The following article has been presented by trader Catherine Underhill from McIvors Tea and Coffee Merchants.
"Council and Vic Market Traders Unite!
I never
thought I would have that as my headline.
Over the last
couple of weeks I have spent a fair amount of time writing to the planning
minister Matthew Guy and Melbourne City Council about the land for sale on Therry
St.
On Monday I
was heartened to see this: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/council-could-scrap-queen-victoria-market-car-park-amid-battle-for-prime-development-site-20141001-10or7n.html
The article
contains a link to a document Council has prepared around their vision for the
future development of the site.
The re-development
proposal put forward earlier in the year which includes (most contentiously)
the demolition and rebuild of A, B, and C sheds, would no longer be
necessary. While I can understand why
management felt this was the only and best option it clearly had no support
from traders or customers. This is hardly
a great place to start a huge project.
The fact that
Council wants to purchase this land is
by no means a guarantee that it will happen.
And planning guidelines or overlays are no guarantee either. You see, with planning all a developer has to
do to shift responsibility for approval from Council to State is to put in a
proposal that is larger than 25,000 sq. mtrs.
That is about a 6 story building on the site. No one will propose that for a site that will
cost in excess of 60 million.
So here is
what we need to do fast:
Write to
council in support of the plan. It
doesn’t have to be fancy. Just a simple
message of support is fine. Tell all of
your friends, customers, family, whoever to do the same.
Here are
their email addresses:
A copy of the
proposal that I sent to Council and The Minister is below. I must acknowledge that the main driver of
these ideas is Peter Langtry from the Polish Deli.
Proposal for land use Therry St/Queen St and the Queen Victoria
Market:
As you can
see this is a sizable parcel of land:6,462sq
with a combined street frontage of 162m.
Amazing. This represents an extra
ordinary opportunity for the City of Melbourne to radically alter the market
precinct in a positive way, without being hamstrung by graveyards, space
limitations and heritage.
Earlier this year a proposal
was put forward to the people of Melbourne regarding refurbishment of the
QVM. It involves some positives – green
space – and a massive negative. The idea
is to dig up A, B, and C sheds and put in a 712(?) space car park. Theoretically like for like, but when you
factor in the sale of land at the southern end of the market and the on street
parking lost to that development the proposal is woefully inadequate. Furthermore the disruption will have long
term deleterious affect on the viability of the market. Customers lost often don’t come back. Tourists attending a market only populated by
tourists soon leave. And spread the
word.
The availability of the
property on Therry St changes all that.
My dream for that site: A parking
lot able to cope with peak demand. Street
level retail, and residential above – but stepped back so as not to
overshadow. How about if the walls of
the parking lot were green walls – not ugly car park walls? How about if the parking lot was designed so
that it could be retro-fitted to residential so that when the day comes that we
actually embrace public transport we can re-purpose the space.
To that end how about a
central bus hub either at the new
Franklin St end of the Market. Or maybe
it should be between the sheds and the new green space over the graveyard, replacing
the current less than beautiful car park.
The availability of this land
means we can invest for the next 100 years not just pull together a
sub-standard option that has no support among traders or customers. We need to bring everyone with us to make it
work. We need to think what will provide
for our descendants. That is what the
original founders did, at great expense and with a lot of forethought.
It doesn’t matter how we get
there, whether by legislation or by the City of Melbourne buying the land. We just need to get there. Council
purchase is probably the best option.
After all, that is why we still have a market. "
NEW PROPOSAL
