By Tanya Steele
The Yarra Ranges Council unanimously passed the decision to purchase 13 Green Street in Healesville from VicTrack at the Wednesday meeting on 26 April.
Cr Fiona McAllister said she felt like she’d almost run out of words on the matter.
“After seven and a half years of dancing furiously with the community to protect this beautiful piece of public open space, we are now finally at the point where we are making the decision to authorise to buy it,” she said.
“I assert every time it still feels quite wrong that we have to buy it when we’ve been using it as public open space for a very long time.
“But better that we do that than lose it, it’s under the condition that we maintain it as community open space in perpetuity.”
Ms McAllister said the area will need to be rezoned as a public open space.
“We’ve been trying to keep it as public open space and Vic Track had it rezoned to a commercial zoning, so we’re going to need to rezone it back to what it is and should always be a much much loved and used part of Healesville,” she said.
“It is our Green window when you look down the main street.”
In January the Council was offered the opportunity to purchase the land for $675,000 which represents a 50 per cent discount from current market value, on the basis that the land remains as a community space in perpetuity.
The council ran an engagement survey about the decision to purchase the land from 20 February to 19 March and had a largely positive response from the public.
“98 per cent of people who responded to the petition said absolutely,” Ms McAllister said.
“The funding will come from the Ryrie open space fund which is exactly what it is for.”
Cr Sophie Todorov said she feels just as passionately as Cr McAllister.
“If it wasn’t to be purchased, I would be very worried about what that would be used for instead,” she said.
Cr Tim Heenan said he only had one thing to say.
“It should have come back into our hands for zero dollars,” he said.
Mayor Jim Child said while the land area was not overly large, it was still important to Healesville.
“Yes, it’s a small piece of land. It’s a piece of land with a heart and that heart is the community,” he said.
Cr McAllister closed and the motion was put forward and carried unanimously.
