Organisation:

Affected property:

S10

Michael Anthony Connor

N/A

Yarra_River_Precinct_Planrev4Jun.docx

Please see attachment

Attachment 1:

Comments:

Full Name:

NoRequest to be heard?:

Yarra River - Bulleen Precinct Advisory Committee

Attachment 2:

Attachment 3:

Submission Cover Sheet

Yarra River – Bulleen Precinct: Land Use Framework Plan

Introductory Comments

The authors of this paper have an extensive and longstanding connection with sections of the Yarra Valley – Bulleen Precinct covered in the above Land Use Framework Plan. Dr Michael Connor (MC) lives in Lower Templestowe and has been visiting Birrarrung Park regularly since 1985, primarily for purposes of birdwatching. He has kept detailed records of the bird sightings he has made over this time and maintains a spreadsheet showing details of these sightings. Mrs Lyn Easton and her husband Dr Geoffrey Easton live in Viewbank. Lyn has kept comprehensive records of her daily observations of birds along the Yarra Valley corridor since 2002 with particular interest in the Powerful Owls that live in the bushland areas along the Yarra River in Banyule (& Bulleen). These have been found to range over the area shown on the accompanying map (Attachment 1) – an explanation of this attachment is provided later in this document. This attachment shows that while the owls spend much time in areas north of the river they also make considerable use of more heavily wooded areas south of the river that lie within the area covered by the above Land Use Framework Plan.

Perceived Advantages and Disadvantages of the Plan

We can appreciate the advantages to both cyclists and pedestrians of creating a series of connecting trails that would enable both cyclists and pedestrians to travel off-road from the Bolin-Bolin Billabong area through to Finn’s Reserve to the east of the Yarra River - Bulleen Precinct, and on to Westerfolds Park. We can also see the value in the construction of pedestrian/cyclist bridges across the Yarra River. These would not only make it much easier for people like us to move between the natural areas of the Banyule Flats and those south of the river but in the (hopefully unlikely) event of a fire in the parklands along the river would also provide potential additional escape routes.

However, we do have a number of concerns about the above plan and how it will be implemented:

1. At present Birrarrung Park can only be accessed from Templestowe Road and there is no cyclist access to this Park from properties to the west or the east. This means that one encounters very few cyclists along the paved paths in Birrarrung Park. As a result these are very safe routes for families to take their young children along and one frequently encounters children there moving along at some distance from other family members, typically on tricycles or bicycles, but occasionally on things like skateboards and roller blades. This family friendly environment contrasts markedly with the situation on the Yarra Trail, immediately to the north of the Yarra River. Here, fairly rapidly moving cyclists are frequently encountered and walkers have to exercise considerable caution since, although most cyclists are reasonably courteous and careful around pedestrians, a few fail to advertise their presence and appear to regard pedestrians as a confounded nuisance. Family excursions along the Yarra Trail with younger children under only loose supervision would be potentially dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists alike. Our concern is that establishing connecting trails to the east and west of Birrarrung Park, as shown on the map in the framework plan, could mean that bicycle traffic along parts of the existing paved path network in Birrarrung Park could increase substantially as cyclists use these

paths in transit across Birrarrung Park. This would profoundly alter the present family-friendly nature of the paved network of paths in Birrarrung Park. (See Recommendation 1 below.)

2. As is widely recognised, the parklands along the Yarra River constitute an important corridor for movement of wildlife; for example, koalas have occasionally been seen within the area covered by the Bulleen Precinct Plan. What is perhaps less appreciated is that these parklands, and particularly the less disturbed, more heavily wooded sections of these parklands, provide important habitat for a number of more secretive wildlife species that are scarce within the greater Melbourne area. A notable example is the powerful owl, which has been the focus of a longstanding study by two of the authors. At present, within Birrarrung Park there are two sizeable well-wooded areas that are subject to comparatively little human disturbance. The first of these is the narrow corridor that extends between the south bank of the Yarra River and the northern edge of the Clause seed farm. The second is the well-wooded area extending downstream along the south side of the Yarra River from the confluence of the Plenty and Yarra Rivers; this is bounded on the east by a paved path. This latter area is crossed by a number of informal paths but these are used by relatively few people. As can be seen from attachment 1, which shows the range of the local powerful owls, this section of Birrarrung Park is important to these owls, which bring their young across to this area in early spring to mid autumn.

It would appear that the area immediately to the north of the seed farm will inevitably form part of the proposed system of east-west connecting trails; consequently it has to be accepted that the levels of disturbance in this area will increase and its importance to wildlife will be diminished. As far as we can see, little can be done to ameliorate this while the seed farm lease continues.

As far as the second relatively undisturbed area mentioned above is concerned, we were alarmed to see that one of the proposed bridges (A-A on attachment 2) across the Yarra is positioned in the middle of this area, and that the connecting trail to it will also traverse this relatively undisturbed area of woodland. We feel strongly that this bridge could be better positioned elsewhere, with minimal loss of amenity (see Recommendation 2 below) and maintenance of the integrity of the existing stretch of relatively undisturbed woodland.

3. The Land Use Framework Plan shows a new connecting trail for cyclists and pedestrians passing through parkland immediately to the north of the Yarra Valley Country Club site and across the northern end of the land currently used by the Bulleen Golf Driving Range. From the Framework Plan map it appears that this trail will run along the south side of the Yarra River, and in places will be very close to the river itself. The wooded areas along this stretch of the river are important to the powerful owls – see attachment 1 – which make wide use of some of the more densely vegetated, larger trees here for roosting. Establishing a trail in very close proximity to the river and the areas favoured by the owls would reduce the attractiveness of this section of riparian woodland to these owls. A fairly simple solution to this would be to move the trails 10 to 20 metres away from the border of the trees along the river – see Recommendation 3 below.

Recommendations

We believe that implementing the following recommendations could go a long way towards addressing the concerns raised above:

1. We recommend that, prior to implementing the proposed Precinct Development Plan, a study should be undertaken to determine patterns of use – by families, walkers, cyclists, dogwalkers etc. - of the paved pathways around Birrarrung Park. Then, once the pedestrian and cyclist trails to the east and west of the Park have been completed a similar study should be undertaken to establish what changes in patterns of use have occurred. If these show that the family friendly nature of the system of paved pathways in Birrarrung Park has been significantly reduced then consideration may need to be given to limiting cyclist access to certain paths or creating new pathways solely for family use.

2. We strongly recommend that the proposed footbridge across the Yarra River (A-A on attachment 2) be repositioned to a point immediately downstream of the Plenty River/Yarra River confluence (shown as B-B on attachment 2, and by red lines on attachment 1). The Yarra River is quite narrow at this point and construction of a bridge here should be comparatively simple. On the Birrarrung Park side there is already a well-marked track going most of the way towards where we believe the bridge should be sited and we believe an access trail to the Birrarrung side of the bridge could easily be created along this track. Repositioning the bridge to the site we recommend (B-B) would have minimal impact on pedestrians and cyclists wishing to cross from one side of the Yarra River to the other. However, it would have the major advantage of maintaining the integrity of the relatively undisturbed woodland areas downstream of the Yarra/Plenty confluence, with important benefits for wildlife and notably the local powerful owl population.

3. We strongly recommend that in the areas west of Birrarrung Park, the new pedestrian and cyclist trails be laid out in such a way that they lie at least 10 metres (preferably 20 metres) from particularly heavily wooded areas of riparian woodland and from clumps of large trees, which are especially favoured by the powerful owls. The areas that are most in need of protection in this way are shown on Attachment 1.

We should be happy to discuss these issues and recommendations further.

Mike Connor (email: maconnor@unimelb.edu.au)

Lyn Easton (email: lyneaston@hotmail.com)

Geoffrey Easton (email: eastonga@bigpond.com)

 

Please see attachments 1 and 2 below

Attachment 1

 

 Explanation of Attachment 1

Attachment 1 is an aerial photograph of much of the region along the Yarra River the southern parts of which fall within the Precinct Plan area. On this map are four areas delineated by coloured lines.

The areas enclosed within the coloured lines represent data based on daily, morning observations of Powerful Owl diurnal roosts and dusk/early evening observations of their behaviour since October 2002. This includes over 4,500 observations and 13 nesting cycles involving 4 different nest hollows.

In 2009 the Powerful Owls moved downstream from the Rosanna Golf Course after significant interference and removal of a favourite roost tree, while the owls were in it, by the golf club.

The YELLOW line encompasses the area in which the Banyule Flats Powerful Owls have been consistently observed since 2002.

The CYAN line encompasses the natal area for the juvenile Banyule Flats Powerful Owls from Sep-Apr, 2005-2010.

The MAGENTA line encompasses the natal area for the juvenile Banyule Flats Powerful Owls from Sep-Apr since 2011 (the owls did not nest in 2010).

The ORANGE line encompasses an area where the Banyule Flats Powerful Owls were found until late 2005. The Powerful Owls stopped roosting in and visiting this area after the wattle trees, en masse, reached the end of their lives and the area lost its middle storey.

Also shown on the attachments are two RED lines that mark our preferred site for a footbridge across the Yarra River connecting Birrarrung Park to the parklands north of the river.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment 2