LETTERS
Come clean on
Kew Cottages
WE HAVE become used to the Bracks
Government's lack of compassion on Kew Cottages.
But if Rob Hulls is to be believed we
are now going to have to put up with ministerial incompetence as well.
Mr
Hulls, the Minister For Planning, claims (Progress Leader September 6)
the Bracks Government is not planning to build high-rise accommodation
at Kew Cottages. So what are the proposed Melbourne 2030
landmark apartment blocks on the plans that the minister tried so hard
to avoid showing Boroondara Council mud brick houses?
The facts (See: www.kew.org.au)
are these: the high-rise flats Bracks is proposing to build right next
to Willsmere Towers do not comply with the Yarra River Corridor height
controls; they do not comply with Rescode height controls; they are on
the Yarra Bend ridgeline overlooking Studley Park; and they are as high
at 81m as the Willsmere bell tower a Melbourne landmark for more than
100 years.
So for the minister to claim these
apartments are not high-rise is, I believe, simply nonsense.
A judicial inquiry into the sale of
the Cottages' crown land (Progress Leader August 30) is
probably the only way the rest of the facts of this sorry tale will be
made public.
Brian Walsh,
President,
Kew Cottages Coalition.
Copyright, 2005, Nationwide News Pty Limited
