Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise yet again to talk about the overdevelopment of my electorate and the concerns that my constituents are raising, in particular to the Hay Street development. This is an issue that continues to go on and on. This is about the loss of open space in suburbia. We are all seeing it. My electorate can grow and can expand. Indeed, it is predicted that we will need an extra 12,997 dwellings over the next coming years. It is a place that can expand because we are serviced well by facilities such as schools, transport and other amenities. But it needs to be done in the way that actually adapts to the fact that we are already a very crowded suburb, that we are already a very busy place to live and play.

Whilst we do have terrific schools, several of our high schools are now at capacity. Box Hill High School is now telling residents that they will not be in the zone anymore. They are simply unable to cope with the demand. If current existing open space becomes dwellings, where are these children going to go to school? We do not have any land to build a new school.

Indeed, the site is an old school that is earmarked to become residential—it was a private school, so it is complicated. Also, on the cards, right next door to what was the old St Leo's site is Box Hill golf course, a magnificent private golf course. Again, that is being touted as maybe being sold off for residential land. People have enjoyed the amenity of the open space, from the ovals and the golf course surrounding Gardeners Creek for a long time. No, it is not theirs, and it is private property. But once you have moved into the leafy green suburbs and paid the house prices you have to pay to live in my electorate, that is the amenity you are expecting to be able to enjoy.

So residents are, again, very concerned about council's proposal—mooted; it has not gone through—to deal with various parts of the Hay Street development. Indeed, the panel understood that existing residents have become accustomed to vacant adjacent sites and associated amenity adjoining Gardiners Creek. Of course they have—they have been there for the entire time that they lived in the suburbs. I am certainly calling upon Whitehorse council to look at this in a reasonable way—come up with a strategic plan for this area. Let us not continue to have knee-jerk reaction after knee-jerk reaction to every application that comes in. This is a very big site. There is potential for development of it. The residents understand that but it needs to be done in a way that accepts there will be issues of traffic, there will be issues of parking and there will be a need for greater access to public transport. Box Hill has not grown as rapidly as the rest of Melbourne but we are seeing that change dramatically now—let us do this in a substantial way that everybody can live with.

See this speech in context