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The heart of our town

9/4/2021

15 Comments

 
PictureMcBride Avenue. Artist's illustration.
Source: Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan
By Frank Coldebella
 
SO THE Wonthaggi Club is opposing a plan to make the bottom block of McBride Avenue more pedestrian friendly.
 
With respect, I don’t think the liquor and gambling industry should be telling us how to use our public space.
 
There is ample parking within 200m of the club. People are not going to give up playing the pokies because they have to walk from Graham or Murray Street.

The Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan proposes to remove parking on the western side of McBride Avenue and widen the pavement to form an outdoor dining and erntertainment precinct. Councillors will vote on the plan at their next meeting.
 ​
Bring it on, I say. This central public space is too valuable to be used to park cars. If I had my way, I’d close the street to vehicles altogether, but this is a reasonable compromise.
The plan went through a pretty rigorous process to identify the best use of public space.  It comes after almost three years of consultation.
 
For some years now the idea of removing traffic from the northern end of McBride Avenue and using the space for something better has been talked around.
 
The scare campaign against pedestrian precincts isn’t based on any rational data. There is a myth that people aren’t going to buy stuff if they can’t park out the front.
 
Whenever malls or pedestrian strips are proposed, traders object, then reality sets in. It’s the number of wallets that pass shop windows that matter, not the number of cars. Clearly people hanging around in front of a place are more likely to spend something than if they’re driving past.
 
One or two retailers might move out but the food businesses will move in. Once there are people eating on the street, and food smells wafting around, more customers are attracted.
 
There is ample parking in and around Wonthaggi. Sure you might not be able to park directly outside the shop you’re visiting, but that luxury is disappearing anyway with Wonthaggi so much busier these days. With studies showing most of us not getting enough exercise perhaps we should learn to embrace the walk to the shops.
 
Wonthaggi has recently been identified as a peri-urban centre with huge growth predictions.
With some 10,000 new residents expected in the next few years, how do we preserve its small-town culture, pace, heart and soul?
Picture
Wonthaggi has:
  • High levels of car use, with 9 in 10 trips made by car
  • High parking demand during peak times
  • Streets dominated by on street parking and through traffic
  • A large proportion of car trips are of short distance.
  • Very low levels of walking, cycling and public transport.
  • Rising traffic congestion​
Wonthaggi Access and Movement Study, July 2020
Wonthaggi’s sense of identity has its roots in a co-operative inclusive camp that welcomed newcomers and their ideas. In the tradition of the miners’ camps, seating and plants should be portable to cater for the various activities of organisations and clubs. You need diversity and interactions with people you don’t normally associate with. And that needs a meeting place.     

For most of the 1900s, McBride Avenue was a meeting place, particularly on Friday night (late night shopping) and Saturday morning (when the shops closed at noon at the sound of the hooter). In a pre-digital version of FaceTime, two people would stop to chat; others would join in, some would leave, more would join.
PictureBonds corner, looking south on McBride Avenue, Wonthaggi, on a Saturday morning in the early 1970s. Photo: Frank Coldebella

Often the street was closed for concerts and other events. In the town’s heyday of political activism a soapbox outside the Whalebone Hotel denoted a speakers’ corner where issues were explained, debated and refined.
 
With support from the council, the street was closed off with pallets and bales over a long weekend in 2018 to create a trial mall. Local musicians and singers performed despite the cold wind. People sat around and talked.
 
The two-day trial was used to gather opinions and ideas and instigate numerous discussions. What would a Wonthaggi version of a platz, or place, or town square, look like?  How do we create a space and atmosphere where our residents can hang out and interact at various times?
 
Many people would never dream of visiting an art gallery but imagine if the art was all around them in a public space, sparking ideas that lead to a more civil society. A mixture of creative arts leads to cross pollination of ideas and give new perspectives. 

Imagine buskers, singers, musicians, jugglers, dancers, pavement artists. Imagine a place where a kid could take out a guitar and put down a hat and make a few dollars playing for passers by. Imagine a place where the local footy team could gather before the grand final or a school choir perform on a Saturday morning.

Imagine a restful oasis at the heart of town.


Councillors will vote whether to adopt the Wonthaggi Activity Centre Plan and Access and Movement Study at their next council meeting on April 21.​

15 Comments
Jacqui Paulson
10/4/2021 09:41:29 am

I absolutely agree with Frank Coldebella in regards to the piazza idea. It would be great to have less cars and more foot traffic. I also don't think the pubs should get to dictate what is best for our town.

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Graeme Charles
10/4/2021 10:19:57 am

I completely endorse Frank's views on the future use of McBride Avenue. The CBD is already often choked with vehicles looking for somewhere to park and surely we can create more parking options elsewhere.

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Peter Mckenzie
10/4/2021 11:28:21 am

Having pedestrian friendly wider paths & seating would be fantastic. Creating a community friendly space combining with Apex Park.

As for the Wonthaggi Club, I've never understood how they got away without creating their own parking spaces. Let them walk.

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Neville Drummond
10/4/2021 12:13:09 pm

Go for it Frank. We may never have the wonderful public squares of Europe ........ But this is a good start.

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David Butcher
10/4/2021 02:57:51 pm

Several years ago the BCSC trialled closure of the lower end of McBride Street to gauge public opinion. It was a cold, wet day, and not many were out and about. The trial was to run for a Saturday morning through to mid-afternoon, but was closed by midday due to representations from the Wonthaggi Club. Wonthaggi is destined to become degraded unless action is taken to make the CBD more 'liveable' ... and this means more pedestrian-friendly. A mall or public area would be a start, as would be plantings of strees (potted?) along the street fronts and, most importantly, a pedestrian crossing on Graham,Street bwetween McBride Avenue and Billson Street. We have the potential for a lovely town at very low cost, but it will take courage to fight against vested self-interest. Good on you, Frank.

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Catherine Watson
10/4/2021 04:17:53 pm

About 10 years ago the council in my home town in NZ proposed to close a block to traffic and make an outdoor dining area, “Eat Street”. I remember the dire predictions from traders and landlords. Today it is the busiest part of town with a waiting list of businesses wanting to rent there and the busyness spilling over into the surrounding streets.
Regarding the transformation of a pretty barren Wonthaggi CBD, the planners have consulted widely, listened to our views and used their imagination to offer an alternative. Let’s trust them on this and take the opportunity to transform our town centre into a place where visitors and locals alike will enjoy spending time. If it doesn’t work, we can always undo it.

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Neil Rankine
10/4/2021 08:34:10 pm

Totally agree, the 2/3 of a block of black windows that the Club now owns has just about killed this part of town. Surely by reinvigorating the area the Club could do nothing but benefit, as we all would.

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Robyn Arianrhod
11/4/2021 11:57:08 am

Hear hear to Frank and all of the other positive comments here: now is our chance to make Wonthaggi really special, creating a vibrant, people-friendly centre in our town that will be great for locals, visitors and traders alike.

Reply
Aleida Jansen
11/4/2021 04:43:45 pm

Great idea. I'm all for it. And, of course Wonthaggi has high car use. There is no other option. May I suggest a shuttle bus (a 12-seater would cut it, I think), that could run a regular route continuously around town, picking up and dropping off pedestrians. Just a thought.

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Jack Dent
13/4/2021 04:43:58 pm

Ample parking?? Where ? At the old Coles building? That is full of Councel workers cars! Or in Woolworths car park ? We have an aging population that is going to be force to walk for thier need in the bitter cold wind and rain that we have for nine months of the year!

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Billie Emmett
14/4/2021 10:34:17 am

With all due respect, the area they are proposing the removal of car parking is mainly just overflow parking for businesses people wish to access on Graham Street. In order to better accommodate accessible parking for the elderly population, the council should be looking at having more disabled parking spots on Graham street, not just 1 or 2 outside the chemists, supermarkets and banks. Losing around 15 carparks on the least busy end of McBride Avenue isn't going to make a world of difference, but imagine if the council added 15 disabled carparks around the shopping precinct for our aging population.

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Max Richter
14/4/2021 09:51:26 am

I also fully agree on the need for better Commons spaces in the CBD, all-the-more w Wonthaggi’s growth projections, ie more greenery & pedestrian friendly, & I like Frank’s idea for moveable planters & seats reinforcing the town’s co-operative ethos. Let’s hope the clash b/w WClub & others doesn’t stall action yet longer - one way or other, please let’s have more greenery & spaces to help us love to visit and spend solid time in the centre of town.

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Tina Kalivas
14/4/2021 10:44:06 am

Improving the lower McBride/Apex Park area would be an important way to begin counteracting some past bad planning, eg Bass Coast Plaza & its parking set-up & the old Coles sitting dormant on Watt St. We desperately need a more vibrant town centre; most of us zip in & out as there’s nowhere to congregate.

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Antoinette Russo
14/4/2021 04:42:21 pm

I entirely agree that improving pedestrian and outdoor amenity will be of huge value to our town. It would be like our town square. .... somewhere to meet, like under the clocks at Flinders Street Station. I run the Wonthaggi Market at 17 korumburra Rd and we have very little parking. Before Medipharm was built many people parked on the vacant lot. When this land was developed we had so many people predicting that the loss of adjacent parking would result in loss of business. I can absolutely say now that it has made no difference at all to our business. My feeling and experience is that if a business is offering something that interests people.... Then they will come.

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Gill Heal
19/4/2021 09:28:19 pm

Given the town’s growth predictions, a ‘gathering place’ in McBride Street can’t come soon enough. Small towns offer identity, places to connect and belong to. How long before it’s too late for Wonthaggi and there’s not a single street in which it would be natural to gather?

Wonthaggi must grow but it can grow kindly. Re-activating an honoured Wonthaggi tradition – meeting informally in the streets – is one of many important ways residents can come together. Whether we’re present as individuals or one of a tribe, street life offers us the same town benefits: freedom to come and go safely, a destination to walk to or through, the pleasure of affiliation.

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