AV0034Ma.mp3

I won't say that all the facts were actually as I had sort of discussed them however.
Yes.
The basis of this talk is really, I think, to give you my impressions, my recollections of the city of Nunnawading in particular.
Maybe some of Blackburn, as it was even before I became an employee and officer of the council.
I think I'm going to have trouble with my glasses here.
It's all right.
It's all right.
I'll go over the top.
Look, no, I'm all right.
That's okay.
I won't bother to put them here.
No, I can see them.
We can.
At least that's got rid of all my nerves.
I thought I'd start by just giving you some personal details of my own.
Whilst I'm here primarily as a planner, my sort of training was originally as a civil engineer.
One of your guests today, Bill Morgan, and I go back actually, it was a nice surprise to see Bill here because we first met when we were members of the school committee.
At North Blackburn Primary School.
After that, we socialised the bit and we played squash together, but we both got a little bit past that.
So, it's nice to meet you.
The civil engineering aspect of my training was at what was then called Melbourne Technical College,
which after which became the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and now is a university.
I worked for about nine years before coming to the city of Nunnawading for the Department of Civil Aviation,
which of course was a Commonwealth Government Department.
And I guess one of my main impressions when I came from there to Nunnawading was the more dedicated
employee, I guess being much closer to their constituency than was the case with the Commonwealth Government.
But I did enjoy the time I was at the Department of Civil Aviation and that spanned about nine years.
And before that, I spent a year or so with the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission in what was their soil testing laboratory in East Melbourne.
And that was a different type of training again.
Actually, in November 59, the City of Nunnawading advertised for an engineering assistant.
And I had previously made an application when I was living at Thornbury to the City of Preston for an engineering position or a drafting position,
I think it probably was.
And I must have always had some sort of a feel for local government.
I think because when I saw this advertisement for the City of Nunnawading, I thought here's an opportunity,
the Commonwealth Government at that time of course was moving all its public servants to Canberra.
And I just established a home in Blackburn and I really didn't fancy that particularly,
but working in Nunnawading was a real attraction.
So I applied for one of these positions and never heard anything.
And it went through Christmas and sometime I think probably in about February of 1960.
And this is how things worked in those days.
Mr. Black, the city engineer, called at my home one Saturday morning.
And he said, you're still interested in this position that you applied for.
And I said, oh yes.
So he said, oh well, we think you'll be successful.
So we'd like you to come and join us.
So I didn't.
I started in the engineer's office in 1960 in March.
And actually it's rather interesting that this aerial photograph, which I've borrowed from the City of Whitehorse,
which used to hang on one wall of my office when I was at the City of Nunnawading,
it's actually a 1960 photograph. So it fits in nicely with my coming to work at the City of Nunnawading.
Actually, I think it's dated February 1960.
So I can find a few locations on that, which will be of some interest to you.
As a Blackburn resident, like most young people in those days, I guess we were all sort of,
looking for somewhere to set up a home.
And we toured my wife and I before she was my wife actually about two years.
Used to go out at the weekend to look around for a block of land.
And finally we came across one up in near Springfield Road.
It's actually on here. I think our house is on here.
It's about there, if I can point there somewhere.
And it was a block of land, and only a block of land, on what was called Gilles Springfield Road Estate.
And Gill, of course, was an orchardist.
And he apparently decided that probably his rates and taxes were becoming too much,
and the best thing for him to do was to subdivide his land.
So that was a block of land which we purchased in 1952.
We met a salesman on the property, one Saturday or Sunday,
and we decided, yes, it was what we'd been looking for.
It was on the high side of the street, and it seemed to have everything we thought we wanted in those days.
And we paid him one pound, part deposit, on the spot.
I think it cost us about 260 pounds altogether.
And it's like everybody else, if only we'd had a bit more money, we would have bought four of them.
But of course that was all we could afford.
As I say, it was just the block of land.
There was no road where the road would have been was formed in earth.
It had no drains at all.
There was no water supply, no electricity, no gas, no sewer, no phone, nothing.
Just the block of land.
But I think to me that was a typified sort of nanowatting and blackbird,
and probably Mitchum and East Burgh, not Vermont so much,
perhaps because you can see on here particularly Vermont South,
for those who can't see, Vermont South was pretty much still orchards.
But I'm going back to 52, 54, and we were then married and set up our home there.
And maybe I can digress a little bit more because I'm sure many others did just exactly what we did.
Of course in the winter time when you went out in your car,
you had to take a shovel in the back because you'd probably get bogged between your place and the made road.
We used to have, well our house was sort of built by us with some assistance of tradesmen,
but because of financial constraints and so on, we moved in as soon as we were married,
and at that time the plaster wasn't finished, and all the floors weren't down,
and so it became a bit of a sort of, I guess, a pioneering spirit that we brought with us to nanowatting.
My father, who was a cabinet maker, was making us our bedroom suite.
Of course, like all good tradesmen, never got it finished in time,
so we had a mattress which we supported on, actually we were going to support it on four, four gallon drums.
Only way only had three.
So what we did to balance it up was we had an old kitchen chair,
which I had to cut the legs shorter so that we balanced it, and that was our bed,
but they were just sort of things that I'm sure many, many others who came to live out here at that time had to endure.
Nanowatting at that time from what I've been able to ascertain,
the population of nanowatting in 1951 was about 20,000 people.
In 1961, it had already grown to 55,000 people, and I think, again, from recollection, 47,
so about four years prior to the 20,000 people, there were only about 11,
so it was an enormous influx of people to this area.
From 61 to 81, a period of 20 years, the population grew from 55,000 to 97,000,
which was actually the peak population figure for the city of Nanowatting.
After 1981, it started to drop away, particularly in the older areas, older then,
and whilst Vermont South was still increasing in population,
Blackburn and Mitchum were starting to reduce.
So we saw an enormous population influx.
Just going back to the form of subdivision that we moved to,
I mentioned there was no water and no electricity.
We actually had to pay to the box of electric supply 30 pounds per pole
to have the electricity connected.
That was in the form of a loan, so that in fact we got that repaid
after, I think, about 18 months or two years after electricity had been extended.
We also had to extend a water pipe from Springfield Road,
here's Springfield Road along here, middle of a borough road there.
That's the corner of Springfield Road and Beverly Crescent.
So we had to bring a water pipe from there, down Beverly Crescent,
and along Kevin Avenue there, which is another thing that we had to do in order to have water available.
Now, of course, and largely due to pressure from municipal councils,
these days you can't subdivide land, of course, unless you provide everything.
You have to have the roads made, the drains are in, the sewers in.
All the services have to go with the subdivision,
and it's certainly a better way of doing things than it was in those days.
The powers of local government came slowly.
The roads were the first things that councils were able to require developers to build,
and gradually the other services came as well.
I think you better tell me how long I can go, because I'm just as likely to go.
We had a traditional structure at the council, of course,
where the town clerk was the person in charge, and the city engineer was virtually his equal in terms of authority.
The town clerk, none of what him when I started, was Mr. Charlesworth,
who was always A. Roy Charlesworth, and his name alone was enough to intimidate people, I think.
He had a rather reputation for being, not a tyrant so much as being someone who really liked things run by the rules.
He had an assistant there, a chap named Roy McKinnon, who unfortunately I read just a matter of a few months ago, passed away,
and Roy used to really protect Mr. Charlesworth from those on the staff,
who really didn't have any business worrying the town clerk or keeping him from these more important duties.
The engineer, as I mentioned, was Malcolm Black, and Malcolm was a real gentleman who stayed with the council,
I think until probably the early 70s.
The deputies there, I think Mr. Charlesworth had no deputy when I started, but he was in rather poor health.
He'd been off at various times, and a chap by the name of John Brown, who was the Shire Secretary before that at the Shire of Coriong,
came and took acting duties, ultimately became the town clerk, and John was another very gentlemanly person.
The deputy engineer was Bill Sewett, who many would know either personally or have some knowledge of his exploits,
probably as a young boy around this area of Mitchum and later as he grew up, and Bill, I guess, was a person that was sort of taken
from us a bit earlier than he should have been. He was a really dedicated council officer.
Did a lot of things as an engineer in local government, was probably instrumental in getting sewerage as a requirement for subdivision,
because in those days we had vast areas of Vermont South and other parts which were subject to subdivision,
and that particularly, because it drained to the Danny Don Creek where there was no sewer, Bill was concerned and put a lot of effort into trying to make sewerage a requirement
that council could put on subdivisions.
One other person that I can perhaps just mention, because he was rather easy to identify around the place at that time,
and the officers, of course, is where the Country Roads Board were, and they're moving too, I see again now.
But the ranger at the time was a chap named Eric Charles, and anyone remembers seeing Eric, he used to ride a pie ball pony around
and he used to tether it at the side door of the Cock Council officers when he came in to report,
and he was an easily identifiable officer of the council when he used to do his rounds.
We had very poor facilities, of course, in those days. We worked in a very cramped office.
While I was there, it was extended at the back by the addition of a timber annex, which we moved our engineering drawing office into.
We virtually had no vehicles except one comma truck, which we used to go out on field duties with.
It was commonly called the Wizard, because that's really what it was like to go in when you had to go out.
They used to take you out on field duty and leave you.
We couldn't afford a luxury of having a vehicle standing there all day, so they used to take you down to Rooks Road or somewhere
and leave you and say, we'll come back and get you after lunch or afternoon.
I can remember being in Rooks Road one afternoon and being absolutely convinced I was going to be there all night,
because they didn't come to get me until about 4.30.
Anyway, the need for facilities was continuing to grow, and we also at one time occupied what was called the depot house.
The house on the north side about where the Civic Centre is now was occupied by some of our design staff for a while,
because there was nowhere else for them to go.
One other officer that I'll mention later was Ron Gray, who you would know as being the person after whom the RE Gray Reserve was named.
He was personally to me a very much person that I looked up to and took a lot of direction from.
In those days, and I haven't got on to planning yet, so I'll have to hurry, we had more than 100 miles of private streets to be made.
I know at one time there was a concerted effort made by the Council to catch up with this backlog of unmade streets.
You can see them on here, they stand out fairly easily.
All these sort of pale lines are all formed roads, unmade, all these up in here and down in these areas here.
The Council made an effort at one time, put all its available funding towards those construction, and the target was they would build 30 miles of private streets in 30 months,
and that was achieved, so it was a pretty good effort.
The issues in them, and this is one of the things that I think highlights my time, the issues in those early days were simple.
The issues were do what has to be done, build the roads and take care of those things, those basic requirements.
Now, of course, things are much more complicated.
The issues are much more diverse, the requirements of the community are much harder to meet.
Perhaps if I do just speak a little bit about Ron Gray, he was a great storyteller and he always used to come back with stories of people around the community.
I can remember going with him early in the piece to the reserve, which was named after him, and he always used to come back with a native orchid that he would have found somewhere there,
and he was very keen on those things.
But he had other people that you're probably mostly aware of Nara Road, just up here off Wattle Valley Road.
And Nara Road was a piece of land before it was Nara Road, which was owned by a gentleman by the name of Mr. Neve.
Mr. Neve and Mr. Gray never used to get on very well, and Mr. Gray used to come back after he'd been out to inspect his proposed subdivision and he'd say,
well, I've had another shouting match with Mr. Neve across the valley.
And when he saw Mr. Neve coming, he would go in the other direction and they'd shout at one another across the way.
Up near Good Gubbins Road, the other side of the railway, there was a lady there, Miss Linda Roberts, who Mr. Gray often used to come back and say,
I've seen her. She's on her way to the oak. She's all dressed up and she looks marvelous.
Miss Roberts had some sort of difficulty with some of her neighbours, and she created a piece of land which used to extend from
what's from Heatherdale Road right through to the other end of the school.
It was a piece of land about 40 feet wide and the whole length through there.
And I think she created it for some purpose which would have annoyed her neighbours in particular about getting access to their property.
The other, from purchase street it used to go. That's right, right through from purchase street to Heatherdale Road.
The other people that Mr. Gray often used to have run-ins were the Wilson's.
If you remember the Wilson's used to own the property where the Civic Center is.
And Edith and Herbert were the couple. And Edith and Herbert used to be annoyed when Mr. Gray had to go around and he was the one required to go and talk to them about acquisition of their property.
And at one time I remember he came back looking rather pale and Herbert had actually taken a shot at him with his rifle.
They were great identities too. You used to see them walking back from Mitchum with their little pram and Herbert had feet which I'm sure he had about size 16 boots.
It was a strange couple.
About that time and actually through Mr. Gray, Mr. Gray was a land surveyor who worked overseas.
He was actually working in Malaya for a British company when war broke out and he was actually interned by the Japanese.
And after the war he was released and came back here.
And his health suffered a lot because of those days when he was interned.
But he had great stories. As I say, I can remember initially going out with Mr. Gray and he was a proper surveyor.
And he used to say, now you hold your plan with North pointing up the page and you face North and you squat down with your plan and then you can carry on from there.
So that was his basic instruction to any of us about carrying out field work.
He also used to do the reports to the Council which were required to respond to applications under the planning scheme or interim development order as it was in those days.
And he used to draft the reports that used to go through the engineer to the Council.
And they were required by the Board of Works which was the planning authority.
And they used to write to the Council and say, we've got this application for something or other up in one of your part of your municipality.
And you've got 28 days or whatever the time was to respond to this.
So the Council used to process these applications in that way.
The Council in those days made no planning decisions.
They responded to applications and used to advise the Board of Works what their views were, whether they had no objection or did object on certain grounds.
So Mr. Gray used to do that.
But as I mentioned his health was again poor and it's amazing how so many of the officers that I went through the Council with really, I suppose, grew into positions because their predecessors were either in poor health or for some other reason.
And I know Don Wilson who ultimately became the City Engineer and City Manager had no aspirations beyond the job that he did.
But because Bill Sewitt passed away, Don Wilson became City Engineer and then ultimately City Manager.
So these things happen.
And Mr. Gray being ill and me being sort of, I think more because I sat next to him in the office.
But anyway, for whatever reason I was asked to do some of these reports.
So I sort of became without sort of needing to do anything more than just be there, became involved in planning matters.
The Council in fact had its own planning scheme even in those days, but it only covered a small part of the city.
It covered that part of the city from Springvale Road to Springfield Road up as far as Goodwin Street and back to Whitehorse Road.
And it really was drawn up in order to close a lot of narrow streets which were close together.
And there were little streets in here that you can still sort of see the remnants of which that planning scheme was drawn up to in order to formally,
formally close those. It was the simplest way of doing it.
It never was used for much else, although it's interesting that on that planning scheme there was provision for a shopping center.
It never ever was achieved, but it used to be generally in this area of Tunstall Park, which is just in here behind the school.
And I think the purpose of the scheme was to close the road. That ultimately was achieved, and the scheme was then abandoned or terminated at the conclusion of those activities.
I mentioned the interim development order of the Melbourne Metropolitan Scheme, I think was drawn up in Bill Morgan,
who was a board of works officer, probably knows almost as much about this as I ever did.
It was administered by the board of works and it became a planning scheme about, or many years, I think probably not much before, about 64 or something.
It became an approved planning scheme.
Under the interim development order, most things, well, everything was permissible subject to a permit.
Nothing was prohibited, but as the scheme became a formal scheme and was approved, there were certain things, certain uses, certain developments which were prohibited in certain zones.
Perhaps if I just go to the map and point out the things that seemed to me to be fairly, well, the most dramatic changes.
Whitehorse Road, except for a little part of Blackbird, and here, was an undivided road.
It had a single bitumen strip up the middle and trees, and it had some service roads, but generally it was like the other road.
Springvale Road was the same. I can remember this part of Springvale Road here was very undulating and narrow and trees growing right to the edge,
and wasn't there a fuel or when the Council decided to construct Springvale Road, and those trees were under threat.
Nowadays, the median planting sort of has had an opportunity to regrow.
The pipe tracks are an interesting thing that cuts through here.
This is the Mitchum Reservoir, and there's a part of the pipe track here, and I'm not too sure actually where it comes from up here,
but it goes right through the municipality, down through there, down through there, and right down there.
And that, of course, is a water supply route for Maine, and that's probably more in Bill's area of interest.
The creeks, which are pretty obvious, the Mullum, Koonum creeks along there, and some of the others, the Blackbird Lake here,
and you can follow the way the water courses go down through there, and these down here.
Cochran Street, I can remember being impassable when I started.
Cochran Street was a swamp. You couldn't get through there at all.
Lake Road, we used to call the Red X trial. We used to have to go down onto Lake Road, and this part of Lake Road around here,
was, you know, if it hadn't been graded for a while, it was almost impassable, and the wizard really used to take off down there.
The parks are pretty interesting. Some of them, you know, there's Halliday Park, and I think, you know, you can see how they've developed Walker Park here,
Morton Park, some of the newer ones, and I guess, in those days, if I can get my bearings, Koonum Reserve wasn't even there.
So, as someone mentioned before about Blackbird and Tech, sorry, Mission Tech, and I noticed I'm here when I was looking at this, that if I can find it.
I'm just getting my bearings. Here, up this way further, and I appear.
The really, Mission Tech wasn't even there. That's the Mission Tech site. There's Walker Park.
That was an orchard, yes. And you can see the orchards by the little spotty trees all over the place, and mainly down here.
Now, there are some features, and some of you are going to have trouble seeing these, but way down on the corner here of Springvale Road and
at Burwood Highway is the MMBW dumping station, which was there until fairly recently and used by sewage contractors to dump sewage into the board system.
Tell you how, boys.
They've put them in the grave over it.
They're very young people, they're young people, and they're quiet that lane.
Well, again, it was one of those essential things. We didn't get the sewer onto our place probably for about 10 years after we moved there.
I think something like that, about 62. And again, we had to wait for the road a long time as well.
Telly ho, boys home and village was transformed, I guess, by Lembley,
ultimately into, well, part of it anyway, and other parts. In Arla Village, I noticed, was in here just a collection of a few small buildings compared to what it is now.
Channel O wasn't there in those days either. The schools, I've mentioned some of those. The shopping centres, well, that's one of the big planning issues, but forest hill shopping centres.
Is virtually just under construction then. I can remember when the council was interested in setting up the first library.
Malcolm Black asked me to go down, because at that time the Forest Hill Shopping Centre was virtually a ghost set of buildings.
I think there was one milk bar that was functioning there in those days, and Malcolm Black had one option that the council was looking at was to set up the library in one of the buildings down there, which was at that time vacant.
The council decided other sort of way to set up its library in the end, but that centre was really just a ghost centre in those days.
One of the features of planning in those early days that the regional authority was keen on, and developers were keen on, was to set up small groups of convenient shops.
You probably all know of neighbourhoods where they are these days because they were overtaken by driving shopping centres, but you'll find in most areas where there are small groups of shops I can think of one just up here, which will be easier to show you in Diana Drive.
They used to set up little groups of about 10 or 12 shops, and they were intended to have your milk bar, your fish and chip shop, your lady's hairdresser, all those little shops, the butcher, the fruit or fruit or green grocer.
A lot of them did carry me or still functions pretty much for that purpose, but there's not many who have survived. Most of them you'll find have got printing works or small factories or warehouses or stores or something in them.
As I say, they were really taken over by the drive-in shopping centres, and there's a few of those that are not on this map, which is now north Blackburn Square, which is on the corner of Williams Road, just there, was Pierce's orchard in those days.
Ron Pierce used to get very worried about this dam that's here, that used to pick up all the solid water from this area up here, and it used to go straight into his dam, and he used to get very annoyed about that, because he couldn't water his trees with all this polluted water.
Anyway, he did all right, he sold his land for the shopping centre, I guess. The quarries were still around, somebody mentioned before about builders roofing and trading, and they were the ones on the corner of the...
Why not spring of our road here? No, sorry, there. Rooks Road, right on the corner. The builders roofing and trading, I think, with that one.
That quarry hole, quite distinctly, is being still there. Hollensons had a timber yard just next to here, and they used to have a big hole that got full of water that became so stained by the timber that they used to cut, because they used to mill some timber there.
The Feglands timber yard and the hostel is still there. Commonwealth pottery was up near us, and they used to light up their kilns with coal in their days when we first moved there, and my wife's washing used to suffer terribly from the fallout of that.
Gradually, they went on to oil, and then they went on to natural gas, and the pollution problem disappeared, so that was good.
This quarry I always found rather interesting, if I can get my bearings again there, because when it was subdivided, the quarry hole was still left in the middle of Thornton Crescent, and we had a man came along once to us in the planning office and said, I'd like to fill that quarry with car bodies.
And we said, oh, I can get a kidding, I don't sure if it was an enormous hole. And he said, no, that's what I wanted to do. So he used to flatten the car bodies right down flat, squashed them, and put layers of them into that quarry hole, and eventually built it right up virtually to the top, and then they just reclaimed it with soil.
It's mostly under car park, but there are some buildings fairly close to the edge of that. The Blackburn quarry, which was, I think, Blackburn Tile Company, which is down here, which is still there, down in Alfred Street.
They didn't worry about that, they just pushed all the trees and everything, building rubble and everything into that, and they virtually couldn't ever build on that again.
But they built a big warehouse and they needed a big car park, so that's what happened to that one.
Gills quarries in Gills Brothers down in here, which is now a retirement village down in here, Springvale Road.
That's about all. I think Daniel Robertson's were still there in those days.
Poultry farms were an interesting land use and unawarding, and I always remember this one in Whitehorse Road, which I think was on here.
It goes right down there. The foot family were the owners, and they had a rather Spanish-looking frontage on their arch, brickwork and so forth, around the front of their poultry farms.
That was rather interesting. The last one I can remember was early one year up in Surrey Road, Blackbird, here, somewhere which, I think that was it there in behind there.
And there was one that I also remember down off Orchard Grove somewhere down there.
I don't know that there's too much more. The Civic Centre, of course, was developed on the land where the old council depot used to be.
Some of the uses, another name that was mentioned before, Daniel Harvey, still had his business going here in Whitehorse Road, somewhere here.
They were still manufacturing farm equipment and so forth. One that we used to hear from my place up here was Miller's Drop Forge, which used to be still conducted at the P&M Moncree Avenue somewhere.
Insol Wall was a bit of a source of pollution. I think largely was one of the reasons why the residents in King and Salon Street wanted to get out of there.
Down this end they used to have the brickworks and some industrial and commercial development, and on the other side they had Insol Wall. They were sort of in a little residential island in there.
And it was one of those very difficult community consultation processes where about 45% of the people wanted to get out and about 55% of people wanted to stay there.
And gradually as time went by, that percentage swung in favour of people moving out and selling and getting some value for their property and having it developed for other than residential purposes.
And that's ultimately what happened. A couple of other uses that I can remember are the Blue Moon suits, tow off down in Blackburn and the Greenways Fine Pottery, which was just in here near the Blackburn Hotel.
The use that sort of came and went in that time, which probably not many people remember now, was the White Horse Hotel. The White Horse Hotel was on the corner of Moncree Avenue for a time and was one of those uses that didn't last.
So not often that hotels disappear for other purposes. One that I can remember down in Burwood Highway was Mitchell's motor wreckers. And just along from where the East Bird Reserve is there.
I think if the highway hadn't gone through it probably would have probably still been there, but it had to be widened and moved back.
So that's what happened to Mitchell's motor wrecking yard. The town planning issues that I've taken too much time, are I?
No, am I right?
The time that I was involved in engineering was up until about 69. The Council took delegation from the Board of Works under the planning scheme in 69.
I think they were asked to take delegation in 68. The Board of Works decided that local authorities could by that time administer the planning scheme.
The Council advertised for an officer to be the town planner, and Kevin Mithon was appointed by the Council. Kevin at that time was a qualified planner who had been working with the town and country planning board.
And he came to the Council in 69 to be in charge of the planning scheme. And again, because of my previous involvement in planning issues, I was appointed his assistant.
So that was in 69. And Kevin left in 79 to go to the City of Doncaster and Temple Stowe as the planner.
And at that time I was appointed statutory planner. So that was about the beginning of 1980 until about 83 when the Council did some restructuring, some reorganisation into a corporate organisation.
And I was appointed strategic planner. And I was in that position until 89 when I retired.
I could just turn to some comments that I've found. This is a publication from the Town Planning Association. It goes back to 1925.
And there's some comments in here. This is their annual report of 1925. And it talks about traffic. And I've just highlighted.
And this is what they had to say about traffic in 1925. We still have the traffic problem with us. We still have it with us.
What we said a year ago, and this organisation started to...
..ingestion at Prince's Bridge, because the greater part of the traffic should not be there. Instead of providing bridges and roads for the foreign, inverted commas, traffic, we occasionally appoint another constable for point duty.
That was their way of dealing with traffic problems in those days. Traffic management, of course, is one of the issues that's been with us for a few years now.
And it's one that local government, I know, takes very seriously. One that has had a lot of involvement with.
I'll just skip a couple of these. I think it talks about reserves and about reserving land for open space.
It just says we have had during the year many attempts of nibbling away our parks. No club is too small and no institution too big to steal the people's parks.
Nothing's changed. Zoning was something fairly new in those days, and it just says the most we have succeeded in doing yet in this matter is limiting shop and factory areas.
Most of our metropolitan towns and cities now do this. Shops, factories and residences, powerhouses, etc. all have their uses, and all should be provided for suitably.
The indiscriminate mixing that we still have in places is objectionable from every point of view.
We understand that the town planning commission, purposes, and this problem shortly may we have the energy to carry out its recommendations.
I think that's probably enough of that. I had a couple of other little things I was going to talk about, but I think you might be all getting a bit weary.
I'm going to need a bit of the future.
All right.
Well, I guess during my time at the Council, probably the most sustained issue that's carried right through the whole of that time has been flat's development.
I have a letter, a copy of a letter, which was sent out to me, obviously. It's got still got a little note on it that Bill Sewett wrote, wrote, copy for my information.
It's a copy of a letter from Rupert Hamer, who at that time was the Minister for Local Government.
Yes, Minister for Local Government, and it's dated the 28th of February 68.
It's a letter that was addressed to all municipal clerks, and it talks about the concern that was very much felt at that time about flat development and how it should be controlled.
So I guess if I just make a comment here, it talks about how the flat development had become so right throughout the metropolitan area, and it says that in part this upsurge in flat construction is having some profound effects.
In some areas, the intrusion of flats into a community of private homes arouses indignation and alarm.
The building of multi-storey blocks is widely regarded as an infringement of privacy, quite apart from increasing traffic and other problems associated with greater density.
And there is complaint that homeowners cannot have any assurance whether their neighbourhood will be free of flat building or not.
It's rather ironic that it wasn't very long ago that a property in my dell bit was subject to a legal action regarding flat development, and that property had been previously owned by Mr. Hamer, who wrote this letter.
Yes, monometh, haven't you? It just goes on then to explain how it was intended that local government's authorities should, in fact, address this question should identify areas within their municipality, which would be suitable for increased residential densities,
as well as areas where it should be restricted. And the council then, with Kevin Mithina's the town planner, set out to adopt the policy, which in fact was adopted in 1969.
And previous to the control under the planning scheme, and it's mentioned in this letter, the only control over building of flats was via the building regulations. And really, they addressed the matters of light and ventilation and so forth that were important, but didn't really address the amenity considerations that the planning scheme sought to do.
So the council had a policy adopted in one of the first public meetings that I can ever remember being involved with was held in the downstairs of the new, well, not now new, but then new civic centre.
And the building, that part of the floor would be double the size of this, I guess, and it was packed to the walls, and it was quite an issue. I think one of my first involvements with community groups was the Vernal Avenue residents who, on the first draft of the flats policy,
were identified because of the size of their allotments and the fact that they were reasonably conveniently located to shops and transport, were identified as a high density area.
And the high density area was about one dwelling unit to every 250 square metres or something, it was probably in feet, square feet in those days. But it was a group of people who were really determined that they would change that and they persisted.
And gradually, one step at a time, it became from a high density area, a medium density area, and then a load into the area, and I think ultimately became a restricted load into the area. So they persisted and they won through.
The policy was reviewed in 1978, and it was reviewed again in 1984. The 1978 review didn't do anything too drastic, except change a few zum.
Another public meeting that I can remember of residents was held, I'm not sure if the
elder might remember it was in the Willis room or here in the Willis room and packed
to the walls and the residents having their say about the changes that probably I was
putting forward as amendments to the FLAT policy and I think it all became a bit too
hard and not many of those recommendations were ever adopted but that was probably one
of the more intimidating meetings that I ever had to sit through. I think Ken Barale might have been there.
No, Bill Coyne, was it? I'm not sure.
If the only meeting I do recall when Red Tread was going to complete.
My recollections are all right.
He was feeling uneasy.
Yes, yes. What we had to do was have to look after the meeting.
To show the presence.
Yes, so you do remember those things. The other meeting that I suppose was still sort of fairly vivid in my
recollection as one that was held at the Avenue Church Hall was mainly for the purposes of discussing the
introduction of the special residential zone and that was to cover the initially the
National Trust classified streets at Blackburn and we went to a lot of trouble and I can't remember.
I think the appointment by the Council of an advisory committee I think followed that meeting of about
300 or more people down at the Avenue Church and that was much better organised and controlled but nevertheless
by their very presence the residents showed exactly how they felt about that issue.
I guess, look, I'd just like to finish perhaps by saying that the Council in about 82 directed Ted
Jane who was then the town clerk, chief administrator to look at preparing a structure for an
organisation that would be much more of a corporate organisation and Ted used to, as you probably remember,
used to write a little article for the Ngunawad Ingazzette and this one is one of 1982 and he just explains
how that new organisation would operate and at that time the Council decided that group managers or
managers of section should be appointed and then not long after that Les Fel came as the city manager
to take over that role and we had four organisation or groups under that chief and a couple of other
persons, the finance manager and myself who are members of the executive committee.
The other issue that I guess has been predominant through the whole time has been the one of protecting
the bushland character of Ngunawad Inga.
We've been most fortunate, I think, and I was going to mention a few identities, but we've been most
fortunate having benefactors who've made available properties and the closest one to here I guess
is the whole of this land through to Antonio Park where the Antonio brothers decided that the
Council could better look after this land and keep it in a natural bushland state.
Mr Hook, Mr. and Mrs Hook who gave their Wanda Nong Sanctuary land and the Campbell, brother and sister
Daisy and Bruce down on Campbell's Croft down Barone Road.
I remember the hooks and the Campbells, Daisy Campbell and old Mr Hook both used to ride
bicycles to the Council officers and they used to leave their bike outside and come in and do their business.
Someone here might be able to help me, I was trying to remember another man that used to visit the old
Council officers that used to ride a bicycle and I think he used to be the caretaker of the
Mitchum Memorial Hall and used to be a racing bike rider, but his name might have been grey, but I can't really remember.
But anyway, not to worry.
I think that advisory committee was a good example of the way in which the Council involved
members of the community in their important issues.
David Gala, former mayor, was a member of that committee.
Others, we had consultants working with us, Michael Colley from Colley Planning and Development
worked with us and some of the residents from the area as well.
And that committee drew together the important controls that we felt were relevant to the planning scheme
to try and keep a balance.
This to me is always where planning comes back to.
Balance between allowing a certain form of development, allowing people to do with their properties
what they feel they should be entitled to do, but at the same time preserving for the wider
community, for the future generations, those aspects of our area where we've come and chosen to live
that we feel are desirable to be preserved.
It's a matter of just trying to keep that balance.
Just a quick comment on other issues.
The provision of open space, none of what in Council was always adamant that it would have
better than the metropolitan average of open space and it's always in the forefront.
The Forest Hill shopping centre used to come up every few years to be expanded and it's still doing the same.
The freeway reservations have always had their impact on the city.
We had a major issue when the metropolitan railway depot was proposed at none of whatting
between none of whatting and Blackburn.
Another community group emerged and took that up with the Council's support and I think the Council spent
60,000 or something engaging legal advice and so forth to type that.
One that I mentioned before was King and Salon Street.
I don't know that I really need to say much more.
There are a number of Councillors that I've worked with through the years and one at least is here today.
To Kerry I think came on Council just after I'd retired.
The ones that I remember from the early days, Jim Willis was always a great identity and Jim, of course,
was a long serving Councillor, a commissioner of the Board of Works.
Graham Walsh always created an impact, I think, wherever he went.
Gavin Oakley was notable for probably establishing community gardens and somewhat probably the demise of the Board of Works in a way.
Many others, Bruce Atkinson has been a person that's known well and jam, plumber and Bruce and jam and
we spent many an early morning probably deliberating Council affairs.
I don't think there's much more.
Perhaps just in conclusion I'd just like to say that I've enjoyed my time with the Council very much.
I've enjoyed being involved with the community.
I've seen it grow from what was really an outer municipality to a middle suburban area.
I've been through some fairly drastic organisational changes but I must say I'm not at all sorry I wasn't there when amalgamation took place.
I guess I'm something of a traditionalist and I'm not one for great changes.
I think my history is the fact that I've only ever lived in two homes in my own whole life.
I've had about three jobs and so change to me is always a bit of a trauma like it is to everybody.
The issues when I came here were simple and the issues now are much more complex that I've enjoyed at all
and I really thank you for listening to me today and I hope I haven't bored you all gone too long and run out of tape.
Thanks very much.
Well I have a question that if there are any.
I'll sit anyway.
Anyone like to take dispute?
I'm very much like to let a window heal still three ways.
That's a great question.
Oh here we go.
We've got 963 because we're not going to run the road down while we're down on Creek.
We've got us and the windmalls that we've got 963.
I would have thought it was on the planning scheme map as a reservation before then.
That's probably the only family that I want to be a member of.
Well I've grown up at the day.
I have all the records.
I've gone somewhere else.
Of course.
And it's a straight trip to my mother who I think was 80 then.
She lived to be 91.
Where did she live?
Well she was a friend of Mr. Meade.
All right.
And I rather had that she wouldn't mention any running the children.
She had run into Mr. Black's two brothers down there.
She made Mr. Meade was the greatest boss on my mother.
I'd try and get her subsidized and hooded.
Right.
Which is probably the camera by St. Giorot.
All right.
Yes of course.
Actually I was going to mention the Mathesons as well.
Well I'm very curious.
I think it was raining now.
It was kind of an idiot.
People had stepped up.
Right.
Right.
Yes.
All right.
Please.
No.
I'd rather have more.
I couldn't speak at the old hall.
I'm a little bit more.
I'm a little bit more.
I'm a little bit more.
Um.
Neither Blue Moon.
Well I'm a North
fellow.
I don't know if I had to have
something.
I was in the group.
In Blackburn.
Yeah.
That's the way they said they just filled up with rubbish and everything.
No that was the Blackburn quarry.
So that, that hall was there for the ages.
And all of a sudden it was a period.
I wanted one thing to go.
I couldn't go to the room and read and write and post it to the house.
Um.
Populate and around that bus.
I can't recall that one Norman.
I've got photographs of my house.
I'll talk to you about it after.
No.
It would be quite good to think it had three of these.
What's past and it could be easier.
Right.
I'd be interested in earlier.
And more.
Yeah.
No.
I can't answer that.
No.
It's on the menu.
Yes.
We'll have a look.
I think it's on the net path.
You can kick it off there.
What is next?
Oh, well.
Anything there you have to do.
Yeah.
Being like a dude.
Oh, that's cool.
Oh, that's really cool.
I feel like it's really cool.
I feel like it's cool.
It runs, runs cutting it all the way.
Really well.
It's terrible.
Do you think we would, I would have side there on half.
We're having an end of the day.
We, we talked about just the last time.
And the loose was a bucket of doors.
But what was that?
Yes.
The twist.
I think it was in a much worse condition than, than Schwerkholtz cottage.
You ever got to?
Well, I was going to get that rock.
Yes.
The half point was that, early with the door on that side,
and he didn't get any math for a long time.
Yes.
And I remember, and it quite well, he, he got all the authority
that he had to bring it to have like, in that for that, that time.
I can't see the light there.
No, I can't.
I can't remember that.
I can't remember that.
I can't remember that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a big problem here.
Yes.
It is a big problem.
It's interesting to me that there was such a strong,
you know, cloud-based industry.
They used the time and brick industry for the years.
But as far as I know, there's nothing, no relics of that being saved.
No, that's probably right, Bill.
I think it was my thought when Heritage Matters were being discussed
that some effort ought to have been made to preserve a kiln
or some aspect of that whole land.
Is it hard to choose the one to choose?
I think there was an effort made, Terry might remember more.
It's fairly recently since they've attempted to sub-odify.
It's why we were on campus and we were told by the time to save the one who lived.
And the last guy who the minister had it in his trade.
I think there was an effort made.
Yes.
I think it had been had had had had had a good life.
Yes.
It's what happened.
My figure was, at the time when we were preparing for malgalation,
so many of those things were just, you know, how could he put us aside
because of the greater work that we were doing at that stage.
You know, trying to keep nano-winding from being sliced, you know,
I said that more fluidically, yes.
I'm trying to name back to Tonsville because that's where the mine comes from.
That's where I understand Michael outside of the evening.
Yes.
So, can't expect the Tonsville and you'll have it right.
I think it's a good question.
Something else we should pursue.
Yes.
Because the staff is still there, I'd say.
I would think some of the old kiln passed would be there.
I would say I was the minister coming out to do an on-site inspection.
I remember that was about the last thing that we were trying to do.
It would be a shame.
That would probably be the sole remaining.
That's the society.
The river killed in Boxville, first.
That's the reason.
Right.
Down the attack.
It's the standard.
Is that the way it's taken?
In the Boxville Bridge.
In the dive.
Never.
Sorry, darling.
But if something is likely to happen there soon because it's nearly got the Coriha field.
And then after trying to walk about.
Yeah.
That's the way for Bridgeways to meet.
Yeah.
Probably.
Yeah.
Just to comment on that, Val, I think this is probably a bit of a coincidence.
But this is probably the best time now to start doing this sort of thing.
Because you've got a state election over.
You've got the trauma of an algomation all night over.
And a relative stability.
So I'd say with the ministry, with the quell on.
To bring the top of the line and start people thinking to say, hey, you know, now that
all that fuss is beyond the.
The traffic will be the left for a while.
So I think this one is amazing.
We decided to do that.
I don't know.
This is certainly a.
We've had that.
Trying to copy the things of everything.
And I think that's a really good thing to do.
Great.
And I think that's a really good thing to do.
And I can go to the local.
There's pretty much that.
I think it's a really good thing to do.
And one of the things that we can do is take a floor with that.
And I think that's a really good thing to do.
I think that's a really good thing to do.
I think that's a really good thing to do.
So if anyone can respond to my 50-year-old,
I think it would be an issue.
Before my time.
I never ever came across anything.
Yes.
Never heard of anything.
No, that's right.
Just before I asked Bill to thank Ron on everything.
I just want to add that I'd like to thank them for the net
and for the framework tonight.
For the whole industry.
It's a cheesy proposition.
Ron, mate, yeah, he makes size and he stands
so that we could all say so.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I wasn't sure when the bill was aware of that.
So, good luck.
Thank you for that effort.
We'll ask Bill to thank you on our behalf.
On behalf of the site, Ron, I can thank you for the patience
and the importance of the book.
A number of our members, we go back to a three-generation
to the areas others like me, we came here about 40 years now.
We came here with a five.
Yes.
Those businesses, if you go back through some of those,
the other years when we went, we had a survey done out.
We had to write half-night, the first time this was
the project we ever made, right?
Yeah.
We'd always pick the table that was at least four,
fifty-sixth of us, right?
Because they always had a gun.
Yes.
Yes.
I think, Ron, it looks like something is going to be loose now.
Yeah.
The government's service right now, right?
The old days we had public service.
They were the municipal state of the city.
And they were people that took a note.
They made your way down.
They worked hard.
They not only paid allegiance to the council,
but they stayed for the rest of the day.
They came in for the time that the city had
never made any sort of public.
And they were there for service.
I think Ron is a great example of a man that served the project.
And the behalf of it's all, thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.