3 September Newsletter Friends of Eaglemont Village
Youth issues
Leonie Farrell at Banyule Council has sent out a long list of activities for our local youths to participate in.
Check the Banyule website soon - many of the activities have limited space and bookings are required.
Mothers & Babies
Gather round all you young Mums, all you day-care Grannies - the Eaglemont M&B network meets 10:30 a.m. on the 1st & 3rd Monday each month.
Sit & Sew
The group meets at the Eaglemont Dish 2 p.m. on the first Thursday of each month - this week is a Sit & Sew session.
Our free coffee and cake can continue while our Australia Post community grant funds hold out.
No fees, no entrance test, all skill levels welcome.
Come along, bring your gear - knitting, lacemaking, weaving, sewing, cross-stitching, felt hat making or whatever.
APSYY PLANT EXPO
Take a day trip to Eltham this weekend to see a magnificent display of Australian native flowers - and it is a plant sale as well.
Gangs Gangs still in our vicinity
Friday morning a small flock of 7 Gang Gangs flew west to east just south of Studley Road.
Again Sunday morning the creaky voices of Gang Gangs dismayed at the loss of cotoneasters to breakfast on.
It is pleasing to see them still with us, but how long before they too notice the warmer winter & earlier Spring and return to their home range in the High Country.
I am told the snow season was a fizzer, so our Gang Gangs will soon become aware foraging opportunities have returned to the High Country.
We must content ourselves with Butcherbirds, Magpies and Eastern Spinebills to reminds us how fortunate we are to live near the Yarra parklands.
Thank You to the Mulch Movers
Several volunteers have found time to help spread the mulch on Sherwood Road.
Mike, James, Martin, Richard and John have pitched in to spread the load Maurie organised - a good batch too.
Grant Application Submitted
FofEV has made an Expression of Interest to participate in the 2023 Community Grants available via our Federal Member of the House of Representatives Kate Thwaites.
These community grants are for a share of up to $5,000 from a pool of $50,000 per electorate, and must directly benefit volunteers in their community work.
FofEV is seeking a range of gardening tools to make our maintenance work less onerous, allowing more time to expand the areas we can beautify.
Keep Australia Beautiful (Vic) Program Manager to Visit Us
This Thursday from 1 p.m. we will be hosting Simba Matshe for a familiarisation tour of our Eaglemont Stationeers works.
Simba has recently joined KAB(VIC) to head up the Stationeers program.
Kirsty Richards, who has been a frequent visitor to Eaglemont while acting in the Program Manager role, remains with KAB(Vic) in her management committee role.
Any FofEV volunteers wishing to help Simba gain an insight to our Eaglemont Stationeers work can join us at the Eaglemont Dish before we head out to the bushland wildflower walks.
Well Done You Housing Submissions Folk!
Out of sight to most of you a small team of volunteers has been burning the midnight oil to research, debate and write submissions to Banyule Council's housing and neighbourhood character strategy review.
If you have been averting your gaze from the housing sufficiency and affordability debate reverberating around our city you should prepare for some disquieting developments - even shocks.
Planning and zoning changes - potentially even the role of Councils in planning and zoning - are expected.
Your Council's staff are pushing for much more "medium density" housing in suburbs that have traditionally been single detached dwellings; one house per block.
5 & 6 story blocks of dwellings are coming to your street, and the closer to the railway line and the main roads the sooner it will happen.
High density - that is 7 to 11 stories - like those now lining Bell Street will spread into our neighbourhoods.
Last Monday at Council there were 89 objections to a four story development in Bellfield - and 89 dismayed, disappointed, despairing objectors as a result.
People who have achieved their detached dwelling homes in difficult economic times in what they want to remain a low density suburb are going to have 4, 5 & 6 story complexes built alongside them.
All this change of approach to housing density because of a failure of successive State Governments to build enough public affordable housing - the private sector is simply failing to provide affordable housing.
Many proposed social housing projects on State Government owned land are stalled across the State because the State Government's budgetary position precludes State funding.
The private sector can only be enticed into the provision of a small 10% allocation of social housing within developments where their return on capital is underpinned by access to premium inner & middle suburbs land.
An RMIT research project uncovered a recent Kensington "social housing" project in collaboration with the State Government returned the private sector developer 37.5% profit!
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