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Mr Ian Wilson 
Chief Executive Officer 
Bayside City Council 

Dear Mr Wilson, 

Proposed Road Discontinuance: Treed Part of
Holding Street Road Reserve just East of High Street, Beaumaris 

This submission by Beaumaris Conservation
Society Inc. relates to the above proposal advertised on Page 3-11 of The
Age newspaper of Saturday 10th January 2004. 

The Society is opposed to the proposed discontinuance of the section of
road reserve as it is attractive unfenced public open roadside space that is
the present site of six substantial indigenous trees, one Manna Gum (Eucalyptus pryoriana) and five Coastal Tea Trees (Leptospermum
lævigatum) as shown in the photograph
below. The land adjoins the western extension of the existing narrower width
of nature strip of the section of Holding Street between the land and Dalgetty Road. That adjoining section of nature strip has
three Manna Gums Gum (Eucalyptus pryoriana)
and three Coastal Tea Trees (Leptospermum lævigatum)
growing on it. 

Indigenous Trees on and near the part of the Holding Street
Nature Strip, at the corner of High Street,

Beaumaris,
that Bayside City Council proposes to sell to three adjoining landowners

Although the advertisement in The Age shows no measurements of the
land, and there is no information on the proposal in the Public Notices
section of the Bayside City Council
Web site, it appears from inspection of the land that its dimensions are
some 2.7 metres in width and 45 metres
in length, making a total area of some 120 square metres. 

The Society is aware that some or all of the trees might well be legally
protected by the present planning scheme provisions and local law relating to
indigenous trees, and that Council might make it a condition of the sale that
no fence, other construction, paving or physical delineation of the new
private property boundary resulting can be constructed or vegetation other
than indigenous plants planted, but it considers that even with those
apparent safeguards, there is a significant loss of public amenity involved
in the proposal with no significant public gain. 

There is, in the long term, an undoubted loss of public control over the
streetscape when public nature strips are narrowed as private control over
the fate of the streetscape is strengthened at the expense of the existing
public control. The attractive neighbourhood
character of Beaumaris is being impaired at an
unprecedented rate by over-intensive private developments, often as a result
of decisions by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal that reverse
the decisions of Bayside’s democratically elected
Council. Retention of the attractive landscape vestige that this road reserve
land represents would ensure that its future is less likely to be decided by
a tribunal outside the local sphere, with no local representation on it, and
more likely to be decided by Bayside City Council, which includes an elected
representative of the area involved. 

This small piece of land is a significant aspect of the Neighbourhood Character of this part of Beaumaris that is, unlike private land, essentially and
primarily under the control and initiative of Bayside City Council. Council
should resolve to maintain its character as treed public open space by not
selling it, but retaining the present position. 

I request to be heard, on behalf of Beaumaris
Conservation Society Inc, by the Council or one of its Committees on the
above matter, and ask you to advise me at the above postal address, or at the
above fax number, of when that could be arranged, please. 

Yours sincerely, 
 
 
 

Adrian Cerbasi 
President 
Beaumaris Conservation Society Inc. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

cc. Bayside City Councillors, Mr Noel Pullen MLC, Mr Chris
Strong MLC, Mr Murray Thompson MLA