Dear Friends

Some good news from last night at the Monash City Council meeting! Council voted to recommend to the Victorian Planning Minister that it reject Amendment C178! So that's a battle won, but we haven't won the war yet.

Now it gets tight in the race to 4 June! The Planning Minister can still bypass Monash Council and approve this with a stroke of her pen, and then we'd really be in trouble.

Please share this petition with your friends, neighbours, teachers, and on social media. In the coming days there will be an article in The Age about Talbot Quarry, so be on the lookout for that, and there's been some other media attention. So that's all good news!

Your signature on this petition helps a LOT--it helps us spread the word and gather new supporters. We now have nearly 150 signatures.

BUT, it won't be recognised by the Minister as an actual objection. Only a submission at the Engage Victoria address will be counted. Please keep recruiting new members, but let them know that we'll also need them to lodge an objection with the Planning Minister.

THIS IS WHAT WE NEED:  Before JUNE 4, please:

1) go to engage.vic.gov.au 

2) search Talbot Quarry

3) Click on the tab for C178mona Talbot Village

4) Fill out the survey.

I'll send out some dot points as examples in a few days of what you could say, in case it's helpful. 

In the meantime, I think it's important that we all understand what would happen if C178 goes forward. First, I encourage you to read the Officers' Report (item 7.1.3) on the Monash website materials for the Council meeting on 27 May. Some of the points below are underscored in the Officers' report.

These are some of the consequences if this were approved by the Planning Minister: 

1) Neither Monash nor we would have any recourse to push back on amenity issues, planning, traffic, etc. We couldn't appeal to VCAT or have a say in what the outcome might be.

2) There are no height limits in this proposal, which now proposes a Residential Growth Zone rather than a Comprehensive Development Zone, as it had before in previous proposals. That means that there would be no height restrictions! I can tell you from reading their engineering reports that the height and size of those structures would be dictated by landfill gas (LFG) and geotechnical issues lying beneath them. 

To put this in simple terms, their engineering reports show the need for 30metre piles in the ground to get past the putrescible waste and quicksand in zones 1 and 2. The pilings would have to support planned six-storey structures (which could be higher) to vent the LFG into the atmosphere high enough that on a cold day the toxic gases wouldn't be close to the surface, which could otherwise be lethal. Have a look at what happened in the Brookland Greens Estate (LFG) and Opal Towers (geotechnical problems) if you'd like to see what this could mean for our community. 

3) Gas vents, under this proposal, would have to be monitored by Homeowners Associations and Monash Council for an estimated 36 years, which is long after the developer will have cut and run! These massive structures would be built adjacent to Talbot Park and Huntingdale Road near Davies Reserve. 

4) This is NOT where they told us the tall structures would be in the recent Talbot Village webinar, and they refused to answer that question when I asked it. All structures built on the site would be determined by geotechnical and environmental risks, not by the utopian village they are trying to sell on their website.

5) No owner could plant a fruit tree on the site due to contaminants in the soil!

So what SHOULD be done with a site like this? The only suitable, safe and appropriate use is open space. With the new Suburban Rail Loop plan for Clayton, we'll need open space more than ever. This site was supposed to be converted to parkland when it was a part of Oakleigh, just as every rehabilitated former landfill site throughout the Sand Belt areas of Metropolitan Melbourne were. Bald Hill and Karkarook Park are examples in Kingston's 'Chain of Parks'. When it was amalgamated into Monash, promises were forgotten.

In your submissions to the Minister, be sure to say that the only suitable use for this contaminated and unstable site is public open space, parkland and/or wildlife sanctuary. I see that one of you has already posted a comment about that on this petition, and I think that would be a perfect thing to send to the Minister! Great job!!

That's it for now--please help us spread the word!

Cheers,

Curt