Shape show
BENDIGO’S residential Strategy will be reviewed because of greater than expected growth.
The State Government has announced a grant of $50,000 to carry out the review.
The review is needed because, according to the State Government, 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
Regional Development Parliamentary Secretary Damian Drum made the announcement this morning.
Mr Drum said the Bendigo Residential Strategy Review would deliver greater community and investor certainty, helping the region grow.
“The Bendigo Residential Development Strategy was adopted in 2004 and is currently being audited because of the faster than anticipated growth that has occurred in Bendigo in recent years,” he said.
“Strong residential growth has many flow-on economic benefits and having a clear framework for future development will position Greater Bendigo City Council to undertake more detailed, place-based planning in the future.”
Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said about 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
The Residential Strategy impacts directly on where and how property developments use “infill” parcels of land, range of housing styles and also on housing affordability.
“This project will review the strategy, assess current and estimated land supply and demand and consider various legislative and policy changes,” Mr Ryan said,
“It will also consider the latest demographic data and establish a new strategic framework to guide the long-term residential growth of Greater Bendigo.
“The project will result in a revised residential strategy that will give developers, the community and service providers greater surety and confidence about where land can be developed for residential purposes, and that sufficient land is available to accommodate the City of Greater Bendigo’s future growth.”
Mr Ryan said a contemporary strategic planning framework was essential to the economic development of a large regional centre like Bendigo.
“Clearly identifying future growth options and supporting infrastructure needs will enable the Greater Bendigo City Council and other infrastructure providers to plan their capital works programs well in advance,” he said.
“Identifying long-term growth areas will enable the council and other service authorities to start planning for the delivery of services, thereby minimising the lag time between when residential development occurs and when the services need to be in place.”
| Bendigo Weekly | 12-Apr-2011 4.36
By Rosemary Sorensen
When a potter’s work becomes almost instantly recognisable, you know there is something out of the ordinary.
Phil Elson’s glazed bowls are just so: you see one and you know it is the work of this Castlemaine artist. His shapes are delicate yet functional, almost perfectly symmetrical but with just the hint of an off-kilter lean, so your eye roams around and inside it, trying to find a place to rest.
But they are still bowls: beautifully functional.
A recent stay in Barcelona, thanks to an Australia Council residency, has resulted in a suite of works where functionality has been almost entirely subsumed within a passionate desire to give form to his perception.
The works currently on show at the Castlemaine Art Gallery not only sit with heart-breaking poise atop pedestals that defy any intent to see them merely as bowls, but in several complex groups of shapes, these objects become receptacles of ideas and emotions. The idea that they could be used for your porridge seems most far-fetched.
Elson’s show is called “Along the horizon from Barcelona to the Basque”.
When he headed to the Spanish city where old Catalan meets the imagination of Gaudi against the backdrop of super-contemporary architecture, Elson intended to spend his three months researching and immersing himself in the aesthetics of Basque ceramics. What he didn’t expect was to be seduced so completely by the skyline of Barcelona.
The shapes he saw from various vantage points are present in his groups of vessels, some in brittle egg-shell porcelain, others in his characteristic two-tone glazes, extraordinary colours that defy descriptions but seem both magic and earthy at the same time.
Occasionally, in these mesmerising groupings, a bowl remains stubbornly a bowl, lovely, but somehow out of place on a pedestal in an art gallery. But mostly, these are vessels that belong in a space where you can circumambulate, peer close, step back and think about how cities sit in space, mostly in ugly jumble but sometimes sublimely.
Elson’s show sits in the middle of a crowded room, the walls of which display three contemporary Australian-Scottish painters. This is part of director Peter Perry’s busy exhibition which looks at the Scottish influence on Australian art, which includes work by Ian Fairweather and Hugh Ramsay.
Of course space is a problem in this fine little gallery, and it would have been so much better to see Elson’s works in isolation, in a room where they don’t need to compete with what is quite hectic painting.
Still, cities are like that too, so maybe this crowded space is not against the grain of this show.
Phil Elson: Along the Horizon from Barcelona to the Basque, at the Castlemaine Art Gallery, until May 8.
BENDIGO’S residential Strategy will be reviewed because of greater than expected growth.
The State Government has announced a grant of $50,000 to carry out the review.
The review is needed because, according to the State Government, 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
Regional Development Parliamentary Secretary Damian Drum made the announcement this morning.
Mr Drum said the Bendigo Residential Strategy Review would deliver greater community and investor certainty, helping the region grow.
“The Bendigo Residential Development Strategy was adopted in 2004 and is currently being audited because of the faster than anticipated growth that has occurred in Bendigo in recent years,” he said.
“Strong residential growth has many flow-on economic benefits and having a clear framework for future development will position Greater Bendigo City Council to undertake more detailed, place-based planning in the future.”
Deputy Premier Peter Ryan said about 40 per cent of the forecast growth between 2006 and 2031 had already been realised.
The Residential Strategy impacts directly on where and how property developments use “infill” parcels of land, range of housing styles and also on housing affordability.
“This project will review the strategy, assess current and estimated land supply and demand and consider various legislative and policy changes,” Mr Ryan said,
“It will also consider the latest demographic data and establish a new strategic framework to guide the long-term residential growth of Greater Bendigo.
“The project will result in a revised residential strategy that will give developers, the community and service providers greater surety and confidence about where land can be developed for residential purposes, and that sufficient land is available to accommodate the City of Greater Bendigo’s future growth.”
Mr Ryan said a contemporary strategic planning framework was essential to the economic development of a large regional centre like Bendigo.
“Clearly identifying future growth options and supporting infrastructure needs will enable the Greater Bendigo City Council and other infrastructure providers to plan their capital works programs well in advance,” he said.
“Identifying long-term growth areas will enable the council and other service authorities to start planning for the delivery of services, thereby minimising the lag time between when residential development occurs and when the services need to be in place.”
Comment