Can the destruction of a 130 year old elm avenue be justified?

The Fitzroy Tennis club wants to cut down an elm avenue in Edinburgh Gardens and annex the land for two new courts. They have funding for the courts and upgrade to the Tennis pavilion as part of a larger project to upgrade facilities at the Brunswick Street Oval. Yarra Council has supported the proposal. Improving the facilities at the six court club is not controversial but expanding the grounds beyond their 130 year old lease of 3 roods and 37 perches (0.4ha) will cause irreparable damage to an elm avenue, close a path and diminish Edinburgh Gardens.

To justify the expansion of courts, Council was told that Tennis Australia advised that the club is the busiest club in the State. Does that stack up?

Open booking data makes it possible to compare booking at Fitzroy Tennis Club with Mayors Park Tennis Centre.

Mayors Park is a 20 minute walk from Fitzroy Tennis Club. Both clubs have 6 courts. Mayors Park was specifically mentioned in the amendment to the motion that asked officers to explore other options. Mayors Park expanded from 4 to 6 courts in 2007. The two new courts (Courts 1 and 2) were built as multipurpose courts with a larger footprint and markings that can be used for Netball, Pickleball or Tennis. Cityside sports runs a popular ‘Mixed and Ladies’ netball program four evenings a week from 6:00pm to 10:30pm on these two courts.

Adding new tennis courts to Mayors Park would be challenging to the landscape and environment qualities of the 1865 park. But unlike Edinburgh Gardens, there is no heritage overlay and fewer significant trees which require a permit to remove. Much of the Mayors Park is taken by the leisure centre which is surrounded by unused land protected by a chain-wire fence to prevent kids sneaking into the pool. There is also a large an under used carpark in the south of Mayors Park. Destroying an elm avenue in Edinburgh Gardens will be a much harder argument for Council than the damage to Mayors Park caused by additional courts.

Daily booking data for the the 13 months up to Feb 1 2025 was collected for both courts.

The data includes the booking reservations for each court, opening and closing times. The name of the booking is often just ‘Booking’, presumably a private reservation. Often it describes the activity. There is no address data for the person making the booking in the reservation data so no catchment assessment can be made from this data without combining it with the registered user’s address.

The data shows that the courts at Mayors Park were utilized more than the courts at Fitzroy Tennis Club by all measures. Fitzroy Tennis Club courts were closed to bookings 30 minutes earlier each evening and 90 minutes on the weekend.

The last session of the day was popular in Mayors Park on weekdays with almost 5 courts booked on average throughout the year, 4 on Tuesday and less on other days. Even on weekends more than 1 court was booked on average at 10pm.

Mayors Park was full (had all six courts booked) more often than Fitzroy. Neither club was fully booked for more than 30% of the available time, suggesting that the proposed new overflow courts would be utilized less than 30% of opening times, suggesting both the new courts would be empty for 20 hours per day.

There was less coaching at Mayors Park but more of all the other booking types.

When Fitzroy was fully booked, coaching occupied 2 or more courts for 38% of the time compared to 27% of the time for Mayors Park. 

Moving some of the coaching reservations to less busy times would reduce congestion. Moving morning coaching to the new indoor sports centre in Fitzroy Gasworks may also be possible since the center, which mainly caters for team sports, is not likely to be busy at that time. Extending the time for coaching and reducing the number of courts booked would ease congestion. These changes depend on demand and availability of coaches and their clients.

Some of the higher utilization of Mayors Park can be attributed to the multi-use nature of two of the courts and the successful netball program.

Bookings Summary

Bookings by Court: Mayors Park Tennis Centre.

No courts were significantly more or less popular.

Bookings by Court: Fitzroy Tennis Club.

Courts 4 and 5 were more popular than 2 and 3. 

Data Analysis

Over the period from Jan 1 2024 to Feb 28 2025 there were more bookings in Mayors Park than in Edinburgh Gardens. Most bookings are for 30 minutes or a multiple of 30 minutes. To compare, it is necessary to break longer bookings into 30 minute blocks and to extend the occasional short bookings to 30 minutes. Then count the longer bookings as if they are separate 30 minute bookings. 

A booking is counted regardless of whether there was any activity on the court. Conversely any games or activity without a booking are not recorded in the data.

The bookings data do not usually show whether there were two or four players on the booked court or how many participated in a coaching booking. The netball games have 14 players on court plus umpire and up to six substitutes, they play even when the tennis courts are abandoned for rain. A tennis-only court will have 2 to 4 players per game, potentially more during coaching sessions.

Data was available for all 30 minute sessions for all courts throughout the year except for 7 court-sessions in Mayors Park and 6 court-sessions in Fitzroy. Of these, two of the missing court-sessions occurred when the other 5 courts were occupied in each club. These have been assumed to be not-booked and are not significant.

The first thing that stands out is there were 31 thirty-minute sessions per day available to be booked at Mayors Park, while Fitzroy only had 30 due to the earlier close of bookings. The LatestEndTime for Fitzroy was set 30 minutes earlier to 10pm during the period.

The booking system has changed slightly since February 28 after the data was collected. Fitzroy is now reporting a LatestEndTime of 11:45pm.

Fitzroy courts recorded ‘Closed’ bookings on weekend nights effectively closing an hour earlier. The ‘Closed’ bookings consumed 1.9% of the total available sessions at Fitzroy. The closed bookings, which occurred every weekend throughout the 13 months, have now been removed from the system, including the historical records. This change occurred at the same time the LatestEndTime was extended.

Courts were booked for Maintenance for 0.22% of sessions in Mayors Park and 0.32% of sessions in Fitzroy.

If Fitzroy is the busiest club in the state, then we would expect fewer idle courts than Mayors Park, especially with the more restricted hours, but the data shows the opposite hypothesis – Mayors Park is busier. 
34.44% of available court sessions were never booked in Mayors Park compared to 40.22% of Fitzroy court sessions remaining idle. Even though Mayors park had more sessions overall.

Booking Categories

Some booking categories are included in the data from the server:

• 1000 Private Bookings,
• 2000 Coaching
• 3000 Competitions and Social Events
• 7000 Maintenance

Further categories can be inferred from the booking name.

There is a different mix of booking types, reflecting the different cultures but also what the bookings happen to be called. Many of the bookings at Fitzroy are for Juniors but categorized here as competition or social, whereas Mayors Park had lots of bookings specifically for schools (some not in Yarra). Juniors could be defined as a separate category or separately for social and competition.

The main utilization was for private bookings, followed by coaching, then competition, then social. Utilization was higher in Mayors Park overall and for all categories except Coaching which was 38% higher in Fitzroy. 

Congestion / Busy Hour

A main drivers for creating new courts would be if the existing courts cannot supply demand. If all six courts are booked or reserved, then it is not possible to book a court at that time. This is the busy hour (of half hour) and it has been studied by traffic engineers for 100 years. If you can move the time you play or commute, then you can utilize the resource when it is not busy. If your time to play is constrained by school or work for you or your team mates, then those busy times become the main constraint to whether you can play tennis or are forced to do something else. Congestion causes frustration with the infrastructure or service level.

Throughout the study period, all six courts were fully occupied for 29.35% of available sessions in Mayors Park and 27.68% in Fitzroy.

Mayors Park, with more sessions overall, would be expected to be less congested but is more congested. 6% of the ‘congestion’ at Fitzroy occurred when all the courts were ‘Closed’. 

To examine the causes of congestion, count the booking categories again, but this time only for congested sessions where all six courts are occupied.

Private bookings, competitions, coaching and social bookings are driving congestion at both clubs. Often a competition will reserve all six courts.

6 separate private bookings occupied all courts 532 times in Mayors Park and 721 times in Fitzroy, contributing to 15% and 21% of the congested sessions respectively.

Coaching typically had recurring bookings of 3 or 4 courts. Private bookings filled in the gaps.

There were no coaching sessions on weekends at either club. Weekend Congestion was dominated by competitions.

Mayors Park 
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 4 or more courts: 251
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 3 or more courts: 692
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 2 or more courts: 940 (27% of congested sessions)
Fitzroy Tennis Club
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 4 or more courts: 425
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 3 or more courts: 1161
Congested Sessions where coaching was in 2 or more courts: 1316 (38% of congested sessions)

Fitzroy has more coaching overall, and coaching was more likely to contribute to congestion at popular times.

Heat Maps

The heatmaps show the times and days of the week where congestion was likely to occur most often throughout the year, by averaging the number of courts booked at each time. Numbers closer to 6 are dark blue. The darker cells show the club was fully booked at that time throughout the year, such as Sundays at 9:30am in Mayors Park, or the 4 Closed sessions on weekend nights in Fitzroy, which can be discounted.

Mayors Park has 8 sessions per week averaging 5.7 courts or more annually, compared to Fitzroy’s 1 session per week. This may be due to more seasonality in the Fitzroy schedule (see table below).

Mayors Park has 4 idle sessions per week averaging one court or less annually, compared to Fitzroy’s 12 sessions per week.

The heat maps for Mayors Park shows that the last session of the day on weekdays are well utilized. The fall off on Friday evening shows the contribution from Netball to the weekday evening utilization, but indicates that if Fitzroy had stayed open at that time on weeknights, it would not be empty. On late weekend nights, when Fitzroy was closed, Mayors park utilization was 1.9 on Saturday and 2.4 on Sunday for the first half hour, dropping to very low after 10pm, with less than one court on average annually. This indicates that had Fitzroy opened later on weekends, there would have been only low utilization.

Average Occupancy Counts

The numbers in the heatmaps are rounded to 1 decimal point so counts may differ from the table below.

Object to the tallest building proposed in Clifton Hill.

The number of objections is closely monitored by decision makers.

How to Object

Its easy to lodge an objection with the City of Yarra’s online objection form. 

Or send an email to PlanningAdmin@yarracity.vic.gov.au.

An objection must refer to the application PLN19/0845 592 – 622 Smith Street and 2 – 12 Alexandra Parade and 1 – 7 Reeves Street. This is automatically filled out if you follow this objection form link then click on Lodge an Objection

You must include your name and address and the reasons you object.

If you wish, just include the following points. It only takes a minute. 

• The proposed building is far too tall for the precinct and will have wide ranging impacts.
• Dominance, overlooking, noise and light intrusion will impact the amenity of many historic properties to the north and east.
• Proposal is privatising public spaces, roads and lanes.
• Traffic from the proposal should be directed to Alexandra Parade and not be allowed to flow into Council Street. 
• Affordable Housing should be provided.
• Demolition of heritage buildings should be refused.

What is Proposed?

The Foundry is a proposed 12 storey development in Clifton Hill, on the corner of Smith Street and Alexandra Parade. It will house commercial and retail space, including a large supermarket and fresh food market and casual dining precinct across three levels. The development will comprise three portions, each made up of four, nine and 12 levels respectively and a 3 level car park.

“Fortis Development Group is seeking planning approval for two towers with 23,000 square metres of office space, and 7000 sq.m. of retail.
The subsidiary of Sydney based Pallas Group, in conjunction with another landowner, has amassed control over at least seven buildings giving it a large 6,500 sq.m. block. The five properties on the corner of Smith Street and Alexandra Parade and Reeves Street, include a historic former foundry. Several of the site’s buildings were purchased by the state to make way for the East West Link tunnel, and were subsequently sold.” [AFR, March 2020]

The site is about one sixth the size of the Former Fitzroy Gasworks on the opposite side of Smith Street. In contrast to the Gasworks site, the state government has not placed any height controls on these sites, despite their being much closer to the historic neighbourhood around Council Street. The government has not done any soil contamination assessment, nor has Yarra Council demanded an audit of existing contamination.

Our Objection

The 3068 Group is objecting to this proposal, with detailed objections on Amenity, Traffic, Heritage and Urban Design grounds.  We are recommending that members and local residents also submit objections before the proposal is considered by Council’s Internal Development Assessment Committee (IDAC) in the coming cycle.

Amenity Grounds

12 stories plus two stories of plant and equipment (55m) is much too high. Buildings greater than six stories have negative impacts felt far away. The buildings should not be taller or set back less than what is allowed on the Gasworks site, and should follow the Smith Street height controls adopted in Amendment C231 (18m mandatory).

Privatising public lanes should not be supported.

Dominance, overlooking, light pollution and sound intrusion, from proposed east-facing and north-east corner open terraces on levels two through eight will detrimentally impact 148 properties, including those beyond the arbitrary statutory limit of 9 m.

The buildings will be ten times the height and more than ten times the width of the private open space of the  single-fronted, single-storey houses which comprise half of the houses to the east of the subject site.

Sustainability

The Application Fails to consider longer term goals of sustainability to build ethical, diverse cities and spaces with spatially aware citizens that would turn the land into a mixed-use suburb, bristling with activity at ground level, rather than the wind-swept settlement of monolithic offices, wide boulevards and hard-edged buildings that are the result of short- term commercial thinking.

Heritage Grounds

Objection is made to the detrimental effects from the height of the proposal on the heritage value of Clifton Hill West Heritage Overlay HO317.

The majority of impacted dwellings are single-storey properties, most are earlier than 1890 and many are earlier than 1870. Modest wooden workers cottages are common.

Objection is made to the detrimental effect on the heritage value of Smith Street. 

Facadism is no excuse for heritage destruction.

The proposed tower will disrupt an important landscape view of the internationally recognised heritage shot tower, framed by Napier Reserve (bordered by Alexandra Parade and Queens Parade) and the treed median of historic elms along the length of Alexandra Parade.

Traffic Grounds

Traffic from the site should not be allowed into Council Street.

Vehicle access to Council Street will have an unacceptable impact on the Clifton Hill Western precinct.

A left-in, left-out vehicle access to the site should be provided on Alexandra Parade, with only loading bays on Reeves Street and no truck access to Council Street.

The proponent has not justified the request for a waiver of parking from the statutory 936 places to the proposed 352 places.

Urban Design Grounds

The height should not exceed 18 metres (based on C231 Smith Street Precinct 3). It should certainly not exceed the Gasworks mandatory height limit of 10 storeys.

The valued low-rise character of the heritage area should be retained. Non-heritage sites should be redeveloped in scale with surrounding buildings.

The development should fit with its context and the preferred future character.

The street façade on Smith Street should not exceed three storeys or 12 metres with higher development set back a minimum of 8 metres.

Development above street façade height should be setback and the scale should be subservient to contextual buildings along Smith Street.

The development should provide for a range of dwelling types to cater for a variety of housing needs including the provision of up to 10% of dwellings as affordable housing.

An assessment of the level, nature and distribution of any contamination within, or in close proximity to, the land, is required.

The 3068 Group’s Draft Submission to Heritage Victoria

Here is a link to the formal submission including footnotes.
Below is the main content. Members may email feedback to the 3068 group committee by COB Friday Feb 7th.

1. The Eastern Freeway Stage One, from Hoddle Street to Bulleen Road, is of social and historic heritage significance to the Wurundjeri people as an invasion of their land and Aboriginal cultural landscape. The whole area of the confluence of the Yarra River and Merri Creek is of particular importance to Aboriginal people, at least two Wurundjeri elders are known to have been interred nearby. “The choice of the confluence as the appropriate burial place of important leaders and warriors highlighted the traditional relevance of the locality’ (Ellender & Christiansen, 2001:116).”
The establishment of the Aboriginal school and Native Police station at the site also indicates the popularity of the confluence as a camping and gathering place for Aboriginal people, and also contributes to the great significance of this place to contemporary Wurundjeri.”

2. The western termination of the Eastern Freeway at Hoddle Street and Alexandra Parade, is of social heritage significance to a community of inner suburbs residents’ associations of the 1970s -90s, to the present day, as the physical artefact of their struggle for greater participation in the centralised planning process. The inner suburbs outside MCC and SCC areas struggled with the impact of redevelopment as they had neither councillors nor staff able to articulate the social and physical impact of high-rise housing and freeways. The residents’ associations were important in their ability to provide the inner suburbs with the capacity to put their arguments and to make their case and to argue it publicly, and to start to develop support and political clout on issues which, in the past, had been just ridden over.

The Eastern Freeway Stage One was developed while Rupert Hamer (1915-2004) was MLA for Kew (1971-1981), Premier of Victoria (1972-1979), and Minister for the Arts for seven years of his nine years premiership. He was a Trustee of Yarra Bend Park in 1982.

Protests from inner Melbourne residents led to the Eastern Freeway being terminated at Hoddle Street in 1977. An essential element in this achievement was their ability to talk the language of the experts and present cases with all the research done, in some cases more effective opponents than those presenting simply a demagogic face.

Following this, inner suburbs residents’ associations’ criticism and opposition to the 2014 East-West Link Project, a proposed 4.4 km tunnel from Hoddle Street, Clifton Hill to CityLink at Parkville led to the project being abandoned by the then opposition leader, Daniel Andrews, in the 2014 state election. In 2019, inner suburbs residents’ associations’ criticism and opposition to the 2018 North East Link Project and Eastern Freeway upgrade was expressed at a Panel. The political climate being generated by this activity was its implications for the wider conduct of political affairs in Victoria.

In 1972, the Eastern Freeway was constructed through the middle of the Park crossing both the Merri Creek and the Yarra River. Parts of the river were relocated and the Deep Rock Swimming Basin was completely demolished. This was highly controversial at the time, heightened by the destruction of rich history of not only of Wurundjeri origin, but European as well. (Wikipedia) The Eastern Freeway bisects the Park, but in the 1980s, attempts to run overhead high voltage power lines from Richmond to Brunswick through the Park failed due to strong community pressure. (Brian Carroll, Encyclopedia of Melbourne online).

Resonance

“… Residents’ associations became more sophisticated, developing sub committees on matters such as planning, education, social welfare, and heritage. The model was the Carlton Association, with its 2000 members, able to divide into numerous sub-committees drawing on the expertise of professional members and academics. There was a more coordinated approach between the associations with the formation of coalitions in Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide to achieve greater participation in the planning process, the introduction of third party appeals against development consent and more cooperation with local residents and local government from state planning authorities.”

‘curiously effective’, These words were used by Sydney sociologist, Andrew Jakubowitz in assessing the impact of the urban protest movement and the residents’ associations. Jakubowitz concluded that in Australia, the groups and the issues differed from place to place, and the measure of success varied. But what is important is the political climate being generated by this activity and its implications for the wider conduct of political affairs. An essential element in this achievement was ’their ability to use media and personal contacts within bureaucracies to talk the language of the experts and present cases with “all the research done” in some cases more effective opponents than those presenting simply a demagogic face.

193 QUEENS PARADE, CLIFTON HILL

Permit number: PLN19/0539

Please object to this proposal.

If approved, it would set a very dangerous precedent for Queens Parade. If you can take down an original 1870s cottage then what can’t be demolished?

You can find the plans here

https://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/services/planning-and-development/planning-applications/advertised-planning-applications/2019/11/20/pln190539

The responsible authority won’t make a decision before: Friday 06 December 2019

You can  use some of the point from The 3068 Objection to PLN19-0539 – 193 Queens Parade – The 3068 Group Nov 2019

Or use this summary of the main points.

I object to the proposal PLN19/0539 for 193 Queens Parade, Clifton Hill, on the following grounds:

• Demolition of primary heritage fabric, the 1876 cottage ‘Viola’ should be refused.
• Councils independent heritage advice recommends “In regard to the extent of demolition that would be acceptable, it is considered that the front portion of the existing cottage should be retained to the depth of the two front rooms.” This advice has not been followed.
• The cottage is related to the adjacent two storey residence at 191 Queens Parade historically and aesthetically it forms part of a group.
• 1876 chimney should not be demolished or hidden.

• The C231 Panel preferred requirement for minimum street-wall setbacks is to “Retain existing setback”.
• The C231 Panel mandatory minimum upper level setback on Queens Parade is 8m. This is behind the front wall of the 1876 cottage.
• Upper level should be setback behind the chimney.
• New Development should not sit in front of front wall of 191 Queens Parade.
• Rear setbacks do not conform to DDO16 controls recommended by C231 Panel and supported by council.

• New four-storey building is too high for the site context.
• Services on the roof should be hidden.

Amenity

• Traffic in the lane will affect houses in Hodgkinson Street.
• Proposal will overshadow 191 Queens Parade.

Email your objection to PlanningAdmin@yarracity.vic.gov.au

As always, include your name and address and how you will be affected.

Respected transport planner William McDougall presents a critical appraisal of Victoria’s recent approach to transport infrastructure investment in Melbourne and Victoria.

Growth will bring enormous transport problems, but policy is in tatters because politics has replaced planning.
New strategic planning approaches desperately needed for Melbourne’s transport future.

Talk Presented to The 3068 AGM.

Community Meeting – Melbourne’s transport dysfunction and frenzy of road construction.

The 3068 Group Committee will host a public meeting from 7:30 – 9.30 pm with guest speaker, William McDougall, discussing Melbourne’s transport dysfunction and frenzy of road construction.

William McDougall is a transport planner with 40 years’ experience. He has advised Labor and Liberal state governments in Victoria on projects including Rod Eddington’s transport plan; the Rowville, Doncaster and airport rail links; the Metro Tunnel; and the West Gate Tunnel. He also led the landmark 1999 Northern Central City Corridor Study that found the East-West Link tunnel was not actually necessary.

Bagung Magali/Waa-Community Room,
Bargoonga Nganjin North Fitzroy Library,
182 St Georges Road, Fitzroy North

Tuesday 25 September 2018  7:30 pm

All Members of The 3068 Group and the public are welcome to attend this event.

Also of interest: Forum on North East Link project

The Whitehorse Council is holding a public forum on  Tuesday 11 September to discuss the Victorian government’s proposed North East Link project. The forum is scheduled to commence at 6.30 p.m. and to conclude at 8.30 p.m.

The venue is the Whitehorse Centre which is at the rear of 379 -397 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading (Melway 48 G9).  The Centre  is seven minutes walk from Nunawading railway station . RSVP at  https://whitehorsenelforum.eventbrite.com

Guest speakers will include: Robert Clark MP, Member for Box Hill, Samantha Dunn, MLC, Member for Eastern Metropolitan Region Dr John Stone, Senior Lecturer in Transport Planning, University of Melbourne, Michelle Giovas, Warringal Conservation Society and Friends of Banyule and Chris Trueman, Whitehorse Active Transport Action Group