We note that objections have also been submitted by the National Trust, Australian Conservation Foundation, and Brighton Foreshore Preservation Association Inc. This Statement on the Baths Proposal will appear at www.vicnet.net.au/~phillip/m30baths.htm 

Our Objection is Maintained: Since then we have seen the Traffic Consultant’s report and the Report shown at Agenda Item 215 for the above Council Committee. We maintain our objection to the increase in car parking proposed. That increase will result in the edge of the Bay south of the Baths being dominated by car parking surfaces and associated masonry retaining walls. The quality of that immediate coastal environment should have a much higher priority than plans to deal with revenue shortfalls at the Sea Baths. The foreshore’s quality would be far better maintained by a smaller scale of redevelopment of the Baths that involved rationalization of the existing area of land already blighted by parking, rather than substantial extension of that area. 

Reconsideration of the Proposal to Destroy the Coastal Bank: If Council nevertheless decides to accept the proposed large increase in the number of car parking spaces, we ask that the site of the increase in area converted to car park be reconsidered. One of the most objectionable aspects of the present plan is the proposal to lower some of the existing vegetated coastal bank by up to 3 metres by removing some thousands of cubic metres of foreshore soil from the foreshore entirely, and to replace it with expanded car parking. Excavation of that long bank, and its replacement by a retaining wall fronting the Bay is a significant and retrograde alteration of the existing scenic and geomorphological character of the edge of Port Phillip. 

The report actually states, "By excavating into the slope it is possible to screen the car park from view whilst increasing parking provision." That statement implicitly admits that there is a benefit in screening the car park from view. It seems to refer to a screening from view from Beach Road – it certainly does not refer to a screening from the view of users of the foreshore, or those on the Bay. Those people are more purposefully engaged in activitities that include enjoying the scenery than are Beach Road vehicle users. Most vehicle users have their attention engaged by other things, including driving safely. 

The expanded car parking sought would be far better provided by firstly using the land between the Baths and Beach Road for as much car parking, screened from the road, as practicable. That land, already compromised by being bounded on three sides by the Baths building, the Yacht Club wall and Beach Road, would be better employed accommodating cars than being the site of a geometrically formal semi-circle divided into 6 sectors by radial lines of "coloured pebbles or stones". If that does not provide enough spaces, some of the flatter land marked "Open Grass Area" on Drawing No. 50187, Sheet 1, File Ref. 199000.42 could also be used. That arrangement would necessitate far less excavation or removal of soil, no unsightly masonry retaining walls, and the car parking could be screened from view from both Beach Road and the coastline and Bay by a belt of indigenous salt tolerant shrubs and small trees around it. 

Retention of Indigenous Coastal Vegetation: PPCC Inc. is concerned by the section of the Report headed "Existing Vegetation", which states, "The application proposes to retain all of the significant vegetation on the site in particular the existing Tee (sic) Tree. The vegetation that will be removed as a result of the car park construction is salt bush which is a weed and not considered to be significant vegetation." We too support the retention of all Coast Tea Tree on the site, and we envisage that retention in our alternative proposal, but we cannot possibly agree with the misinformation that the Coast Saltbush (Atriplex cinerea) along much of the edge of the coastal bank is a weed and not considered to be significant vegetation. 

Coast Saltbush is listed among Medium-sized Shrubs in the second edition of List of Local Native Plants published by the former Sandringham City Council, and written by the late Dr James Willis, former Assistant Government Botanist in Victoria – the same distinguished botanist, conservationist, author, and longstanding Brighton resident that Bayside Council was very pleased to name the nearby Jim Willis Reserve on Brighton Foreshore after. 

The only part of Bayside Municipality in which Coast Saltbush occurs naturally is near the very edge of the coast, in the spray zone – a strange place to park cars made of steel. Council should know that it is important to retain the Coast Saltbush stand there, as an utterly genuine and fitting feature of our coastline – far more unusual and distinctive than a car park. 

The alternative we ask you to consider would minimize the intrusion of car parking to the south, and would keep it as close as possible to the facility that it is there to serve. Two benefits of this approach additional to the retention of the landform and the indigenous coastal vegetation are that:: 

(a)  the car park would not become notorious, and even become avoided, for rusting vehicles left exposed to salt spray from     the Bay in rough weather - as a car park behind a sea wall at low level does - and 

(b)  the distance to walk from the car park to the Baths building would be minimized. That is an attractive feature in wet or windy weather, or if a person in the group has difficulty walking far. 

Council should Consider the Alternative Proposal: The meeting held earlier billed as a "Mediation Meeting" should, by definition, have facilitated the exploration of alternatives, but the Council failed to use it for that proper purpose, as it offered only a "take it or leave it" proposal. Mediation is defined as "intervening (between two persons) for the purpose of reconciling them". Council behaved not as a mediator here, but as an active proponent. 

Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc. would much rather leave the present proposal entirely, but we offer the modification suggested as a constructive way of enabling the common good to be sought by both sides of the debate in this matter - those interested principally in creating a non-water related commercial establishment on the foreshore, and those interested principally in maintaining the long established reservation of the foreshore for water-related purposes. 
 

Geoffrey Goode 
President 
Port Phillip Conservation Council Inc.