The future is here. Well, nearly…

So that’s February done and dusted and everyone is back at work for 2019 and it appears busier than ever.

Montague is gearing up, the state utility companies regularly appear on street corners, digging up the footpath, updating our aging infrastructure for the next 45 townhouses or 30 storey high-rise that are about to begin.

It appears that some of those 20-plus developments that were asked, last year by the Planning Minister to lower their heights and density are showing that they are willing to comply, so Normanby Rd will soon become a building site.

As an aside, I heard mention that Normanby Rd, may be known as Normanby Boulevard, which did make us locals smile (wryly). During February, the Montague Community Alliance engaged with the Fishermans Bend Development Board and members of the Fishermans Bend Task Force.

The information we received was very useful and did leave us with the impression that, for the most part, we are in good hands.

Although of course we would like to see a voluntary neighbourhood agreement in place NOW! Some points of note: Fishermans Bend and Montague Precinct now sits under Minister Gavin Jennings, Special Minister of State and Minister for Priority Precincts.

Community engagement on the development of the Precinct Implementation Plans for Montague, Wirraway, Sandridge and Lorimer will take place in the next couple of months. These will provide the fine grain detail for each neighbourhood.

The Fishermans Bend Taskforce will use a range of communication activities to raise awareness and promotion of the engagement events. To ensure you stay up to date on the project and these opportunities, subscribe to the Fishermans Bend E-News at www.fishermansbend.vic.gov.au 

And work is underway on other significant “catalyst” projects across Fishermans Bend such as planning for public transport connections, a new community hospital, a secondary school, Australia’s centre of innovation in design and manufacturing which includes the University of Melbourne on the former GMH site and a world-leading water recycling facility. 

It is good to know that all these activities are taking place and the future does look bright. The existing residential and commercial community, particularly those of us living here before that sad day in July 2012 when we lost our rights … (Mathew Guy the then planning minister made us Capital City Zone, and we know who benefited from that!), do feel like there is not enough attention on the NOW.

The government and public service do take a lot of time to move to action, or make decisions.

We understand the need for cautious compliance and excellent governance, but we do ask all ministers, heads of department, chairs of boards and councillors and mayors to be aware that we are already a vibrant community, a close and happy neighbourhood, who like everyone else in Melbourne suburbs, need down time and quiet to recover and quality rest and recuperation on weekends and evenings so we also can continue to be a close and happy neighbourhood welcoming of the future.

So we look forward to the future becoming the NOW … and thank you all for reading our monthly missive. As usual if you have any ideas for this column or want to comment in anyway, please get in touch we would be happy to hear from you.  

Trisha Avery - Convener