Simple truths

Crossing Main Road, Riddells Creek

The public hearing on the Amess Road 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, and had their say.

They spoke about the impacts they see coming if 1360 houses are jammed into a suburb of small lots. They took the public hearing seriously. They prepared. They traveled to the city, or went online. 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. We spoke a simple truth: this will be bad for the town.

The Shire Council backed the town opinion. Closing arguments have been made and final wording settled for a Planning Scheme Amendment that will double the population of Riddells Creek.  The Committee appointed by the Minister for Planning will now make recommendations to the Minister.  Whatever the outcome in lot size (which is the principle contested issue), our great achievement is that we spoke up. We know what other residents think and feel about the town. There’s 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.

‘Living in the country’ is up for grabs.  A Melbourne template has been imposed on a rural town.  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 town. It’s the people that make the town -another simple truth.

Riddell is a town where people talk each other. They let a conversation take the time it takes. They listen. And it’s a town where people contribute to the life of the town. If they 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 was born out of being a small place. Riddells Creek used to be a place no-one much knew about, but 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.

That's what Maree Scale and her fellow residents are doing in Rangeview Estate, as they turn a set of drainage basins the developer waled away from and the Shire ignored, into a proper park for families. It is the residents of the town who will have to 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 where ‘friendliness’ starts: with being part of making something the town needs.  That's what happens in the netball and footy club. That's what happens in the Senior Citizens. That's what happens in Riddells Creek Landcare, and in the 50 other community groups across this not so little town.

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

“Welcome to Riddells Creek! We're a friendly town, but we're also 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 make this a fabulous place to live!”

Ross Colliver, Riddells Creek Landcare