I have been made aware of a public event that has been organised to Save Our Village Green.
The Friends of the City of Unley Society (FOCUS) has organised the event. They are calling it Appreciation Afternoon at the Historic Unley Village Green. It will be held next Sunday 19th February between 4pm and 6pm. If you are passionate about all things Unley you might want to come along and see what is on offer.
On the back of my earlier blog today the event and claims on their website raises concerns for me. Concerns that Council and our residents appear not to be working together.
The focus of their afternoon appears is to protest to Council.
They claim on the Save Our Village Green website we are demolishing the cottages and building a 8 storey building in their place. This is simply not true as is a previous claim made on the same website until this weekend. That claim indicated we are about to build an 8-storey building ON the village green.
As any responsible leadership body should do, Council is examining whether the expected new planning rules provide an opportunity to redevelop the civic centre site. Council made this known publicly late last year. We invited our community to sit down with us and have a discussion. A discussion to find what possibilities for redevelopment may be possible. Rather than take up our request to talk we have what appears to be a protest against a development that does not exist.
They are calling the green historic implying it has been here since settlement days and not just 30 years old. The photo shows the new Civic Centre building. The cottages back yards are still intact.
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Oxford Terrace and the Village Green
On a personal note, if Council and its community were working together, I would like us to have a conversation about the village green in isolation. That conversation would focus on how best could the village green be redeveloped to improve it. Yes. Improve it. Let’s not just Save our Village Green.
Let’s make it more accessible to more people, including those locals who don’t know it exists.
For mine we should consider if it would be better relocated to front Oxford Terrace and take advantage of the potential conversion of Oxford Terrace into a Boulevard.
Why not have this conversation. I ask both Council and the Residents. Do you want to be part of the solution or part of the problem?
If you want to know what our Mayor is thinking check his blog on the same subject here.
Don,
All the Councillors will be be sent an invite to the event tomorrow/Tuesday just getting the flyers & details finished, hope you can all come should be a great event
The previous comments are based on what’s been said in the past and then this document which you have probably seen makes it very unclear…
DP160593 Doc 1 City of Unley FOI applications re Civic Centre Complex redevelopment
Council just needs to make a clear statement on whats gong to happen, people are very concerned
rgds
That’s interesting Rob.
Thanks in advance on behalf of all councillors for the invite. They will be relieved to hear they are being invited and not ignored.
Council has been making the same statement now for months, as have I in my blogs and facebook posts, but there is a group of people who are either not listening or chose to not believe us. We keep saying there will be no development on the village green but keep getting told we are developing the village green.