A town that walks. A town that talks.

Wednesday evening, 12 April 2023 Macedon Ranges Councillors unanimously rejected the developer's plans for Amess Road, Riddells Creek.

'Go back to the drawing board,' they said. '1300 lots of 400 square metres doesn't fit with the character of the town. And it's not what the residents want.'

Shire staff had recommended that the Planning Scheme Amendment process begin, but Councillors thought no. Nice call Councillors, and kudos for being prepared to stick your collective neck out and say 'no, it's not what Riddells wants', when you know the developer will very likely ask the Minister's office to ignore you and start the Planning Scheme Amendment process anyway.

But it got me thinking - we pour all this energy into fighting off what we don't want, but what do we want? What kind of town do we want?

Growth is baked into the design for this town. The C100 amendments of 2016 led to the infill development we see as we drive around town, and it put two urban growth areas north and south of the town. Those are not going away.

In the town's petition to Council, we pitched for an average lot size of 800 square metres. That's not quite so cheek-by-jowl, but it would still mean around 2,500 people moving in down there on the north end of Riddell. Then there's South Riddell, the Daffodil Farm.

What kind of town do we want? Speaking as a landcarer, I want a town that walks. Why so? When you walk, you feel the good earth underneath you, and the generous natural world around you. You hear the birds calling, see the weather coming in, and feel the first flurry of rain. If you are well prepared with your rain gear, that won't trouble you - head on with your walk!

When you walk, you slip the chains of modernity and become an animal that roams freely.

Care for land begins right there, in that feeling. You're part of the natural world. There's healing in that, freely offered.

And anyway what else would you do, on a Sunday afternoon when the kids are starting to wear you thin, or after a morning at the desk, than to push through your back door into the open air and step out for a walk? In our urban, virtual lives, we lucky residents of Riddell can walk our way back to sanity.

So, a town that walks.

But also want a town that talks. At the Post Office. Out on the street. On Facebook. And every now and then, gathered as the people of the town, to hear what each other thinks, and sort out what the town wants.

At present, we only talk as a town at those wretched consultations organised by MRSC, or GWW, where government has set the agenda and the parameters, where the answers have to fit on a sticky note, nothing more complex, where good conversations get cut short for lack of time. Where the staff or their hired specialist take away what we say and feed it back in the corporate language, very different to the way we residents talk about the place we live.

If we let government consultation be the driver of our collective opinion, then we deserve the unimaginative, business-as-usual deal we will get.

We need to talk as a town.

We can listen respectfully, and get curious about the ways other people think, and how they got to their point of view. We can disagree, strongly, without slamming the other person or storming off in a huff. We can find the common ground. We can find what we agree on, and get moving on what we want.

It's not like we're short on things to talk about. Like, right now, as of mid-2013, the Amess Road development needs $8m or so of council infrastructure spending. When is that money going to be spent, where is it coming from, and how will that fit with spending in the rest of the town?

What is the plan and timeline for expenditure on sporting facilities?

Car parking in the centre of town? Footpaths for all that walking, and the dozen other things we pay rates for? How can the Station Street/Kilmore Road/Sutherlands Road junction could be improved? Who in the Shire is talking to VicRoads? Where is Riddells Creek on the list of regional road priorities?

And how do we bring new residents into the friendliness that we have here in Riddell, a town where you if go into the Post Office on a regular basis, as I do, the person behind the counter comments on the number of boxes of wine that seem to be coming your way. A town where you see your neighbour's kid working in the bakery, and say hi, how's it going? because you know them.

A connected town is a friendly town. With 3,000 people, we can manage that, but how do you do it when you're 8,000? Our country town vibe - how do we give that a life, and not let it die on the altar of someone else's fast buck or get wasted by a diet of Netflix evenings?

We’ll have to invent something here in Riddell that works for us. If we leave it to the developers or wait for the Shire, we will get suburbs. If we get talking, we don’t know quite where we’ll end up, but maybe in a better place, and a place of our own making.

To come to ‘What Riddell Wants' discussions starting 15 June, talk to Lisa at Riddells Creek Neighbourhood House, manager@riddellscreeknh.com.au