By Renee Wood
The community will again have their say on whether the Yarra Ranges Council should purchase the Healesville Green following the recent formal offer being provided to buy the much-loved site.
Council approved the motion at the Tuesday 14 February council meeting to begin community engagement for the purchase from Victrack at half the market value of $675,000 plus GST, with a formal offer now on the table.
The community has been fighting to hold on to the land since 2017 when the State Government advised council it would be looking to sell the 1695 m2 plot of open space on Green Street in Healesville.
The Healesville Action Group (HAG) has been part of the battle since then and Secretary John Anwin said they would have hoped there was no price tag, but glad the site could soon be a permanent community asset.
“There is enough money to pay, even though we think it’s not correct but long ago we gave up on hoping that they’d give it to us for $1, so we get the best deal as we can,” Mr Anwin said.
HAG Convenor John Rosser said they spent every Sunday going to the community market held at the green gaining signatures and support to hold on to it.
“It’s the best we can we can hope for, the whole thing is to get it back for the for the community,” Mr Rosser said.
“The market provides money to the scouts, the tennis club things like that and that little bit of green holds another 20 sites and it all helps for Healesville.”
The site was leased by council off the state government from 1980 until the lease ended in 2018 due to the potential sale looming.
There were community survey’s last conducted in 2017 for support of the purchase which saw 89.7 per cent of respondents support Council purchasing the land at $400k, while 67.2 per cent supported its purchase of market value which was over $1 million.
Mr Anwin hopes that there would be support again for the survey with the figure as it stands now and said it’s important for the town and for visitors.
“It’s a good toilet stop, we’ve got the bus opposite we can we can get out quickly…it is convenient…but it’s generally a good open space,” he said.
There have been previous ideas in the past of possibly installing a rotunda for music events, with ideas such as this to be potentially re-looked at if the sale goes through.
“Concentration was to get it and when we got it, we can then talk about what’s going to happen and I think that would be the process that assuming it’s all successful.”
