBD also means that they are often catering as much for needs that cannot be met within the City of Melbourne, as for Port Phillip itself. This extra level of complexity means that local issues have not dominated the campaign in quite the same way as in other wards.

The northern wards are also likely to change at a greater rate than, say, Elwood or Albert Park. Montague is the smallest ward by voting numbers this election – but it’s also projected to grow faster than any other. Much of that growth is coming in chunks, as upmarket tower blocks sprout throughout the Fisherman’s Bend precinct.

These new residents are often living a very different lifestyle to longer term locals.

Just recently, developer Tim Gurner got the go ahead for his $1.7bn biosphere project on Harbour Esplanade with 1100 homes featuring ‘on-site anti-ageing facilities and equipment such as cryotherapy, IV infusions, dry and infrared sauna, red light therapy, grounding and PEMF beds, alongside exclusive access to the Elysian Reverse Ageing Medical Clinic that will provide medical grade treatments including MRIs, DEXA scans, brain scans, blood testing and personalised health plans’.

A great deal of careful planning and engagement will be required to foster stronger identification and affinity with the surrounding Port Phillip community.

Much of the work of the new Council in these northern precincts will be to manage coexisting needs within common areas, and to promote the value of diversity as a point of strength. This includes issues like:

  • Housing – influencing the growth of multi-dwelling housing, and managing the balance between public and private ownership
  • Open space and recreation – the development of new netball courts in Garden City and the new public open space at North Port to create multi-use facilities for the whole community
  • Planning – moving beyond a NIMBY approach to allow a diversity of activities and lifestyles across the area, in appropriate locations
  • Shopping strips – Bay St continues to languish, and Clarendon St also needs support
  • New community facilities that allow our many ‘tribes’ to gather – and also encourage them to interact (isn’t that one of the main reasons why we live in the inner suburbs?)

These needs are complex, requiring give and take, and drive. Most of all, they need carefully planned investment. Cutting rates may offer a tiny modicum of short term relief, but it will come at the expense of proper planning, investment and community development.

If we want progress in Port Phillip, let’s start by electing a progressive Council!

Hugo Armstrong, Montague Ward resident

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