Anglesea Deans Marsh community hub overdevelopment fears
Community members have their say after council thew out draft plans for expensive community hub redevelopments.
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Anglesea and Deans Marsh residents are concerned the council is “splashing millions” to overdevelop community hubs rather than addressing crucial needs.
The call comes after the Surf Coast Shire abandoned a $200,000 draft plan to redevelop the Anglesea Community and Health Hub off McMillan St late last year.
As part of the project, the council was looking to add social housing on the precinct and develop a two-storey building which would house the Anglesea Medical Centre, a kindergarten and another eight services.
Instead, the council chose locals for a community co-design group which would help develop a new draft plan with the help of 39 people, including 27 locals.
Surf Coast Shire General Manager for Placemaking and Environment, Chris Pike, said the first two community co-design workshops had been completed this month.
“The draft concept plan will then be presented to council by the middle of the year,” Mr Pike said.
In regards to the initial plans, Anglesea resident Peter McGain pointed out elements of the draft which had turned locals off the redevelopment.
Mr McGain said while he supported adding more accommodation for workers in Anglesea, knocking down existing structures and rebuilding new ones would ultimately prove more costly.
“In order to get that land for social housing they are having to pull down facilities that are going to cost millions of dollars to replicate,” Mr McGain said.
“On a cost benefit basis, you don’t pull down kindergartens that work and medical centres that work in order to get some land for social housing.”
The buildings that were to be knocked down as part of the draft plans are only about 30 years old and the kindergarten was just renovated.
Mr McGain said he had proposed several other, more affordable, sites to the council – including a block between Entrance Rd and Inverlochy St, as well as Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority land adjacent to the foreshore – but to no avail.
Mr Pike said affordable rental housing for key workers would to be included on site, and the community co-design group had begun considering the most appropriate location and built form of this housing within the precinct.
Echoing Mr McGain’s concerns, local man Ron Canale said he and many others in the area were opposed to the unintended “chaos” the draft plans would create.
“On so many levels they just haven’t thought it through,” Mr Canale said.
“It’s a complete overdevelopment of the site.”
He said adding more housing without increasing parking space, which was already limited, would cause frustration and traffic congestion for residents.
He added that most people were fine with the current layout of the precinct and overcrowding services in one central building would be problematic.
“Part of the plan with this monstrosity was to have the medical centre and the kindergarten cohabiting the building … it’s a recipe for disaster.”
In addition to the draft plans in Anglesea, the Surf Coast Shire is also moving ahead with plans for an over $8m redevelopment of the Deans Marsh Community Hub.
The Store Deans Marsh owner, James Morton, is the only restaurant and general store left in the centre of town after he moved to the area 15-year-ago.
Having spent years working and watching his kids grow up in Deans Marsh, Mr Morton said the issue of declining population needed a stronger solution.
He said the council needed to develop a solid economic plan to help struggling businesses like his before “splashing millions on a multimillion-dollar community hub”.
“We are struggling, it’s getting harder and harder,” he said.
“If we [The Store] shut and the school shuts, just because you’ve got this fancy community hall, people aren’t going to move here.”
Mr Pike said: “A key focus of the Deans Marsh Community Hub plan is designing a future facility for acommunity that will experience growth and a change in demographics over time.”
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Originally published as Anglesea Deans Marsh community hub overdevelopment fears
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