Dear Friends and Supporters,
On Wednesday we successfully submitted 320 signed petitions objecting to C178, and we are now at 339!
I want to thank all of you for your time and support of this important campaign! While the deadline for submission passed for C178 on 4 June, there's every reason to continue to reach out to your friends and connections to gain signatures and support for this pivotal decision by the Planning Minister. Please continue to share this petition!
Please also reach out to Steve Dimopoulos. He grew up around here, as I understand it, and he would know what a horrible site this is. If we can reach a critical mass, the State Government will have to support us and I will make sure that she sees it. Let's go for 5000!
Now that my submission is a part of public record, I don't mind sharing what I wrote to the Planning Minister yesterday...
OBJECTION TO AMENDMENT C178mona
Submitted 4 June 2025
Dr. Curt Thompson
2 Kaybrook Court
Oakleigh South 3167
Dear Honourable Sonya Kilkenny MP:
I am writing to voice my strong objection to Amendment C178 currently on exhibition with the community. I am a resident of Oakleigh South where I am also the President of a neighbourhood association called Neighbours for Public Green Space, Oakleigh South (NPGS), which has voiced its opposition to developing Talbot Quarry for residential housing since 2017. We are aware of the many environmental, geotechnical and amenity issues associated with this problematic proposal.
As you may have seen in the recent front-page article in The Age (attached) and from the many comments posted on the newspaper’s Facebook Page (link below), the decision whether to approve or abandon the proposed rezoning of this site, which rests in your hands, will garner considerable ire or praise depending on the outcome. I trust that the Minister will consider the particularly unusual risks and uncertainties of this current proposal and the potentially severe, dangerous and costly consequences if mistakes or miscalculations are made.
https://www.facebook.com/share/12LJBxKJvCB/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I have also attached a petition signed by 320 people (as of 2:30pm, 4 June) objecting to C178. While I hope most of them will submit an official objection on the Engage Victoria website, these objections, such as they are, have a value. I hope it will offer an indication of the strong opposition to this proposal which exists in our community.
For several key reasons, I object to the proposals set out in Amendment C178. As I am sure the Minister is aware from her familiarity with the submitted materials, this is an extraordinarily complex site containing, among many other things, the following:
· levels of carcinogenic chemical contamination above human health guidelines.
· landfill gas emissions (LFG) due to the putrescible waste deposited on the unregulated, unlined site when it was operated as a rubbish tip by the City of Oakleigh.
· geotechnical instability due to the deep pits containing quicksand/slimes which are a byproduct of processing sand for concrete production.
· a number of of asbestos-laden blue Harris train carriages and heavy machinery sunken in the slimes.
· a dangerous and unstable tailing dam in the north-east part of the site.
Furthermore, Zone 4, the quarry void on the corner of Huntingdale and Centre roads, has not been adequately tested because the 20m deep hole filled with water is inaccessible. Yet the developer would achieve, with the Minister’s approval, permission to pump water out of the quarry void into the public drain water system before ‘drying’ the contaminated quicksand/slimes on the surface close to existing residential housing, despite its ignorance as to what chemicals and heavy equipment are contained in the hole or whether drying the slimes would cause airborne respiratory effects to existing residents and contamination of their properties.
To offer some background on the site, objectors to Amendment C129, which included Angelo Valente and NPGS accompanied by 343 signed objections, proved at Planning Panels Victoria in 2017/18 that no site of this size containing both putrescible waste and slimes/quicksand has been developed for residential housing in Australia. On pages 61/62 of the Panel Report (attached), you will see their conclusion:
"The Panel considers that there is no clear development precedent that demonstrates that geotechnical engineering solutions are feasible for the development proposed on the Amendment site. The Amendment site is a complex site with a combination of geotechnical and environmental problems which are in part a legacy of unregulated past use."
Currently, the Amendment C178 proposal makes comparisons to sites in New Epping (a 51 mixed-use project involving the urban redevelopment of a former basalt quarry and landfill on Edgars Creek, adjacent to the Epping MAC) and in Lilydale at Kinley Estate, which is a 163-hectare mixed use project in the former Lilydale Limestone Quarry. Comparing these two projects with Talbot Quarry is misleading as the land in this case was a sand mine, and not a basalt or limestone quarry as was the case with the Epping and Lilydale quarries respectively.
If a site such as this containing putrescible waste and slimes/quicksand had in fact been developed for residential housing in Australia, the developer would surely have trumpeted that in its materials. As this is not the case, I would like to caution the Minister on any decision to progress this amendment as it would be the first of its kind in Australia and a dangerous precedent-setting experiment, and as such, the Minister would be forever tied to any decision to proceed.
This is a ‘fox in the henhouse’ scenario by which the developer is asking the Minister to support creating a problem which it then hopes the Minister will help it to correct. While the proponent will not tell you this, the facts are what they are. All exhibited materials support the statement that they are asking for permission to profit from a self-created problem which would otherwise not exist. By approving C178, the Minister would also support the notion that a body corporate and Monash Council could manage LFG monitoring for four decades while preventing residents from planting a single fruit tree or a single tomato plant in the contaminated soil as required by a newly created S173 agreement. In my view, this is preposterous.
If C178 is approved, it will set in motion a chain of events that would require or cause:
· Gas vents to be monitored by Homeowners Associations and Monash Council for an estimated 36 years, which is long after the developer will have shed its responsibility.
· Construction of massive structures built adjacent to Talbot Park and Huntingdale Road which would overshadow existing properties.
· Devastating amenity impacts such as dust, noise, vibration and traffic for a decade or more.
· Differential settlement of buildings, infrastructure, roads, walkways, pipes, etc.
The Minister will be aware of the forced evacuations of the Brookland Greens estate in the City of Casey due to LFG migration which resulted in a $23.5 million class action settlement for over 750 homeowners. The Minister will also be aware of Sydney’s Opal Tower class action settlement of approximately $50 million due to cracks in the structure which precipitated the evacuation of over 3000 people in or near the building. In the Talbot quarry, we have the strong potential to have both scenarios with comparable numbers of affected current and future residents on or near the site.
Engineering reports show the need for at least 20-metre piles driven into the soil in Zones 1 and 2, as well as other areas of site, to get past the putrescible waste and quicksand. The pilings are necessary to support planned six-storey (or higher) structures to vent the LFG into the atmosphere to a suitable height in order that inversion layers on a cold day would not trap the toxic gases close to the surface, which could trigger evacuation and/or death.
The developer has gone to great lengths to promote ‘Talbot Village’ as a model urban development plan, with daycare, shops, grocery stores, housing and public transport all within a short walk or bike ride. Exhibited plans and public webinars suggest the tall structures would be in the centre of the site, with two-storey town homes interfacing with existing residences.
This is incongruent to the data exhibited in the engineer reports which demonstrate the largest structures would need to be built in Zones 1 and 2 (on the southeast and northwest portions of the site) within a few metres of existing residential properties to manage the environmental and geotechnical issues at hand.
The Monash Council Officers’ report, with which I am in complete agreement, included many criticisms of C178, and I highlight just a few of them below:
· A failure to provide the detail of rigor and certainty for the management of the contamination of the site given its operation as a former quarry and landfill.
· A lack of necessary certainty and clarity for planning controls for the delivery of the proposed development on the site.
· A proposed exemption from contributing to public open space
· A proposal to make the Victorian Government Minister for Planning the responsible authority for the approval of the overarching development plan but not individual planning permits under that plan.
· Inadequate time (five weeks) for the Officers and community to provide feedback during the exhibition phase considering the enormous complexities of this site.
In addition, the community is aware that if C178 is progressed, there would be no height restrictions. The development plan suggests 6-story buildings, but there's nothing to limit it from being 10, or even more, and this would in the end not be determined by a planning scheme, but rather by the environmental and geotechnical techniques required to proceed with the experiment. I would say here that engineers with whom I’ve discussed this proposal are fond of saying ‘we could build a ladder to the moon, but it wouldn’t look like a ladder’. Would a 20-storey structure, or 50-storey structure, be required to achieve the desired results if the Minister were to approve this proposal?
As a property owner whose home abuts the site, I experienced the effects of the 2015 planning permits approved by Monash Council to preload the site. Soil was deposited at the height of our rooflines and at distances closer than 30 metres. These works caused our houses to shake due to extreme noise and vibration levels. I have attached a video of a glass of water vibrating on the windowsill in my then-toddler’s bedroom. Works have also caused flooding of homes all along the eastern and northern boundaries of the site. Dust settlement due to earthworks on our properties damaged air conditioning systems and made it impossible to use clotheslines. Like other residents, I have a clear understanding of the negative amenity impacts the community would experience for many years to come if C178 is progressed, and I ask the Minister to consider amenity aspects alongside the more troubling environmental and geotechnical issues inescapably connected with this site. The current landowner has been a bad actor when it comes to amenity concerns of neighbouring residents, and with our inability to object to VCAT if C178 is progressed, I fear this would only be made worse.
Considering the environmental and geotechnical risks of this site, and the detriment to amenity such a development would cause, the only suitable use for this site is for public open space, a wildlife refuge, competition-level sports facility or a combination of these low impact uses. In this way, a site which has been scarred by decades of inappropriate human activity could be reclaimed for a significant benefit to the community.
The Suburban Rail Loop Authority includes plans for significantly greater housing densities in Clayton. SRL plans state the requirement for additional provision of regional scale fields of a competition standard in the area, and Talbot Quarry falls within the required distance to Clayton. Given the fact that Talbot Quarry is approximately 18 hectares in size, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to accommodate sports grounds of this scale. By exercising the S173 agreement currently on the site, the State Government should purchase the site at a fair market value (prior to rezoning) and invest in public recreation space for the community.
I would like to thank the Minister for her measured and careful judgement in this watershed decision. I meanwhile implore the Minister to consider:
· The ramifications of the environmental, political and regional risks the Minister would be responsible for if such a horribly complicated site were progressed for residential development and failed
· The human toll this decision would cause if a worst-case scenario were to take place.
· The legal costs of class action lawsuits if/when construction decisions prove to be wrong
· The current and increasing need for open space and competitive sports grounds outlined in the SRL and whether this site would be a candidate for those requirements given the S173 agreement currently tied to the land before any decision to rezone takes place
In summary, there are many known and unknown risks associated with the progression of plans to develop this site for residential housing through Amendment C178. The risks are high for potentially disastrous outcomes if the site is disturbed in the manner proposed in C178 due to the environmental and geotechnical issues inextricably connected with the land. C178 would tie the hands of Monash Council and residents in ways that a reasonable person would see as flawed. The damage to amenity of existing residents over a decade or more if development proceeds would be highly inappropriate. Conversely, with the population boom expected in Clayton because of the SRL, and its associated requirement that adequate nearby sports facilities are provided, the use of the Talbot Quarry as public open space is the most logical way forward.
For these many reasons I respectfully urge the Minister to recommend that C178 be abandoned.
Sincerely
Dr. Curt Thompson
Associate Professor (Violin) and Head of Strings
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music / Faculty of Fine Arts and Music
University of Melbourne