Green is the go
“A shining example of how traditional retail streets can become inviting public spaces during the day and at night.”
THAT was how the first section of Geelong’s Malop Street Green Spine project was described when it won a national landscape architecture award in 2018.
Oops. Only two years later we are going to modify it because six City of Greater Geelong councillors believe ratepayers are becoming frustrated with traffic congestion and it may have had a detrimental effect on shopping in Malop St.
But have they carried out any proper surveys?
Why do I feel we’ve been down this path before?
The Market Square Mall, just half a city block away, in Little Malop St, for example!
Geelong must be the only city in the world unable to create a mall that works for its citizens.
Millions of dollars were spent closing Little Malop St to traffic between Yarra and Moorabool streets in the 1980s, and creating an attractive open space for locals, highlighted by a fountain at the Moorabool St end.
Various modifications were made to attract people to the Mall, then in 2001 it was re-opened to traffic.
I always thought that rather than shops fronting the mall, we should have followed European style to have it surrounded by restaurants and cafes with tables and chairs filling the space.
Now the Market Square Mall is known — thanks to national TV and local media coverage — mostly for the violence of its “mall rats”.
Getting back to the Green Spine, the City of Greater Geelong council did not rush into this.
It did its homework, involved Hisham Elkadi, who was then head of Deakin University’s of Architecture and Built Environment.
His legacy, Vision Two, included the Green Spine, and was the product of colloaboration with more than 60 architects, planners and local community leaders. Organisations involved included, the CoGG, Deakin, State Government and Committee for Geelong.
This was not a heat-of-the-moment decision — as the decision of six councillors last week appeared to be — but a carefully planned part of the Revitalising Central Geelong Action Plan, a long-term vision for the CBD’s future.
And yet, here we are only two years after the opening of this first section of the Green Spine — which is planned to extend along Malop Street from Johnstone Park to Eastern Park — planning to spend $2 million to alter the section that has just been built at a cost of $8 million.
I have long thought Cr Eddy Kontelj a positive force on council, and I believe his push to convert what is virtually a bypass road at the moment into a full-on ring road — including a bridge from Avalon to Point Henry — is an example of his value as a councillor.
This concept is not new, but if it is to be realised it must have public advocates in positions of influence such as the council.
State Minister Lisa Neville warned council before its vote last week, that it risked a funding freeze on Geelong CBD infrastructure projects if it made alterations to the Green Spine project, which is jointly funded by the State Government.
Local Liberal senator Sarah Henderson attacked the Labor Government’s decision, but it was supported by Shadow Treasurer and Shadow Minister for Local Government Louise Staley in a rare, but welcome, display of parliamentary bipartisanship.
I’d like to see more of that at all levels of politics, and among all parties, rather than the petty political point-scoring we are treated to so frequently.
The reason the Green Spine concept gained widespread support back in 2016-17 was largely because it was put forward as an attempt to reduce motor vehicle traffic, encourage cycling in the CBD and was a vital part of a wider vision of CBD re-development.
Let’s stick with it!