The Future of Melbourne

By 2020, per capita greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced by 35 per cent per resident and 59 per cent per worker under a target identified in Future Melbourne – the most ambitious community consultation project ever undertaken by the City of Melbourne.

Around 15,000 individuals, businesses, organisations and community groups from across Melbourne and the globe have participated in the Future Melbourne consultation program. After over 13 months of extensive community consultation, participation and collaboration, the Future Melbourne Reference Group will tonight hand over the draft plan to Council for consideration at its September meeting.

Lord Mayor John So said Future Melbourne had been the most ambitious community consultation project ever undertaken by the City of Melbourne.

“This extensive collaboration has ensured a rich and robust Future Melbourne draft plan. In accepting this plan from the community for consideration, I wish to express our gratitude to the Reference Group members and our project partners who have committed so much time and effort to this landmark project,” the Lord Mayor said.

Planning Committee Chair, Councillor Catherine Ng, said the draft plan aimed to build on Melbourne’s liveability and become one of the world’s top 10 most sustainable cities.

“Future Melbourne is the community of Melbourne’s long-term plan for the future direction of all aspects of city life. Developed by the community, it sets out the goals for the future, key trends and challenges, and outlines strategic growth areas for the city,” Cr Ng said.

Future Melbourne sets out six goals:

1. A city for people
2. A prosperous city
3. An eco-city
4. A knowledge city
5. A creative city
6. A connected city.

A selection of 10 headline targets have been identified to measure progress towards the six Future Melbourne goals for the municipality by 2020. These include:

1. all visitors to and residents of the city feel welcome, safe and engaged;
2. all residents, businesses and visitors easily and affordably access the internet;
3. at least 140,000 people live in the municipality of Melbourne;
4. at least 20 per cent of new housing in the municipality is affordable or social housing;
5. total employment in the municipality is more than 400,000;
6. per capita greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 have reduced by 35 per cent per resident and 59 per cent per worker from 2006 levels;
7. per capita drinking water use by 2020 has reduced by 40 per cent per resident and 50 per cent per worker compared to 2000 levels;
8. metropolitan Melbourne is ranked in the world’s top research centres;
9. metropolitan Melbourne is ranked in the world’s top five cities for international higher education; and
10. 90 per cent of people travel to work in the Melbourne CBD by walking, bicycle and or public transport.

Future Melbourne Reference Group Chair, Carol Schwartz, said the Future Melbourne draft plan was developed by engaging with Melbourne’s many communities.

“As Chair of the Reference Group, I commend the City of Melbourne on this initiative and will be watching keenly its ongoing leadership in this area of community engagement and how the goals of the community described in Future Melbourne are expressed in the next Council’s four year plan,” Ms Schwartz said.

Future Melbourne YGen representative, Jack Fuller, said Melbourne’s youth had been keenly interested in the project.

“The average age of Melburnians is 28, and a third of the population are students. We have shown through our contribution to Future Melbourne that Melbourne’s young adults care about how we want to live, work, play and study in the city,” Mr Fuller said.

During the final round of public consultation (May-June 2008):6500 people logged onto the wiki (website) and 200 individual edits were made to the draft plan; over 200 stakeholders were individually briefed on the plan in various forums/meetings; student leaders and Melbourne’s YGen group participated in a series of workshops on Future Melbourne; and an art exhibition was held at Docklands.

For more information on Future Melbourne please go to: www.melbourne.com.au