Simple truths

The public hearing organised by the Minister for Planning on the Amess Road Precinct Structure Plan ran in February. The proponent and the Shire and their experts argued back and forth for two weeks. Then in the third week, fifty residents were invited up, one by one, to the front table in a room in Spring St Melbourne, surrounded by big digital displays ..... and had their say.

They took the public hearing seriously. They prepared. They traveled to the city, or went online.

They spoke about the impacts they see coming if 1360 houses are jammed into a suburb of small lots. They spoke with deep feeling about what they love about the town. It was wonderful to hear each person with their own perspective, each caring about the town.

They spoke a simple truth: this development will be bad for the town. For lots of reasons, but mostly because it puts 3,700 people in a Melbourne suburb on the edge of a rural town. Double today's population. Out of town, a 2-4 km walk that very few people will take, and definitely not the sensible walkable neighbourhood that was getting talked up a couple of years back.

The Shire Council backed the town opinion. Closing arguments were made and final wording has now been settled for a Planning Scheme Amendment. The Committee of experts appointed by the Minister for Planning will make its recommendations to the Minister. 

Whatever the outcome in lot size (the principal contested issue) our great achievement as a small town is that we spoke up. We heard what other residents think and feel about the town. That feeling is solidarity.

We’ve learned a lot from the last five years. We have discovered that the community is on its own. Developers set the agenda, Councils and Government facilitate approval, and communities are left to fend for themselves.  The developer pushed aside the town Structure Plan, the C100 Amendment of 2017 and the Distinctive Landscapes policy.  There was no serious discussion between the developer and this community to agree on priorities and draft a design for growth, as planning policy requires.

Residents were not part of planning for the growth of Riddells Creek - that turned out to be empty rhetoric.

Indeed, it seems to me that ‘living in the country’ is up for grabs.  A Melbourne template has been imposed on a rural town.  That's happening in Gisborne, in Romsey, in Kyneton: country towns are becoming urban playgrounds, where money buys lifestyle. Many new residents will be happy with the outer signifiers of country life - a view of the hills or the plains, a treed entrance to the estate – but that’s not what makes a country town.

It’s the people that make the town - another simple truth.

But what does that mean? Riddell is a town where people talk each other. They let a conversation take the time it takes. They listen. It’s also a town (I've observed) where people contribute to the life of the town. If people see something that needs doing, they step up and contribute. 

Put these two things together - taking the time to talk, and making a contribution - and I think that's what people mean when they say Riddell is a friendly town. That friendliness has been born out of being a small place, a place no-one troubled themselves about.

Now we're being sold as ‘country living.’  The developer will trick out the Amess estate with tidy roads and paths, pocket their cash and be gone, and we the residents will be left to do the rest of building the town.

Consider what Maree Scale and her fellow residents are doing in Rangeview Estate. The developer left a set of drainage basins, walked away from them actually, something the Shire ignored. Now the people who moved into that estate want a proper park for families.

The developer will move on, and it is the residents of the town who will keep pushing for the infrastructure the town needs - safe roads, safe footpaths, a well-organised centre to the town, sporting facilities, places for teens to hang out.

In getting up and making that happen, we will forge relationships with each other. That's one place ‘friendliness’ starts: getting in and being part of making something the town needs.  That's what's happening in Rangeview Estate. That's what happens in the netball and footy club, in the Senior Citizens. That's what happens in Riddells Creek Landcare, and in the thirty or so other community groups across the town.

So perhaps this should be our welcome to new residents…..

“Welcome to Riddells Creek! We're a friendly town, and a place where people contribute to the life of the town.  Once you unpack, it’s time to join in, to show up, as much as you can.

"Let’s keep making this a fabulous place to live!”

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare