October 3, 2023
In this update you’ll find:
- On 21 March, Melbourne City Council endorsed a motion in support of the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the ‘yes’ campaign for the Constitutional Recognition of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice to Parliament. As part of our ongoing commitment to truth-telling, we have compiled a set of resources about the Voice to Parliament, the 2017 Uluru Statement from the Heart, and the upcoming referendum. We will continue updating these resources as the referendum approaches, including information in multiple languages. We encourage you to bookmark this page to stay up to date.
Authorised by Sally Capp in Melbourne on behalf of Melbourne City Council.
- In May, Yirramboi festival brought us an incredible program of First Nations creative exploration for community to experience across the city. In May and June as part of National Reconciliation Week, we hosted a range of events to promote truth-telling, learning, healing and change, including an oration by 2022 Melbournian of the Year, Anotinette Braybrook which is available to view. In July we celebrated National NAIDOC Week and offered a range of activities to embrace and deepen understanding of our Aboriginal history and culture including a Deadly Books Giveaway, NAIDOC in the City event, Finders Keepers Market and more.
Affordable and inclusive housing
- We will encourage short-term accommodation operators to shift their properties onto the long-term rental market to deliver more homes for people wanting to live in Melbourne. At the 29 August Council meeting, Councillors voted to begin consultation to inform the development of new local laws that are designed to encourage the flip of short-term accommodation into long-term rentals. Consultation opened in September for feedback. New regulation is likely to be introduced in February 2024.
- We are running a People’s Panel on Affordable Housing in October and November.
This panel will include 40 randomly selected people who are collectively representative of our resident community. The panel will hear from the experts, learn about affordable housing in the community and explore new and innovative ways to truly make Melbourne a city that everyone can call home.
A welcoming neighbourhood
- A new translation function has been added to Participate Melbourne, helping users to translate content can into the top 10 languages other than English that are spoken in the municipality.
- Inclusive employment program Game Changers, supported eight young people to gain employment at our recreation facilities. This program, delivered in partnership by The Huddle and YMCA, provides free support to young people seeking employment, including resume writing, interview practice, career planning, and goal setting. The program has helped improve diversity in the recreation facilities’ workforce with 26 per cent living in the City of Melbourne, 25 per cent born overseas, 15 per cent identifying as being a part of the LGBTQI+ community, and 9 per cent with a disability.
- TalktoMe was an application developed by St Vincent’s hospital and funded by us to facilitate brief, sentence-based, non-clinical information in multiple languages when communicating about day-to-day topics relating to healthcare.
- An inclusion and access officer role was created within our Family Services team to provide inclusive and responsive support for families. The officer will help families from culturally diverse backgrounds access support and services.
- We received a High Commendation award at the Victorian Multicultural Awards for Excellence, for the holistic organisational approach to supporting international students during COVID-19, and newly arrived refugees evacuated from Kabul.
- Support for local young people continued through our partnership with The Drum, which provides inclusive services and programs for young people from all genders, religions, cultural and identity backgrounds. This partnership also supported Queerspace Youth, a peer-led program for queer, trans, intersex, gender diverse or questioning people aged 16-25 years old.
- Hidden Disabilities Sunflower Training was completed by 518 ‘Red Coat’ volunteers and event volunteers, and 74 staff members. This training helps volunteers and staff to be aware and support people living with non-visible disabilities.
- Laneway Learning hosted more than 40 ‘Queer Social Sessions’ for LGBTIQ+ people struggling with isolation and loneliness. These sessions were a place to learn new skills, be creative and connect with peers and friends.
- The Lord Mayor’s Iftar dinner was hosted at the Queen Victoria Market. This event strengthened connection with the Muslim community and demonstrated Council’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. A social enterprise that employs migrant and refugee women, Meals with Impact, provide the catering. With 80 guests, this year’s event was the largest Lord Mayor’s Iftar dinner to date.
- Through a community grant, RMIT held workshops with multicultural LGBTIQ+ people to create a glossary of LGBTIQ+ terms, concepts and services in different languages. These multilingual resources will be shared with community members, organisations, and translators to use when working in LGBTIQ+ contexts.
Several inclusive community events were delivered with the support of City of Melbourne, including:
Affordable and accessible transportation
- Community consultation on the Parking and Kerbside Management Plan took place from March to April.
Overall, there was a high level of support for the direction of the draft plan. Results showed there was strong support for a strategic and data-led approach to kerbside management and equitable and inclusive access to kerbside space.
Council endorsed the plan in May and we're currently implementing parking improvements in the CBD. We'll shortly be engaging with residents and businesses, and improving parking across our neighbourhoods.
- We’re continuing to work with the Department of Transport and Planning to monitor and evaluate the trial of shared e-scooters. The trial has been extended until 5 October.
To date, there have been 5.4 million e-scooter trips made since the beginning of the trial in February 2022.
In August, the Future Melbourne Committee voted on the future of commercial e-scooter operations. The rollout of in-app designated parking across the municipality is being looked at as part of this. We are also talking to Victoria Police and the Minister for Roads and Road Safety to ensure they can provide adequate infrastructure and enforcement of the road rules for e-scooters.
We are currently working with e-scooter operators to rollout designated parking, focussing first on the Hoddle Grid, before moving to other high activity locations such as Southbank, Docklands and Carlton. By October we should have transitioned Flinders Street, Swanston Street, Elizabeth Street to fully designated parking.
E-scooter operators are trialling technology to improve the safety of e-scooters, particularly targeting illegal activity such as footpath riding and riding with a passenger.
- We launched Biketober 2023, a bike encouragement program, in collaboration with RACV, Banyule, Glen Eira, Bendigo and Ballarat. Biketober will run through October and is open to businesses and community members for free.
- We are working through the M9 Active Transport Behaviour Change Working Group, made up of other inner-Melbourne councils, to support collaboration on sustainable transport behaviour change initiatives. This work has seen Open Streets and e-Bike subsidy schemes expand across multiple areas.
- We supported neighbourhoods by presenting at resident association meetings in Southbank, East Melbourne and CBD.
Green waste management and recycling
- All residential single-unit dwellings and low-rise multi-unit dwellings in the City of Melbourne had access to a food waste recycling service in 2022-23. This has resulted in more than 5600 tonnes of food waste being diverted from landfill and recycled into compost.
Works have progressed so remaining households can access food waste recycling, including trialling options for recycling within high-rise buildings, which includes food waste dehydrator technology. This program diverts organic waste from landfill while minimising waste truck movement within the city.
- Programs to minimise waste from businesses within the city have also started, including educating small to medium businesses about the benefits of minimising waste and opting for reusable and recyclable packaging and products. Food waste recycling has also expanded within the city for businesses, utilising electric bikes to collect and divert over 146.59 tonnes of food waste.
Support and advocate for renewable energy
- This initiative seeks to shift the City of Melbourne to gas-free operations and to ensure climate change and biodiversity are considered as we manage our assets.
Progress this year towards implementing gas-free operations included:
- Our Power Melbourne project will install a network of neighbourhood batteries around the city to help renters, people living in apartments, and those running small businesses access more affordable renewable energy. Last year we consulted with community on where the first batteries could be installed, and the first three locations were approved by Council: Library at the Dock in Docklands, Boyd Community Hub in Southbank, and Council House 2 in CBD.
We identified further areas for future neighbourhood batteries and ran a city-wide online survey and pop-ups in Carlton, North Melbourne, Kensington, South Yarra and East Melbourne. A team of Community Champions also explored the topic with their personal and professional networks. This helped us understand how people feel about potentially having a neighbourhood battery in their area, the kinds of benefits they want to see, and their location ideas. Follow the Power Melbourne page for updates including the report on this phase of engagement.
- Our small business grants program supports new businesses to get started and existing businesses to expand and grow. This year we have a special focus on supporting small businesses that enhance the city’s vitality and increase the occupancy rate of shopfronts across the municipality.
- Our Business Concierge team had 8089 contacts with business across the City of Melbourne between February and September.
A diverse and thriving economy
- A lease has recently been signed with the Vue Group for the pavillion in Fitzroy Gardens, which begins on1 January and runs for a 15 year term. The pavilion will be used as a restaurant from Thursday to Sunday and the tenant wants to provide community initiatives to activate the premises outside those hours. They have agreed to develop a community initiative program, and are working with us to determine how this will evolve over the term of the lease. Proposals include operating regular workshops around sustainable cooking, indigenous ingredient and cooking classes and Yiaga talks focusing on cooking, sustainability, innovations and growth.
-A Melbourne Business group held a networking event at Pullman on the Park talk about how to network and connect with opportunities to practice pitches.
- Council will be commissioning the East Melbourne Jolimont Heritage review this financial year.
- Melbourne’s heritage is a rich tapestry of Aboriginal and much later colonial and contemporary stories. We are celebrating all things heritage across the city and invite you to join us. Share your stories, photos and videos celebrating #timelessmelbourne. There are plenty of ways to get involved including self-guided walking tours, learning about history of neighbourhoods and exploring the arts and heritage collection.
- The Connected Neighbourhoods Small Grants program was introduced, providing small grants to support connection and community-led initiatives in line with the neighbourhood priorities. There were 46 community-led projects that were funded in the first year.
Other partnerships to support community led action include:
- Locally, we collaborated to support KereKere cafe and the visitors centre in Fitzroy Gardens to host teddy bears picnics in spring.
- The newly formed Powlett Reserve group held its first in a series of monthly inter-generational walking tours in the neighbourhood from Powlett Reserve to the East Melbourne Library. In October the group will venture to Fitzroy Gardens.
- East Melbourne Library hosts an open community garden at the back of the library with group members meeting monthly
- Rally4Ever hosted a free tennis program in Powlett Reserve, to inspire and motivate people with mental health issues to reconnect with their natural life force.
- Expressive landscapes painting workshops were held at the Victorian Artists Society.
Community spaces
- East Melbourne Library held programs included storytime, youth programs, book clubs, conversation clubs and employment support workshops. Our libraries provide a safe and welcoming space for all community members., through programs such as storytime for children, ‘Cook to Connect’ social cooking sessions, bookclubs including Chinese Book Club, Queer Book Club and Womempower Book Club, ‘Connect Café' to provide tech help for older people, talks such as Queer History in Melbourne, and a trans and gender diverse writing group.
- Communication boards were provided at all customer service point and libraries. These boards contain symbols and pictures and are an alternative communication device for people with limited or no language. Scope Australia was engaged to update and customise the communication boards and provide training to staff in 2023–24.
- East Melbourne Neighbour Network held programs in Powlett Reserve community room, including health qigong, chair yoga, move play and stretch, book group, walking groups, pilates, ukele for beginners, social morning coffees, and gentle exercise.
- The tennis centre in Powlett Reserve held low cost holiday programs for kids.
- We built two blocks of separated bike lane in Albert Street, from Powlett Street to Hoddle Street. A major upgrade of the Hotham Street, Simpson Street roundabout and footpath was undertaken improving functionality and look. We’re preparing designs for pedestrian safety treatments in the neighbourhood.
A clean and quiet neighbourhood
- The Fly Neighbourly agreement is in place and we continue to work collaboratively with airports to look into flight path changes around East Melbourne.
- We continue to expand our Rapid Response Clean Team to fast-track graffiti removal, dumped rubbish, cigarettes, street sweeping and syringe collection across the city. Residents, workers and visitors continue to play an important role in reporting graffiti and rubbish across the city using Council’s QR code reporting system. From January to August this year we received 25,549 requests to respond to graffiti and cleaned more than 70,000 square metres of surfaces of graffiti.
A safe neighbourhood
- In August the East Melbourne Group along with representatives of Victoria Police, City of Melbourne and the MCC held a community safety meeting with more than 80 attendees.
- ‘What you need to know to survive on the streets’ is a short information booklet produced every two months by a group of people experiencing or with lived experience of homelessness, published by City of Melbourne Libraries in partnership with Cohealth. While the booklet itself is a major outcome of the project, the participants have also been supported to learn and care for each other and the community – building social, emotional, and practical skills
- A ‘drug safety in the city’ flyer was produced and distributed to key stakeholders and businesses.
- We continued working closely with Victoria Police, including joint outreach patrols to engage with people experiencing homelessness to ensure they are supported. Our library social worker outreach program continues to support community members through outreach and connection to social services.
- We hosted the Melbourne Licensees Forum in June 2023, a forum where licensed venues share information and discuss matters impacting them. This forum shared information about the late night liquor license freeze and public intoxication law reform.
- In May, new lighting and bulb replacement was completed on Hotham Walk in Fitzroy Gardens.
- New exercise equipment opened in July in Powlett Reserve including a cross trainer.
- The design for the Fitzroy Gardens Lansdowne Street toilet replacement has received a permit from Heritage Victoria. The new facility has been designed by the City of Melbourne and will consist of one accessible and two regular toilet stalls, with a combined hand wash basin area and baby change facilities in the accessible cubicle. In our regular parks surveys, our public toilets are frequently identified as an area for improvement and this new toilet will contribute towards improving the visitor experience.
- We continued our tree planting program with 2554 trees planted this year. There are over 80,000 trees in the City of Melbourne, and our canopy cover was mapped at 25 per cent this year. We renewed our Urban Forest Precinct Plans and engaged the community about priorities in East Melbourne, South Yarra, Central City and Carlton this year.
- We released our new Greening Melbourne permit system which enables community-led greening on council-owned footpaths. Visit Greening Melbourne to read more about this initiative.
KereKere Green café in East Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens provides a leafy sanctuary for locals, city workers and tourists alike.
Manager Panee Woodruff started at the café one year ago after wanting to work closer to home and found an unexpected bonus.
Locals describe East Melbourne as a small village of friendly neighbours, and an oasis. And it’s only a short stroll from the CBD. East Melbourne is known for its green spaces and streetscapes, beautiful 19th century heritage homes and modern architecture.
Grants of up to $2000 are available to increase community participation, connection, equity, diversity and inclusion through our new Connected Neighbourhoods Small Grants. Applications are open all year until the budget has been fully allocated.
Check out other grant opportunities on the Community Noticeboard.
Neighbourhood Partner, East Melbourne
Contact Kimberley or post a comment to the interactive map.
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Acknowledgement of Traditional Owners
The City of Melbourne respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the land we govern, the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung and Bunurong / Boon Wurrung peoples of the Kulin and pays respect to their Elders past and present. We acknowledge and honour the unbroken spiritual, cultural and political connection they have maintained to this unique place for more than 2000 generations.
We accept the invitation in the Uluru Statement from the Heart and are committed to walking together to build a better future.
