Residents rally against high-rise development plans
Residents who marched from St Andrew’s Anglican Church to Male Street in Brighton on Sunday argued the plans would overpopulate their suburb without adequate infrastructure or their consent.
Protesters, led by Brighton Liberal MP James Newbury, chanted “Towers, no, Jacinta must go” and “We’re Bayside, not the Gold Coast”. Federal MP for Goldstein Tim Wilson also attended the march, as well as southern metropolitan Liberal MPs Georgie Crozier and David Davis.
Volunteers walked around the eftpos machine to collect donations in the rain.
Newbury urged protesters to sacrifice a $150 dinner purchase on Church Street and instead devote the money to signs and advertising to help campaign against high-rise development.
The government has allocated 50 activity centers for high-density development near transport hubs across Melbourne. Consultations for areas including Brighton and Hampton are due to be completed early next year.
Tina Nettlefold, a businesswoman who attended the march, said: “We do not have the infrastructure in this Bayside community to allow these types of high-rise buildings and devastate our community without our consent.”
Holding a banner reading “Stop State Labor towers”, Nicole Urquhart said she did not want Brighton to be “taken over by giant towers”.
“We put a lot of time, money and effort into our beautiful homes,” he said.
“Our girls went to Gardenvale Primary School and the school is full to the brim. Where will these kids go to school?”
The Victorian government has argued that an overhaul of the state’s planning laws – the biggest change “in decades” – will make the housing market fairer, while saying the Liberals continue to fight to “stop houses being built”.
“[Opposition Leader] Brad Battin and James Newbury need to explain why they want to keep generations of Victorians out of the housing market, Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said in a statement.
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