bcs2002a

	Beaumaris Conservation Society Inc.  BULLETIN
A0034887B Victoria		BCS2002A                                 December 2002              www.bcs.asn.au

Officers and members of Beaumaris Conservation Society
Inc.
attended
the meeting of the General Committee of Bayside City
Council on 16th
December
2002 to hear the welcome result of a vigorous campaign
they had mounted
to convince Council to save the Concourse Green.

To the great consternation of many BCS Inc. members,
and a
large number
of other Beaumaris residents, a plan supposedly
developed to improve
the
Beaumaris Concourse had contained as one of its major
aspects a
proposal
to convert most (58%) of the Concourse Green into a
paved car park.

The Concourse Green is a quarter hectare of grassed
public
open space
that is quite distinctive among Bayside shopping
centres. The 58 trees
gracing it are all Australian native trees – many of
them quite well
developed.
Bayside City Council inherited the freehold title of the
land from the
former Sandringham City Council, which had bought it for
public
use. 

The concern by BCS Inc. and others about the plan,
which was
proposed
by a group of Concourse traders, was essentially
confined to the need
to
protect the Concourse Green from harm. The Secretary of
BCS Inc.
instigated
a petition opposing the change to the Concourse Green.
It had attracted
over 970 signatures by the time it was registered with
Bayside City
Council
earlier this month. The report that Council staff made
to the General
Committee
recommended against the proposal to convert any of the
Concourse Green
into a car park. 

They said that a survey of nearby residents had shown a
strong
preponderance
of responses against any intrusion into the Concourse
Green. The
Council
accepted the staff recommendation, which was greatly
approved of by the
BCS Inc. members present at the meeting. We hope the
same feelings will
be felt by those members reading this news.

Members will receive with this issue of the BCS
Inc.
Bulletin notice
of an Ordinary General Meeting to be held on Thursday
23rd January
2003.
This meeting has been called because of doubts raised by
a member
present
at the 2002 Annual General Meeting about the procedure
used in filling
positions that were contested at that meeting. Because
of those doubts
the members that believed they were elected to those
positions have
decided
to resign so that the vacancies can be filled by BCS
Inc. members at a
General Meeting, thus removing doubts. 

The only other business to be dealt with will be the
authorization of
a proposed correction to the numbering of the minutes of
certain past
Annual
General Meetings. The incorrect numbering was noticed
during
preparations
to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Society later in
2003. The
Inaugural
General Meeting that founded the Society, under its
original name,
Beaumaris
Tree Preservation Society, was held on 28th January
1953. 

Mrs Cath Carroll, who was present at that Inaugural
Meeting in
January
1953, and became a member of the original Committee
then, has said she
is looking forward to being able to join us at a
celebration the
Society
is hoping to hold later in 2003, similar to the Silver
Anniversary
function
held in 1978. Mrs Carroll was made an Honorary Life
Member of the
Society
at its 1987 Annual General Meeting.

Members that enjoy the remaining green open spaces left
among
the increasingly
overdeveloped and treeless private lots that are
constituting an
ever-growing
part of the Beaumaris scene have been perturbed about
Amendment C28 to
alter the Bayside Planning Scheme, which was being
proposed by Bayside
City Council. Full details of it have been accessible
from the Web
sites
of both Bayside
City Council
and Beaumaris
Conservation
Society
Inc.

The proposed Amendment C28 was being broached because
Council
had realized
that the present Planning Scheme protects reserves where
it has granted
facilities to sporting groups against the intrusion of
commercially
sponsored
signs being erected, especially permanent or
long-standing signs. 

People that enjoy green open spaces and the views of
them,
whether from
their houses, cars, bicycles or simply walking past
them, have
generally
accepted that grassed ovals are legitimate and usually
acceptable
features
of certain public lands, even for those that do not wish
to participate
in the sports involved. The buildings used by sports
groups have
sometimes
been controversial, but high construction and
maintenance costs have
tended
to confine them to modest functional purposes, and thus
helped minimize
their visual impact, and tolerant attitudes have
prevailed. The ban on
signs is part of that truce.

It is understandable that groups that have long raised
their
own funds
by levies or volunteer efforts are attracted by
commercial sponsorship.
A fast food or real estate company keen to raise or
maintain a constant
awareness of its existence will pay well for a unique
site free of the
crowded clutter of commercially zoned areas, where the
plethora of
signs
leaves most of them unread, and just forming a part of
the general
ugliness
of such places. Such companies will get their money’s
worth by using
signs
so visually intrusive they cannot be missed.

Unfortunately the gain by the company and the sports
club is
made at
the expense of the serious downgrading of valuable
public land, which
should
serve the recreational and aesthetic interests of the
whole community.
Bayside City Council has abandoned Amendment C28,
recognizing concerns
by BCS Inc. and others. Members should, however, be
alert to a similar
proposal re-appearing. 

Members might have noticed the promising change made by
Bayside Council
at the southern end to date of the section of bicycle
road already
built
alongside Beach Road. Until November 2002 the end of the
bicycle road
had
intruded into Beach Park, not far from the cliff edge,
giving the
impression
that cyclists were allowed to use the sandy cliffside
walking
path. 

The Council has, as the photograph below shows, wisely
corrected that
mistake of the past, and has fenced the foreshore path
from the bicycle
road there, and erected signs prohibiting use of
bicycles on the
foreshore
walking paths, there and in many other places along the
foreshore. 

Nevertheless, it is still quite unclear what is
envisaged as the route
for completing the remaining section of bicycle road up
to the boundary
with the City of Kingston. The existing grass verge on
the road
reservation
is too narrow to accommodate the standard two-lane
bicycle road.

BCS Inc. and Port
Phillip
Conservation Council Inc, of which BCS Inc. is a
Member
Organization,
have both urged the Victorian Government and Bayside
City Council to
support
the extension, by the quite short amount needed, of the
existing
reduction
of Beach Road to a single car lane each way, as applies
from Marina
Road
almost to Deauville Street. That would allow room for
the standard
width
of bicycle road to fit between the Beach Road
carriageway and the fence
that marks the inland edge of Beach Park.

Unless such an extension occurs, or some arrangement is
made
to have
at least one direction of the cycling function of the
bicycle road to
occur
on the existing Beach Road pavement, there will be
pressure to intrude
into Beach Park. That would involve an unacceptable
removal of a long
line
of mature indigenous trees from that part of Beach Park,
all of which
is
included within the boundaries of the Beaumaris Fossil
site, on the
Commonwealth
Government’s Register of the National Estate.