Darebin Appropriate Development Association

Thank you  Danielle Brodelis for starting the petition.  We hope it makes very clear to Darebin Council the State Government, the Planning Minister and the Victorian Planning Authority what the community wants – To leave Preston Market where it is and protect it from over-development in the future with the strongest Heritage Overlay to complement the planning protections.

You can sign here: http://chng.it/XskLvQzbN6

In an interview on radio 3AW this afternoon Mayor Rennie said there were no plans to move Preston Market from the current site.

Here is an image of the future staging plans was found buried deep in the planning proposal for Preston Market as prepared by the owner/developer.

At Stage 3B there is a plan to include the market in a mixed use, new building on Mary Street.

Stage 1A related to the ‘improvements’ we have seen in the market so far. Most of which the RBA heritage review recommend removing.

Please see in the document below the amendments Councilor Greco proposed at the Council Meeting on Monday the 18th.

The sections in red are aimed at recognizing and applying in full the recommendations from the RBA Heritage Review. This includes the recommendations to reinstate covered and lost features.

This review was commissioned by council and is now the third extensive report on the heritage significance of Preston Market. It makes very clear that the architectural features, the space frame roof, concrete walls, curtain air-conditioning etc should be protected via a heritage overlay.   the significant features cannot be protected if the building is demolished and moved to the edge of the site.

Rebuilding Preston Market is the preference of the owner developer.

Preston Market Amendments 18052020

 

Last night Darebin Council considered and voted on a raft of measures in regard to the findings of the RBA heritage review.

DADA was represented in two submissions asking for the strongest possible protection for the market against the plans to demolish and rebuild on the edge of the site.

Our submissions are follow.

Maria Poletti said:

Submission to Darebin General Council Meeting 18th of May

Chris Erlandsen said: SAVE OUR PRESTON MARKET
At its inaugural community meeting in 2015, the developer posed the question “What is it that you want to save”? For us it was a question that says more about a certain mentality; a certain mentality that our members disagreed with and opposed.
SOPM through its ever growing numbers continues to push for maximum protection of the now four main elements of the market – social and cultural, technical and aesthetic aspects, having been identified through the Heritage Victoria’s hearing and now recognised in the latest RBA Heritage Report.
To us however there seems to be a pervasive desire for Council to not be fully and genuinely be representing the community interest.
An example of this is how our SOPM message got perverted from “saving the market” to saving a market” which then presented Council and the VPA to introduce the notion of relocating the market. Had the findings from both Heritage Vic and the RBA report been available before the Community Reference Group were conducted, heritage would arguably have been ranked more highly than moving the market.
In their summary, Heritage Victoria described Councils approach to the issue of heritage at PM as being “disjointed”.
Of real concern to us is this disjointed approach and a lack of logical sequencing whether intentional or not, that is still creating unfair bias. We continue to see decisions made that are not based the full facts, yet allow misinformation to creep into discussion and ultimately into written reports,
We feel we are being cajoled by current Council reports into thinking that demolition or relocation of the Market to facing Cramer St is the only viable options. Yet the RBA report st p30-32 they discuss at length to explain:
“What” is significant
” How” it’s significant
” Why” it’s significant
At p 33 they state: “On the basis of PM’s significance as outline above, it would be crucial to largely retain the significant elements and key aspects of the design and planning”.
Finally it is our view that it is simply a urban design wish not fact for Council to continually be talking up the need for the PM to have a street address, since we all know that has not been a consideration from its beginning or while the food hall was situated there and the Market has continued to survive and thrive.
We profoundly hope that the VPA’s urban design plan fully respects and protects the Preston Market in situ.