By Debbie Moon
MELBOURNE — Residents in the inner-northern suburb of Preston are opposing an application to expand the Northland shopping centre. They claim the centre already generates too much traffic, leading to excessive noise, air pollution, litter and danger to pedestrians.
In the year since the centre lodged its application, residents have formed an action group, and more than 100 objections have been submitted. Around 2000 residents have petitioned against the application, and residents and traders have lobbied councillors and state parliamentarians, held public meetings and rallies and submitted letters and articles to the local newspaper.
An independent panel recently spent two months hearing submissions, but residents are still waiting for its report.
The centre was built in the early '60s in a residential area, with a school on one side. Initially owned by Myer, it included a market, covered mall with a wide range of shops, department store, supermarket, community theatre/hall and playground. It was surrounded by an enormous car park which was only partly used, because many customers walked or caught the bus.
Northland was designed for the suburban boom and the "inevitable" two-car household. Around 1980, the Gandel Group bought the centre along with Chadstone and a couple of other shopping malls, and Northland was redeveloped.
Out went the community hall, playground and market, and by 1990 the centre boasted four additional department stores, a Hoyts Multiplex 8 cinema, 121 specialty shops, 20 service shops, food hall (and other takeaways and restaurants) and 22 fresh food stores. Today, the car park regularly overflows into residential streets.
During the redevelopment, the large undercover bus stop with direct access to the centre was demolished, leaving bus patrons to cross busy vehicle access roads and wait at poorly sheltered and crowded bus stops.
Local businesses are also disaffected: the centre's expansion has been accompanied by a rash of closures in older shopping centres, and reduced income for businesses that have survived. The recession has further intensified this pattern, and neighbouring residential streets are either choked with traffic or "rat runs" for drivers avoiding the congestion of the access roads.
According to Gandel, Northland has about 180,000 visitors weekly, 61% driving cars, 15% passengers in cars, 15% on buses, 8% on foot and 1% riding bicycles. The centre's latest application for rezoning as a "Regional Activity Centre" is extremely important for the owner, as this would increase its status in the retail planning hierarchy and set a precedent for the owner's other free-standing complexes. Such a zoning would give such centres a greater role in future planning strategies, at the expense of traditional business centres.
The expansion would increase traffic in the immediate vicinity, to the extent that consultants have recommended demolishing 19 houses for street widening.
The Preston Action Group for the Environment argues that a plan so heavily dependent on increasing vehicle traffic is contrary to both federal and state government policies to reduce greenhouse gases and pollution, and such retail centres should be located close to public transport, and their size limited.
Preston Action Group for the Environment can be contacted through PO Box 1545, South Preston 3072. Ph: (03) 470 5968.