GREEN wedge land in Wyndham will be rezoned for housing development in an extension of Melbourne’s urban growth boundaries.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said 1550 hectares of green wedge land in Point Cook and Werribee West would be rezoned to enable thousands of new houses to be built.
Last year, Wyndham Council recommended the rezoning of a 443-hectare green wedge site bordering Hacketts, Aviation and Point Cook roads in Point Cook, stating it had degraded through weed and pest infestation.
But Mr Guy said rezoned land in Wyndham would not be released for sale until the region’s infrastructure shortfalls had been fixed. “The government has made it very clear that we haven’t approved and won’t be approving any future developments for Point Cook until we solve some of those transport issues.” Mr Guy said a possible ferry service from Werribee to the Docklands, the Regional Rail Link and a federal government funding push for a freeway interchange at Sneydes Road would help provide much-needed infrastructure.
Western Melbourne Catchments Network co-ordinator Colleen Miller criticised the rezoning, and said Point Cook needed to protect open space and swamp land. “It’s certainly not pristine, no one’s saying it’s perfect, but the green wedge has value because it’s a huge amount of parkland in an area of intensive housing ,” she said.
Point Cook resident Paul Harder labelled the move to rezone green wedge land “environmental vandalism”. “We need parkland, we need open space as a community.”
Mr Harder wants the council to recognise the mistake in recommending green wedge land for housing and to support the community in a fresh struggle to safeguard land from developers’ saws.
Opposition MPs Tim Pallas and Jill Hennessy said while the government’s decision to not approve housing in Point Cook’s west was welcome, its commitment to improving infrastructure would be heavily scrutinised. “Despite the comforting language being employed by the minister, the fact remains that the government will make millions of dollars in the windfall land sales but has committed not one dollar to the arterial road network,” Mr Pallas said.
Mayor Kim McAliney said the move to extend the urban growth boundary for more housing warranted “major contributions” from state and federal governments to finance public infrastructure.
