Bunurong and Wurundjeri heritage and culture

- 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.

- The Royal Botanic Gardens team are running Aboriginal Heritage Walks until December.

Accessible and easy to navigate

- We’re finalising projects as part of the South Yarra Pedestrian and Road Safety Review.

- 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.

An inclusive neighbourhood

- 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, and 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 City of Melbourne 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 within our Family Services team was created to provide inclusive and responsive support for families. The officer will help families from culturally diverse backgrounds access support and services.

- 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 for 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:

• Coming Back Out Social, a celebration for LGBTIQ+ community members and allies.Somali Day Australia Festival, acknowledging and celebrating Somali culture, performance, dance and history.Queer Formal Melbourne, a safe and inclusive event where more than 700 LGBTIQ+ young people were able to be themselves and connect with other young people.
• Australian Oromo Cultural Week, to engage the Oromo and wider community in a celebration of Australian and East African culture, music and entertainment.Spanish Language Fiesta, celebrating the Spanish language by inviting the wider community to connect with, and learn about, Spanish culture.Vasant Festival, in the lead up to Holi, which featured performances by community members, dance workshops, children’s art and Holi coloured powder making activities.
• United Through Football soccer tournament, for African young people.[MDM1]

- 'What you need to know to survive on the streets’ is an information booklet produced every two months by a group of people experiencing or with lived experience of homelessness, published by our 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.

- We continued working closely with Victoria Police, including joint outreach patrols to engage with people experiencing homelessness to ensure they are supported.

Affordable 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, Councilors 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.

Through one of our community grants, Anika Legal developed Self-Advocacy Guides for Renters in 10 priority languages to help local residents experiencing disadvantage navigate changes in rental laws and seek assistance for housing-related legal problems.

Sustainable waste management and renewable energy initiatives

- We’re shifting 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:

• Progressing design work for the electrification of Fawkner Park Senior Citizens Centre, Childcare and Tennis Kiosk in addition to a range of other facilities across the municipality.

- As part of our Power Melbourne project, 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 for updates including the report on this phase of engagement.

- 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.

Small business support

- 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 businesses across the City of Melbourne between February and September.

Heritage protection

- The South Yarra Heritage Review, Amendment C426, was endorsed by Council and publicly exhibited.

As part of this, Council ran two information sessions, one online and one in-person, as well as a South Yarra heritage walking tour. We also provided information on our Participate Melbourne and responded to around 50 telephone enquiries from residents.

All of submissions received as part of exhibition are now with GML, the consultants, who will provide responses to issues raised. These responses were presented at Future Melbourne Committee in September. A panel hearing for the amendment is scheduled for early November.

Amendment C425, which provides interim heritage controls for South Yarra, was approved by the Minister, gazetted and put into the planning scheme. These controls are in place to protect South Yarra’s heritage while Amendment C426 progresses.

- 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.

Parks and gardens

- We continued our tree planting program with 2554 trees planted this year. There are over 80,000 trees planted in the City of Melbourne, and our canopy cover was mapped at 25 per cent this year. We are working with Metro Tunnel to improve greening for new train stations. At the new Anzac Station Precinct 33 trees were planted..

- We held three ‘dogs in the park’ events in Princess Park, Fawkner Park and Riverside Park, chosen based on the results of an online poll, with these locations being the most favoured by participants.

- We renewed our Urban Forest Precinct Plans and engaged the community about priorities in East Melbourne, South Yarra, CBD and Carlton this year.

We held the South Yarra workshop at St Martins Youth Arts Centre. We had 22 people signed up - nine attended and we spoke to an additional 20 people outside the venue. We’ve had more than 150 community responses from the survey.

- Royal Botanic Gardens hosted forest therapy, shinrin-yoku, Domain Discovery Shirine and garden tours, climate watch walks, secret life of birds, audio tours and free exploring activities

Community spaces

- Our libraries provided a safe and welcoming space for all community members, through programs such as storytime for children, ‘Cook to Connect’ social cooking sessions, book clubs (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.

- Latrobe Cottage on Dallas Brooks Drive in the Domain opens from October to April 2024 between 1pm and 4pm. a refund. Book a guided cottage tour (Sundays)

- South Yarra Senior Citizens Centre programs included meditative movement, morning teas, board games, books and biscuits, creative Wednesdays and tai chi. A new men’s club has also started monthly.

The centre is also holding a tea and chat to hear from community about making neighbourhood centres and programs more dementia friendly on 24 October.

Newly formed South Yarra Coffee Club are meeting every second Wednesday of the month at a different café in South Yarra with their first club meeting to be held 11 October from 2-3pm at the Fawkner Park Tennis Club kiosk.

Public amenities

- Fawkner Park’s Paisley Street north entrance and multi-purpose court underwent upgrades this year to resolve long-standing drainage issues, improve tree and landscape health, enhance pedestrian and cyclist safety, and improve the park entrance.

- We have started a three-year project to restore the Princes Bridge. The works will be completed in three stages, with the first stage starting on the southern end of the bridge near Boathouse Drive.

Collaborative city

- We are collaborating with St Martins and Heart Gardening projects to rejuvenate garden beds to St Martins Place to support biodiversity.

- We collaborated to form a small but diverse new South Yarra collective and held the first meeting at the Senior Citizens Centre.

Safe and efficient roads

- We are finalising projects as part of South Yarra Pedestrian and Road Safety Review.

- 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.

A safe neighbourhood

- We worked with members of the Alcohol and Drug Foundation Local Drug Action Team to develop a drug safety flyer. Consultation has been carried out with members of the Melbourne Alcohol and other Drug (AOD) Services Network as well as residents and small business owners in Carlton, East Melbourne, South Yarra and the CBD.

A more tranquil neighbourhood

- We have started quarterly meetings with the Melbourne South Yarra Residents Group to discuss issues relating to planned disruptions and impacts from large events that occur in the neighbourhood. Various noise related issues, including from festivals, events, entertainment and sporting venues, can be reported through our noise reporting tool. The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) offers a 24-hour pollution hotline on 1300 372 842 where you can report noise.

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.