The thinking person's Bendigo?

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 | Bendigo Weekly | 05-Oct-2012 ANALYSIS

Damian Drum and the Bendigo-A Thinking Community group

DEPUTY Premier Peter Ryan’s announcement about a $30,000 grant towards a new project called Bendigo - A Thinking Community came in the same week that the Eaglehawk community drop-in centre, Our Place, announced they could not continue into the new year due to lack of funding.

A one-off grant of $100,000 last year provided under Mr Ryan’s auspice, enabled this community centre to stay open, employing locals, providing a focus for those who need help both practical and emotional.

Can you compare these two projects? Is it an either/or scenario? Do the people who come into Our House to talk about how to pay the gas bill or to join in a singalong have any connection to a project that will create “leadership teams” who will learn to think strategically in order to influence policy and planning into the future.

Maybe that’s an idea for the Reference Group for the Thinking Community project to tackle, as they begin to plan for their four workshops and forum discussions over the next year.

The entire project has funding of $60,000, with the other $30,000 coming from the Community Foundation.

Sue Clarke, who heads up the Foundation, said the idea grew out of the now defunct Bendigo+25 Community Plan.

She says she wanted to turn around the negativity, particularly around the involvement of young people in the community, and begin to work towards increasing the leadership capacity of people across a wide spectrum.

Mrs Clarke is on the Thinking Community Reference Group, along with Andrew Skewes, Trevor Budge, Jane Farmer, David Pugh, Trudi McClure, Karen Ward, Ian Mc Burney, Nick Byrne, Prue Mansfield, Nigel McGucklian, Penny Wilkinson, Tim Gentle Alexandra Gartmann, Cathy Wallace, Fabian Reid and Lynne Talbot.

Mr Reid, chief of staff for outgoing Federal Member for Bendigo Steve Gibbons, says that where the +25 group got bogged down in the immediate problems - how to fix a drain, which roads need to be widened - this group is about teaching us how to think.

The bigger picture. The long-term vision.

Inviting a company called Action Foresight to Bendigo, Thinking Community will workshop “foresight and futures studies”, then “innovation processes”, then “prototyping and modelling social enterprises and initiatives for change”.

Finally they’ll “prepare to launch the leadership group/foresight-to-innovation networking platform as a ‘living lab’.”

Mr Pugh, who heads up St Luke’s Anglicare, is enthusiastic about what the project can do, despite the tendency for consultancies such as Action Foresight to describe what they do in a kind of ultra-weasel-word style that invites scepticism, if not cynicism.

He says he got on board to pick up where +25 left off, so that out of that failure, a success might be built.

“When you set up a community group, the risk is people drift to action plans and short-term cycles, with goals to fix up the bus stop - and there are already a whole lot of groups that can continue to do that, like council,” Mr Pugh says.

“But we want to ask, is there a longer-term way to think through it?

“The goal of the current group is that it’s not the usual suspects and the committee itself is not on the thinking group.”

Through the workshop process, the committee hopes to identify 50 community leaders, who will then each “engage with” 10 other people, making a network of 500.

At the end of the first year, Mr Pugh says he hopes there will be a “framework” within Bendigo able to support continuing “thinking”.

“There are already a number of groups involved in thinking, such as the university and council, and we think we can get a fair bit of alignment with those to get that framework in place.”

This idea may be one of great vision itself, but it remains to be seen what the Bendigo community, including those who frequent Our House, think.