Apr 12, 2023 2 min read

A Quiet English Village Lane?

Neighbourhood character - development changes houses into units, private gardens become a couple of pot plants. Streets become parking lots. Where is the Council response?

Ivanhoe was once famous for its front yard rose gardens. There was a large rose nursery in Sherwood Road above Eaglemont Station. The Ivanhoe Garden Club formed the Victorian Agricultural Society, which led to the Royal Show.

Not quite. We are looking at a driveway off Thorseby Grove, Ivanhoe.

This pleasant enough suburban setting is deceptive.

Can you envisage Miss Marples shuffling along this path?

Leafy and quiet. Only on close inspection do you realise 11 dwellings tightly surround this driveway.

This tranquil scene belies the housing density (hence population density) and absence of public open space through Eaglemont and much of Ivanhoe to the east of the Town Hall.

Some "homettes", as they were quaintly called in the mid-century, are occupied by elderly people with no access to aged care facilities in their neighbourhood.

Some are occupied by young families with no access to local parks, playgrounds or "mothers & babies" type services.

This situation of under-servicing Eaglemont and much of Ivanhoe is no longer acceptable.

Friends of Eaglemont Village are lobbying Banyule Council to meet their own published, long-standing standards for residents' access to public open space - 90% of residents to be within 5 minutes walk/ 400 metres of public open space.

Plenty of street trees, dwindling #s of yard trees. 75% of new builds here are multiple occupancy, meaning lots of concrete & less trees.

On the south side of the rail line 3 local parks are required between Eaglemont Village and Ivanhoe Station if Council's own standards are to be applied.

In 1982 the then Heidelberg Council recognised a need, as a priority, for a local park in Locksley Road.

In 1994 Heidelberg Council was merged into the new Banyule Council. The centre of attention (and the civic centre) went north to Greensborough.

Expressed in 2023 dollars, nearly $1.5 billion has been paid in Council rates by residents south of Banksia Street since 1982. An unknown but substantial amount of money has been collected as ironically-labelled 5% development levies on certain types of multiple occupancy dwellings.

Plenty of funds make local parks.

Plenty of time to procure land and create local parks.

Where are they? Why not in Eaglemont and Ivanhoe, where ample funds are being raised, and the private open space is being buried by developers?