'Say NO To Suburbia' Campaign
(Latest Update: 5/11/14)
The Battle For State Level Planning Protection In Macedon Ranges Shire
Click here to go to 'Say NO To Suburbia' Noticeboard
2010 - 2014
Another promise - in 2010, by the Liberal/National State government - to protect Macedon Ranges with State planning policy (a Localised Planning Statement) retaining Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 as State policy. Another promise not delivered. See current Localised Planning Statement file.
1999 - 2010
'Victoria In Future' Growth Projections and The Hidden Agenda For A Suburban Macedon Ranges
Residents in Macedon Ranges Shire wish they had a dollar for every time someone said, when told where we live, 'It's so beautiful, I love it'. If you've ever said or thought that, you need to know that right now those things that make this place so beautiful are threatened by State government neglect and by a State government agenda to turn Macedon Ranges into a suburb of Melbourne.
Macedon Ranges Residents' Association, Macedon Ranges Shire Council, and the broader Macedon Ranges' community are saying NO! to suburbia and 'protect us', and for the State government to re-instate the State level planning protection Macedon Ranges had for 30 years, but the State government's not listening. Macedon Ranges truly is an endangered environment.
Please help us by giving us your support and adding your voice to calls for the Bracks government to act NOW to protect Macedon Ranges.
"Protected from over-development, this Shire can provide far more people with far more pleasure than the few
who would be served by unlimited development."
(Community Committee, Macedon Ranges, 1974)
What's The Problem In Macedon Ranges?
Macedon Ranges Shire lost its former protective planning scheme when our current planning scheme was approved in June 2000. The 'old' scheme had zones and requirements that specifically addressed issues and threats confronting Macedon Ranges Shire.
Our current planning scheme doesn't specifically address issues and threats; it hasn't even been finished. For example, we don't have the floodway, salinity, erosion or heritage overlays we need.
We've never done any strategic work for the Macedon Ranges Shire as a whole shire.
Macedon Ranges once had protection through State legislation. It no longer does.
Statement of Planning Policy No. 8 - Macedon Ranges and Surrounds was once State policy. It has been down-graded to local policy in Macedon Ranges' current planning scheme.
We have no way of controlling development or ensuring that if it does happen, it happens our way - low key, lower density, rural by nature and in character. Not Melbourne. What we are getting is the speculative suburban dregs that wouldn't even be acceptable in Melbourne.
MRRA believes Macedon Ranges has been targeted as the next suburb of Melbourne, a once in a lifetime suburban carve-up of a State significant area.
What We Want
MRRA has asked the State government to give us the State's 'best and brightest', and to support, fund and drive a project that produces a Macedon Ranges Strategy (as Yarra Ranges has), that makes changes to the planning system and planning law to allow Macedon Ranges to step outside the 'one size fits all' Victoria Planning Provisions (as Yarra Ranges and Mornington Peninsula do), that helps us do the work to finish our planning scheme so it delivers the strategy.
We also want interim protection from the VPP's, from metropolitan ResCode and from Melbourne 2030 until the above work is done. Even though it has provided interim protections to metropolitan councils, the State government has said NO to Macedon Ranges.
Residents in Macedon Ranges believe the government has a hidden agenda for making Macedon Ranges the next suburb of Melbourne, and is implementing that agenda by stealth. And we believe that's why the government won't protect Macedon Ranges.
For Further Information, see:
Extracts from MRRA's presentation at its Say NO To Suburbia meeting in Woodend last September (2005)
Help Us Victoria: Press Releases
What's the Campaign About?
What You Can Do To Help