By Michael Doran
The recent announcement by State Minister for Water, Lisa Neville, about the Melbourne Water land in Christmas Hills highlighted the need for more community engagement.
Chairperson of the Christmas Hills Landcare Group, Doug Evans, is concerned that these engagement ideals are not going to be met.
“One of our concerns is that this process appears to be oriented towards a pre-determined outcome,” he said. “We have had an extensive consultation process already so I’m not sure what will change if we do more.”
“Our group has put forward a comprehensive proposal for the future and the process so far has certainly not been all bad. In fact there is a lot of common ground about this being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the area.”
“We put our proposal and maps out there some time ago and we are yet to find out what Melbourne Water thinks of them. There is a feeling in the community that the consultation sessions were poorly designed and didn’t allow residents to have an effective input.”
“Right now we are not aware of any significant opposition to the overall Landcare proposal and it has been circulated widely in the Christmas Hills community.”
A contentious issue is the conflict between a strategy to maximise land sales revenue and the resident’s objective of maintaining the areas natural bushland character.
The Landcare group have proposed that land sold is in minimum lots of 40 hectares whereas lots of just eight hectares are being proposed in some areas.
“Lots of eight hectares will increase housing density and make any serious agriculture in the future almost impossible,” said Mr. Evans.
“This area has been identified as a possible future food bowl for Melbourne but that seems to be missing in the decision-making criteria.”
“The character of Christmas Hills is the extensive vegetation and the many types of fauna that inhabit it. It is currently interspersed with green rolling hills, ideal for agriculture, but that is under threat.”
“Community engagement is great but what is the point if the consultants just come back with the same preferred options they have already recommended?”
‘It seems Melbourne Water has a very short term view of maximising revenue and then walking away from the area. Most of the people living in the area want to see a long term view that preserves the beauty we live in.”
