Background

On 16 December 2014, APMAG raised the issues of housing diversity, retail floor space and the proposed ‘Riverside Park’ at the Yarra Council meeting, when Council authorised the public exhibition of the Amcor Development Plan, subject to finalisation of the reports to comply with the requirements of the DPO schedule.
During the public exhibition period, APMAG held a public information session on Thursday 5 March that was attended by over 65 residents.

APMAG prepared it’s submission on the Amcor development plan to the City of Yarra through the lens of community discussion at our information session and results obtained from the online survey, as well as listening to our members over the past years.

APMAG has reviewed the Amcor development plan and critiqued the supporting documents based on the issues felt most strongly by the community. These issues are addressed in the main body of the submission and further detail is provided within the
appendices to the submission. These include;

• The Economic Assessment Report
• Housing Diversity Report

Overview/Criteria – where are we coming from?

The vision for the Amcor site, as outlined in the DPO Schedule 11 is to become a sustainable, predominantly residential community. APMAG strongly supports this vision and notes that the DPO Schedule provides the mechanism to achieve an exemplar residential development that integrates the new development with the existing community of Alphington.

However, APMAG considers that the proposed vision outlined in the development plan extends beyond the Council’s vision of a predominantly residential community. Instead the magnitude of the retail and commercial precinct is indicative of a Major Activity Centre rather than a Local Neighbourhood Activity Centre. APMAG believes that it will cause enormous detriment and change the nature of the surrounding residential area. The impact can be measured by traffic volumes, high number of visits to the site and demand for public transport. Further, it will change the surrounding predominantly residential neighbourhood character of Alphington. It can further be expected that pressure will be placed on the surrounding residential area to acquiesce detached single dwellings and consolidate lots for townhouses and apartments. For these reasons we anticipate that the quantum of retail and commercial space will irrevocably change the neighbourhood character of Alphington.

In APMAG’s view, the Alphington community is, for the most part, willing to accept change and the vision set out in the development plan to provide a predominantly medium to higher density residential development

However, this has always been conditional upon the delivery of appropriate and sustainable community infrastructure, concomitant with the needs of the larger community, in the long term.

The limited information contained in the Development Plan has given the community little confidence that the delivery of community infrastructure is a serious component of the plan and that will actually be delivered. A visionary approach would seek to ensure that the intangible links that can be harnessed through investment in community infrastructure and services that can help to build on the existing social capital of the established Alphington community, allowing integration with new residents, empowered to share it, to the enhancement of a better, larger local community. Instead, the development plan as it stands appears poised to denigrate and diminish existing social capital that has been built over a very long period of time.

Beyond the provision of services, many other opportunities for integration of new residents with existing communities can be seized. For example, with thoughtful subdivision layout. It is the informal pedestrian permeability at present that enables people to wander down to  the river that contributes to the area being such a desirable place to explore. The proposed development plan has unfortunately overlooked the opportunity to link east (Alphington) to west (Amcor site), despite the indicative framework plan of the DPO Schedule clearly requiring an east west pedestrian and bicycle link through the site. Instead the proposed development plan shows that the only permeable sub precinct is in 4A from Alphington Park into the site. Pedestrian linkages are instead linear and focused on north – south with no destination at the end of the trail. Further, the linear trails have no setback from the imposing built form, particularly evident in the north-west corner, which will to create a wind tunnel, rather than a desirable place to gather and walk. The subdivision layout is an obvious approach to link, connect and integrate the new community with the existing community of Alphington and is a missed opportunity in this plan.

To this end APMAG has formulated a set of criterion to evaluate those elements of the development plan that are the most heartfelt by the community.

Criteria:

A development that integrates the new with the existing Alphington community as one.
To achieve this we submit that the following be considered by Council as minimum standards against which the development plan be considered, alongside the DPO and other relevant planning schemes;

1.  Provision of infrastructure and services to meet the needs of the whole Alphington Community – both new and existing;
2.  A sustainable development to balance social, economic and environmental elements; and
3.  An excellent urban environment that preserves and enhances the existing social capital of the Alphington community and provides opportunities for continued enhancement of social capital.

The information and data obtained from the oral submissions gathered at APMAG’s information session and online survey results, provides the evidence that these attributes are important.