Hello Amazing People!
I have been informed that the next version of the CoPP Nature Strip Guidelines will be out this Friday and the Council meeting (where the Councillors will vote on whether to pass the nature strip guidelines or not) is next Wednesday 3rd August at 6.30pm.
I and others will be speaking and I urge you to attend and, if you can, speak too. You can speak and attend in person or online but for either option you do need to register below:
I have also been informed that, at this point, the majority of Councillors will be voting this document through for two reasons:
- Because enough time and resources have been spent on it (nothing to do with outcomes of the document itself)
- Because staffing needs to be freed up to start the Greening Port Phillip Strategy, a document that the NSGs sit under and should have been completed first (this has been admitted multiple times to me by council officers)
It is interesting to note that Draft 3 is ready now - the Councillors have it - but the community will not get it until Friday (and probably close of business) which gives us only 2 business days to prepare.
I have been approached by a Councillor and have suggested 3 amendments (based on Draft 2) that are being taken back to the other Councillors. They are to do with 3 enormous restrictions that stop the majority of street gardening: utilities, planting around trees and the car access path from footpath. But these don't change the document from being poorly written, lacking context, not workable for community and council and leaving the hundreds of gardens in tree pits and smaller nature strips non-compliant and therefore subject to removal at any time.
Please know, however, that if Draft 3 continues to ignore commonsense and the community and should Councillors vote this through, it won’t be the end of our efforts.
Street gardening is a vital part of our local culture and to restrict our ability to improve our own community’s liveability and mental health has immensely negative short-, medium- and long-term impacts for the community, environment and our local economy.
Finally, it should be said that whatever the outcome, the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor WILL be created with the immense support we have from residents, scientists, specialists, local businesses, other councils, organisations, companies and other government bodies. I almost need to thank council for being so consistently unsupportive and horrendous as I was able to design them out of it!
Thank you to you all! You are all awesome.
Love Emma