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Darebin Appropriate Development Association Charter (November, 2022)   Since 2005 Darebin Appropriate Development Association DADA, is a group of residents of Darebin concerned with inappropriate development. DADA represents and provides assistance to residents who might feel unheard and powerless when development is happening near them. DADA acts to preserve the nature and character of our welcoming community and influence planning at all levels of government to ensure appropriate … Read More.. about About DADA

20 Reasons to Hate “Urban Renewal”

They call it ‘Urban Renewal.’

The politicians love it, developers love it, foreign investors love it, my average neighbour doesn’t really want to know about it, but I hate it.

And here are a few reasons why…

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20 REASONS I HATE ‘URBAN RENEWAL’

  1. Urban Renewal is the reason I have to sit in traffic for 25 minutes just to get from one side of my suburb to the other. By car.
  2. Urban Renewal is the reason I have to stand on the edge of the road for 10 minutes and then play chicken to get from one side to the other.
  3. Urban Renewal is why I am forced to look up at overbearing nondescript cheaply constructed boxes of up to 10 stories high in suburban growth ghettos with inadequate parking, natural lighting and open space. Meanwhile affordable blocks of land and perfectly good houses are being swallowed up and kids have to make do with honing their ball skills on Sony Playstations.
  4. Urban Renewal is the reason the sun now sets in my mother’s backyard at 2pm, as it is totally eclipsed by the dark side of a neighbouring block of ‘townhouses’ (ie. units).
  5. Urban Renewal is the reason my favourite row of Federation shops has just been chewed up by bulldozers and reincarnated as some ugly monolithic drab grey box with concrete cancer and render peeling off like snakeskin after only its first full year of inception.
  6. Urban Renewal is why I have to park two streets away if I’m not home by 3pm and three streets away on bin night.
  7. Urban Renewal is just another name for a marketing ploy that sees foreign investors take over our housing stocks and inject large sums of capital into the market to drive prices up and outpace many local buyers out of the possibility of owning their own home, most probably ever.
  8. Urban Renewal is a quick way of propping up the local and state economies by giving people the false impression that it is boom time in the building industry and consumers have got way too much money to burn on housing.
  9. Urban Renewal is the reason there are no more backyards in my neighbourhood. No more trees, no front yards, no side yards, no sparrows, no fairy wrens, no caterpillars, no Green Grocers, no Brown Bakers, no Black Princes, definitely no Yellow Mondays and no butterflies. There is a lot of concrete though, and concrete cancer, and the odd dwarf shrub for border embellishment.
  10. Urban Renewal, funnily enough, assumes everyone wants urban renewal… I don’t. I like my suburb the way it is. That’s why I chose to live there.
    cartoon-center-city-highway-congestion
  11. Urban Renewal is why there are torrents of rainwater flooding down the gutters of my street from duplex driveways every time the heavens open up. There is nowhere else for the water to go.
  12. Urban Renewal is the reason property developers cruise my suburb in black Audi Q7s eyeing off their next blue ribbon investment that will make them another big brown envelope full of money.
  13. Urban Renewal is a sweeping term that demands blanket slash and burn mentality. Nothing is left of my old neighbourhood – no heritage, no community, no environment, no funky warehouse conversions, no links to the past, no resonating cultural vibes, nothing.
  14. Urban Renewal is a way of turning one block of land into two, three or four and then charging more for each subdivision than the original.
  15. Urban Renewal is why I have to basically fight my way to drive into my local shopping centre/school/health care service. I then have to virtually compete in hand to hand combat in order to find a parking spot, and defy all odds Indiana Jones-style to get my choirs done and return to the car in time before I get a ticket or worse, have to battle through peak hour.
  16. Urban Renewal is the reason I try and stay away from driving anywhere on weekends now. It’s just not worth the effort.
  17. Urban Renewal is why I am too scared to invest all my hard earned savings into the house of my dreams, as who knows what will be built next door to the house of my dreams the minute I move in.
  18. Urban Renewal is why I try not to get too excited about a beautiful old heritage building in my neighbourhood. I find it makes it a lot easier when the thing is replaced by a gaping big hole in the ground next time I jog by.
  19. Urban Renewal is a fallacy that would have us believe the only way to make our suburbs pretty and safe is to knock everything down and build everything new again, this time with dinky shops on the bottom and multiple stories of residential dwellings on top (and lots of basement parking to store our black Audi Q7s). That way we can all be proud of our suburbs. Give me a break.
  20. Urban Renewal is probably the reason why I have to put my child’s name down three years in advance to get her into some overpriced childcare facility. Same with school. It’s probably why I have to get to the train station at 5am to get the only parking available. It’s probably why I have to stand in the train too. And wait at the pharmacy, and the ATM. And get to the park three hours early to reserve a picnic table on a Saturday morning. And line up ten-deep outside the Vietnamese bread shop that does those special pork rolls I like. In fact it’s probably responsible for every little part of my life that I find shitty and annoying.

So thank you, Urban Renewal, you are making such a difference to my life, and will continue to do so, I’d imagine, for some time yet…

By Inheritance 2015, inheritance.org.au

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Save Bundoora Park Petition

Dear DADA Folk,
Further to the Save Bundoora Park campaign is a petition, (below).
You can help by printing and gathering signatures.
Mail pages back to Councillor Tim Laurence, PO Box 91, PRESTON 3072.
If you can convert the PDF file to a Word format you can then add your signature digitally and return the page to Tim Laurence | campaign.kitchen@gmail.com
If you can convert to word please send me a copy to share.
Thanks for your support.
Maria
DADA

petition-bundoora-park

Meeting Notes: 5th August, 2015

Dear DADA Folk,
Attached are my notes from last nights meeting.
Apologies to those who attended for my grumpiness!
There were lots of good ideas for action from all and so still much to do. Thank you to all who put there hand up to act.
Please help us keep up the fight against over development in Darebin.
Stay warm, Maria
DADA

Meeting Notes: 5th of August, 2015

Present: Marion Coffey, Craig Walters, Mandy Baird, Chris Erlandson, Meryl Waugh, Sally Mendes, Laara Eames, Maria Poletti,

Apologies: Keith Coffey

1. Business Arising:
a. Golden Guys seem a popular idea but not at the moment, perhaps another time. Chris has suggested we go to council with the idea of an award for best sustainability practice Action: Chris to research other councils and bring back ideas to us to then take to council. Scrap book idea for DADA web site where people can send in photos of poor development, before and after shots, basic details like address, developers names, details of faults, what is planned.etc. Action: Maria
b. Council flooded with planning applications; Action: Nola sending a further letter asking for some clarification of money collected and spent. Action: Maria to seek out FOI process.
c. Question to council about developers recycling as many materials as possible. We will begin to talk and form more ideas on the quality of demolition as well as the quality of the build. Action: Craig will formulate and ask questions at a council meeting.
d. For the Blog, before and after photos, Gone but not forgotten, RIP houses, Action: Craig to send photos to Maria.
e. Discussed other city councils plan for buying up houses to eventually convert into public open space. Action: Maria to do more research to bring back to the meeting. Stonnington Council
f. Preston Market: Action: Craig to look at special meeting video and bring back to next meeting. Salter Group are the developers. Ask questions to Council regarding the discussions with the minister about Preston Market.
g. 748 to 750 Plenty Road, 4 stories, 22 apartments with some at 40 square metres. Action: Mandy to keep an eye on it.
h. Community Consultation in the development process – are there any precedents for making this compulsory? Kelly suggested a community consultation process where developers have to meet with the community in consultation before the planning application is submitted. Action: Kelly and Maria to work on basics of a community consultation process to bring back to meeting and to go to council.
i. What to do about the 470 High Street development – while it’s still going through the approvals process, workmen have been on-site undertaking preliminary works (are any developments fully stopped?) on an assessment of compaction. In mediation, last month, Action: Kelly to follow up with council planner on the mediation outcome.
j. 672 Plenty Road, revised plans adding a story making it 4 at front, 5 at back, Action: Mandy and neighbours will send new objections on the amended plans.
k. 153 Wood Street, Action: Craig to send objection to Maria for send to network. Done
l. C152 Meeting with planners report. 6 DADA folk meet on Friday the 3rd with Darren Rudd, Manager City Development, Greg Hughes, Principal Strategic Planner and Sophie Jordon, Strategic Planning, to discuss the changes in Amendment C152. They asked for our support by lobbying Richard Wynne and Robin Scott. Also asked to encourage DADA folk to do the council survey on the YourSay website. Agreed to meet with Robin Scott.
Action: Maria to draft and circulate a letter to the Planning Minister. Done Action: Keith to ask Robin for a meeting. Done. Meeting 7th of August 9.30am. Chris, Maria, Craig to attend. Letter can go to both in the meantime.
m. Discussion of lot consolidated sites over 1000 square metres or 1200 square metres. Also the interface is a concern that it isn’t integrated.
Action: Craig to ask D Rudd about footprint on consolidated blocks and the status of garage

2.New Business:
a. Meeting with Minister Richard Wynne. Maria took approx 20 letters and then rang Darren Rudd afterwards to give him feedback on the Ministers response to C152. Jack Roache from BRAG discussed stats. on VCAT members and found one made over 90% decisions in favor of the developers. Reply from the Minister’s office to Mandy’s emailed letter circulated and discussed Action: Mandy to reply in disgust to how condescending and deflective it is.
b. Meeting Robin Scott, He has already written to the Planning Minister to support C152. We agreed to discuss meeting with the planning minister, our disappointment with his reaction. We plan to talk to local issues as well. Ask Robin to ask the planning minister on our behalf to call in the Smorgies proposal. Give him the example of the 17 units planned for Murphy Grove and the problems with C137 and Plenty Road. Agreed to try and meet with other Fiona Richardson. Action: Keith to call Fiona Richardson’s office to ask for meeting.
c. C136, C137 and Heritage concerns. C136 and C137 back to council on Monday. Reply from Greg Hughes to Chris’s letter circulated. Action: DADA to write a letter of support for broader protection around stand alone heritage houses. Chris to send ideas to Maria. Action: Folk to attend meeting.
d. Residents from Northcote meeting with Council Planners. Action: Maria to meet with Kelly and bring back key points. Ask to include notification to at least all the neighbours within a 50 metre radius of the proposed site.
e. Mandy has volunteered to collect data on Councilor voting at Planning Committee meetings.
Categories will include Councilor name, application ward, developer name, legal rep, architects, planning officer name, planning officer recommendation and councilor vote. Discussed standing orders. Action: Craig to talk to Trent about the best way to get something like standing orders on all decisions so we can have more transparency on how councilors vote.
f. DADA Vague Objection List circulated for feedback.
Action: Maria to give feedback to keep objections general but send longer letters or objections to ward councilors. Action:Craig to send info on air-conditioner. Action: Maria to send Mandy a copy.

3.Council Report:
a. Still a City of Darebin Circus!!!

4.Other:
a. Craig attended a meeting on food security and pointed out it is at odds with the planning scheme.

5.Press:
a. Article in today’s business age. Downsizers to target leafy suburb. Not enough 3 bedroom apartments for local empty nesters. Implied that the only people buying 1 and 2’s are investors.

6. Objector Updates:
a. Smorgies developers, because of the price of construction, have decided to go back to VCAT to increase the number of units back to almost the original number. Action: Maria sent an example of a letter to ask the Minister to call in the application.
b. 672 Plenty Road, was rejected at Planning Committee. Dry cleaners on Plenty Road.
c. 13 Brown Street, demolished house, worried about asbestos. Also concern that work has started without planning permission. Action: Craig to ask council if they have a planning application and do they know the development has begun.
d. 112 Collins Street and 48 Murphy Grove tenants have vacated so expect demolish to start soon.

7. Planning Alerts:
a. Discussion about comments status as objections. Action: Meryl to test planning alerts by objecting and seeing if she is listed as an objector.

Next Meeting: 7.00pm, Tuesday, October 13th at 33 Dean Street, Preston

Meeting Notes: 8th July, 2015

Dear DADA folk,
Please find attached my notes form the last DADA meeting. I hope they make sense!!
Stay warm,
Maria

Meeting Notes: 8th of July, 2015

Present: Marion Coffey, Keith Coffey, Maria Poletti, Craig Walters, Mandy Baird, Chris Erlandson, Meryl Waugh, Sally Mendes, Apologies: Lina Mastroianni, Laara Eames, Stewart Midgley, John Gunson, Louisa Ennis

1. Business Arising:
a. Golden Guys seem a popular idea but not at the moment, perhaps another time. Chris has suggested we go to council with the idea of an award for best sustainability practice Action: Chris to research other councils and bring back ideas to us to then take to council. Scrap book idea for DADA web site where people can send in photos of poor development, before and after shots, basic details like address, developers names, details of faults, what is planned.etc. Action: Maria
b. Council flooded with planning applications; Action: Nola sending a further letter asking for some clarification of money collected and spent. Action: Maria to seek out FOI process.
c. Question to council about developers recycling as many materials as possible. We will begin to talk and form more ideas on the quality of demolition as well as the quality of the build. Action: Craig will formulate and ask questions at a council meeting.
d. For the Blog, before and after photos, Gone but not forgotten, RIP houses, Action: Craig to send photos to Maria.
e. Discussed other city councils plan for buying up houses to eventually convert into public open space. Action: Maria to do more research to bring back to the meeting. Stonnington Council
f. Preston Market: Action: Craig to look at special meeting video and bring back to next meeting. Salter Group are the developers. Ask questions to Council regarding the discussions with the minister about Preston Market.
g. 748 to 750 Plenty Road, 4 stories, 22 apartments with some at 40 square metres. Action: Mandy to keep an eye on it.
h. Community Consultation in the development process – are there any precedents for making this compulsory? Kelly suggested a community consultation process where developers have to meet with the community in consultation before the planning application is submitted. Action: Kelly and Maria to work on basics of a community consultation process to bring back to meeting and to go to council.
i. What to do about the 470 High Street development – while it’s still going through the approvals process, workmen have been on-site undertaking preliminary works (are any developments fully stopped?) on an assessment of compaction. In mediation, last month, Action: Kelly to follow up with council planner on the mediation outcome.
j. 672 Plenty Road, revised plans adding a story making it 4 at front, 5 at back, Action: Mandy and neighbours will send new objections on the amended plans.

2. New Business:
a. C152 Meeting with planners report. 6 DADA folk meet on Friday the 3rd with Darren Rudd, Manager City Development, Greg Hughes, Principal Strategic Planner and Sophie Jordon, Strategic Planning, to discuss the changes in Amendment C152. They asked for our support by lobbying Richard Wynne and Robin Scott. Also asked to encourage DADA folk to do the council survey on the YourSay website.
Action: Maria to draft and circulate a letter to the Planning Minister. Agreed to meet with Robin Scott.
Action: Keith to ask Robin for a meeting. Letter can go to both in the meantime. Discussion of lot consolidated sites over 1000 square metres or 1200 square metres. Also the interface is a
concern that it isn’t integrated. Action: Craig to ask D Rudd about footprint on consolidated blocks and the status of garage versus car port.
b. Meeting with Minister: Discuss draft ideas. Shared DADA feedback from Kelly and Jeanette. Presentation to the Minister attached.

3. Council Report:
a. Herald sun article today, MAV criticism of Councilors Greco, Fontana and Tstitas, over misconduct and breeching the code of conduct. Greco and Tstitas have been asked to apologize to each other.
b. Council overseer report to the Minister for Local Government. Report emailed to network and letter circulated as a draft to Minister in response.
c. Two new council overseers appointed and we will keep a track.
d. Transport community consultations meeting held in 3 venues, council considering a traffic and transport report. Tightly controlled and limited in the feedback sought. Had Have Your Say stations where folk could make suggestions. Chris went to the planning desk and spoke to the officer about poor quality materials used in developments and was told in this consultation process that he was wrong. This reflects poor quality treatment of residents in consultations where officers will argue a point rather than hear it in the consultation process.
e. Street Tree Meeting with council, also a consultation with 3 facilitators. At least we weren’t told we were wrong but we were not given any assurances that they would take any notice of what we said. Offered a reduced rate of removal and want to start cutting and replanting in July.
f. Consultation for the oval opposite Northland. Asking folk about what should happen to the oval that is earmarked for possible housing and a sports stadium. Have your say on all of these things on the Darebin website here: http://www.darebin.vic.gov.au/en/Your-Say/Have-Your-Say/Your-Say

4. Other:
a. SOS newsletter circulated and attached to minutes.
b. Winston Churchill- 18th of May, 1951 in a speech made in Glasgow said “Good housing is the first
of the social services. Bad housing makes more disease than any health service can cure”

5. Press:
a. Leader – Julia Irwin, Zones for higher protection
b. Sunday Age; 5th of July, Affordable homes also same day Council Catching Undersized Apartments.
c. Age, June 10th, School blasts increased density.
d. Leader, letters, Northcote character under threat, More Studies are needed.
e. Domain, July 5th, Bigger Homes now thin on the ground.

6. Objector Updates:
a. 629-631 Plenty Road, VCAT win. Follow-up letters to Councilors regarding the implications of the win to C137. Darren Rudd response to Maria circulated. Chris reported that the members were not happy about how the opposing lawyers selected past decisions to make their arguments. It was clear to the objectors that the council reps were not fully prepared.
b. Mansfield Street, James Livingston representing council, not picked up the file 4 days prior to the VCAT hearing. Luckily hearing postponed so more time to work on presentation.
c. 153 Wood Street, Action: Craig to send objection to Maria for send to network. Done

7. Planning Alerts:

8. Strategy Ideas 2015

Next Meeting: 7.00pm, Wednesday, August 5th at 33 Dean Street, Preston

Next Meeting: Wednesday, August 5th, 2015

Next Meeting: 7.00pm,

Wednesday, August 5th

at

33 Dean Street, Preston.

Dear DADA Folk,
A friendly reminder that it is meeting time again. It would be great to see you if you can make it. If you can’t please send your updates for me to share.

Some of the things we will discuss are:

  1. Bundoora Park/Smorgies change of plans at VCAT
  2. Visit to Robin Scott and other politicians?
  3. Amendment C152
  4. Amendment C137

And anything else I have missed.
Cheers, Maria
DADA