Winter is well and truly with us as Mark’s beautiful shot shows – not a leaf left to fall!

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Whitehorse Open Space Strategy Adopted!

Whitehorse Council adopted its Whitehorse Open Space Strategy (WOSS) at its meeting on Monday 28th July. We alerted our readers to the Whitehorse Open Space Strategy (WOSS) and our concerns with it in our September 2024, Park News. Our main concerns were:

• An undefined “key destination facility” proposed for Kalang Park, refer diagram from the WOSS, below.
• Concerns regarding the unconscious bias to Active Sports at the expense of promoting biodiversity, retaining habitat etc.
• The intent to pave some tracks in concrete. The aesthetics of concrete paths are incompatible with a Bushland Park. There are ecological concerns with their high carbon footprint, impermeability, run-off etc.

Is it to be a Ferris Wheel?

Kalang Park (part of the Blackburn Creeklands)
Undertake a Landscape Masterplan to identify a suitable location for a key destination facility in the Blackburn Creeklands system, where shared facilities including access to public toilets, car parking, fitness and sports facilities can be suitably established …

We learned, just 4-5 days before the Council meeting, that the WOSS project team rejected our concerns with its proposal for the “key destination facility”.

We queried exactly what that means in earlier versions of the strategy to no avail – the detail being a responsibility of the Master Plan for the park. Now we know a bit more – it includes “shared facilities including access to public toilets, car parking, fitness and sports facilities” – quite separate from the existing sports facilities at Kalang Oval. Despite the logo on the map above, it is unlikely to be a Ferris Wheel as some have suggested – however, the latest description suggests something of considerable scale is foreseen.

What is very clear now is that the park is expected to cope with the needs of the population increases expected in Box Hill and Blackburn due to State Government interventions such as the higher Activity Centre population density and the Suburban Rail Loop tower blocks.

There is no description given in the strategy for the key destination facility’s location, scale or purposes or even what it is – except to say that it is a response to “the growing population in adjacent areas”. 

Precisely where will it be?

The wording of the Action item in the strategy does seem to provide wriggle room for locating the facility elsewhere in the park – Blacks Walk for example.

There doesn’t seem to be any intent to merge the new facilities with those existing at the Kalang Oval precinct:

The structured sporting facilities at Kalang Park are not the focus of this Masterplan.

The motion adopted by Council carried the additional requirement (among others): to Seek a further council report to consider a future budget allocation for (amongst others): key destination facilities at Kalang Park and Blackburn Creeklands before projects commence.

This should serve to identify the location, facilities and specifics of the facility and another opportunity to review what is proposed.

Mental and Physical Health

The WOSS correctly emphasises the importance of green space for physical and mental health – yet it essentially advocates turning green space into carparks, exercise tracks etc.   We need to nurture what we already have for the Box Hill and Blackburn communities.

Given the liveability of Box Hill in future is likely to suffer badly in the medium term, we were pleased to learn at Council on Monday that there still seems to be a glimmer of hope that at least part of the former Box Hill Brick Works may still be reserved as open space for the central Box Hill precinct which will bear the greatest impacts.

Accessibility

It would be a fantastic win-win-win for Box Hill, Blackburn and Biodiversity if the key destination facility were to be implemented in somewhere like the Brick Works.

We think that creating a new facility that you have to drive to just won’t work!  We think that sort of active sporting complex should be located within the developments or immediately nearby – so they are accessible without driving.

Concrete Paths

The aesthetics of concrete paths are incompatible with a Bushland Park and there are ecological concerns with their high carbon footprint, impermeability, run-off, damage during construction etc. Worse still for biodiversity, paths used at night often require illumination.

Our information is that a “Shared Path” has to be solid concrete and 3m wide!

Action on Biodiversity

We feel our bushland parks are precious resources that are becoming the last bastions for habitat for wildlife including endangered species in the face of the State’s relentless efforts at densification.  The bushland parks should not be regarded as vacant land begging for development.

Prior to the final version of the strategy, we were able to influence the inclusion of a condition controlling the establishment of the facility:

Action 7.2B-22: Kalang Park (part of the Blackburn Creeklands)
Undertake a Landscape Masterplan to identify a suitable location for
a key destination facility in the Blackburn Creeklands system, where
shared facilities including access to public toilets, car parking,
fitness and sports facilities can be suitably established without
impacting on the biodiversity values of the creek corridor.

Next Moves

At the Council meeting, Councillors and the CEO emphasised that the WOSS is a living document, not cast in concrete (unfortunate turn of phrase!) and subject to change. There are other review points when specific projects are undertaken eg in relation to paving. Just how much flexibility there is remains to be seen!

A major step is that implementations need to be preceded by a Master Plan for the park as a high priority. These can take a couple of years to develop and typically seem to include two stages of community comment. Note too that there are several “Very High” items ahead of ours too.

Thanks to the resolution that was adopted, there should be the opportunity to adjust what actually occurs.

Whatever happens, it is very likely we will need your support in protecting the Blackburn Creeklands.

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Committee Maintenance Projects

Third Community Working Bee

On Sunday 27th July, the first stage of our ‘School Gateway to Nature Project’ led by our Greg was a runaway success. We had about 40 people attending counting the kids – about double our usual number. It was very clear there is passion in the school community for improving the environment in the park close to the school.

Glenn’s photo shows some of the volunteers with many noses down to the task. We would like to thank everyone who participated (whether planting or providing morning tea or supervising) and especially:

• Greg for his meticulous planning and leadership on the day.
• The school for providing access to water.
• Our Thursday crew and Karen from Whitehorse Council for their excellent site preparation in advance. Karen was a dab hand with the auger digging many holes – the safety of digging becomes an issue particularly in confined sites like this.

Council will build a new path and ramp so that students will have direct access to the bike shed from the park.

Thursday Crew

Other than the site prep work mentioned above, our Thursday Crew has been busy with follow-up work after the second June Community Working Bee and in weeding in the Billabong area.

A Site Assessment and Future Planning working group has formed from Committee members and very knowledgeable and experienced volunteers to improve our processes on performing and recording site assessments, planning and diarising future works and managing plant lists.

Litter

Mark, our litter specialist, has reported the welcome news that there are another couple of volunteers collecting rubbish in the park (good on you!) and that the problem with full dog-poo bags being tossed into the park vegetation seems to have waned.

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Eucalypts of the Blackburn Creeklands

This year, we’ve added both a Possum Prowl and now a Eucalypts identification walk to our repertoire of community education events for the Creeklands.  May’s Possum Prowl was a great success and, dare-we-say-it, so was the Euc ID Walk ! 

On Sunday 13^th July, a slightly more than “full house” enjoyed a marvellous educational walk around Furness Park learning how to ID our eucalypts.

What are eucalypts ?  Eucalypts are trees of three genera (families) of trees – Corymbia, Angophora and Eucalyptus.   They are all closely related – for example, it was not until molecular research in the 1990s that the genus Corymbia was separated out of the Eucalyptus genus. A Lemon-scented Gum is a Corymbia species – not a Eucalyptus but a Eucalypt (!).

Botanist Tony Slater, who is a member of the Blackburn Lake Advisory Committee and also the Whitehorse Gardens for Wildlife crew, has developed a “key” for identifying the species of the eucalypt trees of Whitehorse.  He and Kirsten Raynor – one of our municipality’s Planning Arborists who is very knowledgeable in plant ID through previous roles in education – led our enthusiastic group through a whirlwind tour of the relevant botanical characteristics before we quickly set off looking at specific trees to try and identify their species.

A botanical “key” is like a Q&A “flow chart” to identify a plant’s species from carefully selected characteristics.  In eucalypts, fruits and buds are important determinants – also the type of bark, size/shape of leaves and so forth. 

Tony’s key not only works for locally indigenous species but also for other species such as “Flowering Gums” that may be seen in local parks and gardens.  The key is available here – but a word of warning, some of the terms are scientific and much more easily understood in the field – especially on a walk with Tony and Kirsten explaining what to look for while looking at real cases!

The weather was windy and a little threatening all day but there was no rain until later when everyone was safely home.  The winds were fresh but Kirsten had done a “reccy” to ensure the walk was safe from likely hazards.  The choice of July was Tony’s – because, at this time of year, most eucalypts have buds – which are so important for ID purposes.

There were some tricks up Tony’s sleeve too – we investigated a Water Gum (Tristania laurina) which is not a Eucalypt and made two attempts at identifying a Stringybark – which looked very different in form – but both were Eucalyptus cephalocarpa – showing there can be significant differences in individuals of a species – just as there are in people.

Tony was surprised to find a Mountain Grey Gum in the park – his first in the municipality. Here are photos of the trunk, buds and Tony’s notes to give you an idea of features used in the identification process:

We thank Tony and Kirsten for an amazing learning adventure – as well as Greg and Megan who organised/managed things from our end.  Hopefully, we’ll have further Euc ID events in Kalang Park and Blacks Walk in the coming years to broaden their scope to the entire park !

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Sightings

As usual, we thank our wonderful photographers for sharing their work with us. Although we don’t have a photo of them yet, we’ve had several reports of a group of four Eastern Spinebills in Furness Park. We’ve also had a report of a single Spinebill up in the corridor in Linum Street. It would be great to have them back in the area in numbers!

Other sightings reported to us have been a pair of Tawny Frogmouths being regularly seen in Kalang Park on the north track. Also, there are several signs that the breeding season has already commenced. For example,

• some Kookaburras crash into trees with their beaks trying to open up a nest hole – must be a headache for the birds!
• for some reason, Wood Ducks try to take-over bridge railings and might hiss at you if you don’t move on quickly.

Here are some photos for your interest:

Click on the image to expand, click the X to return

See you next month!