Victoria Street Gateway Project
In August 2012, Council unanimously approved initial concept designs for a culturally-themed gateway at the intersection of Victoria Street and Hoddle Street.
In early October 2012, Yarra City Council applied for a planning permit to allow it to proceed to the construction stage of this project.
Planning permit application
Have your say
Supporting documents
Background
What is proposed?
Project history
Next steps
Planning permit application
Council is seeking community feedback on its planning permit application to construct a gateway structure at 231-277 Victoria Street in Abbotsford, just east of the intersection with Hoddle Street.
The application from Yarra City Council seeks permission to:
- Construct a gateway structure on the tram reserve at the intersection of Victoria and Hoddle streets
- Construct support poles, wires and suspended lighing decorations above the road from the intersection of Victoria and Hoddle streets up to the North Richmond Station rail bridge
- Install graphic images to the brick abutments of the rail bridge
- Install graphic images to the service walkways of the rail bridge.
More detailed information about this application is available in the supporting documents below.
You may also view the planning application and all supporting documentation at Council's Statutory Planning counter at the Richmond Town Hall (333 Bridge Road, Richmond), on Monday-Friday from 8.30am-5pm and until 6pm on Tuesdays.
Have your say
Community feedback on the application is formally due by Monday 29 October 2012. However, Council will continue to accept submissions about the proposal up until it makes a decision about it.
If you wish to make a submission to Council regarding the proposed redevelopment, your submission must be in writing and should state how you would be affected by the granting of a permit. For your submission to be valid, it must include your name and address. Please include a reference to the planning application number PLN12/0716.
Submissions should be sent to the Statutory Planning Department, c/o Yarra Council, P.O. Box 168 Richmond 3121 or can be emailed to planningadmin@yarracity.vic.gov.au
Please be aware that any submission received will be placed on the planning file and can be publicly viewed.
For more information, contact Melanie Ringersma, Senior Statutory Planner, on 9205 5365 or at Melanie.Ringersma@yarracity.vic.gov.au
Supporting documents
Victoria Street Gateway - Application and Background Statement (500.27 KB)
Victoria Street Gateway - Project Report to Council (1,005.85 KB)
Victoria Street Gateway Plans - Part 1 (2.33 MB)
Victoria St Gateway Plans - Part 2 (2.26 MB)
Victoria St Gateway Plans - Part 3 (2.48 MB)
Victoria St Gateway Plans Part 4 (1.82 MB)
Victoria St Gateway Plans Part 5 (1.11 MB)
Victoria St Gateway Plans Part 6 (2.23 MB)
Background
Every year thousands of people gather on Victoria Street to celebrate Vietnamese and Chinese culture for Lunar New Year.
The Lunar New Year street festival has grown from a small community gathering of local families to become one of Melbourne's most anticipated cultural celebrations.
Victoria Street has also developed a greater focus on tourism, becoming a vibrant dining and retail strip popular with local and overseas visitors.
In April 2010, Council adopted a Victoria Street Structure Plan.
Consultations during the development of the Structure Plan indicated community support for recognising and enhancing the cultural identityof Victoria Street that has developed over the past 30 years.
The Victoria Street Gateway project is a joint initiative of Council and the Richmond Asian Business Association.
The project is supported by the Federal and State governments, which have committed a combined $1.5 million towards the gateway's construction.
Council has committed $500,000 in funding and in-kind support towards the gateway project.
What is proposed?
This project proposes a themed gateway on Victoria Street near the intersection with Hoddle Street, one of Melbourne's busiest road crossings.
The gateway's design concept incorporates Vietnamese cultural and historical imagery.
Preliminary concepts propose a large structure that symbolises Vietnamese boat and bird forms.
This structure would be illuminated at night to highlight the entry to Victoria Street's restaurant precinct.
Large Vietnamese hats would be suspended above the roadway at the Hoddle Street intersection.
The colourful hats would provide shadows during the day and creative street lighting in the evening.
The brick abutments on the railway bridge on Victoria Street would display a Vietnamese Dong Son drum symbol and boat motif at street level.
The rail bridge would also feature a bamboo graphic that would light up at night to provide another lighting element to the gateway.
Further streetscape improvements along Victoria Street would be undertaken in stages.
These improvements could involve more hat lighting, public art, additional seating and public meeting spaces.
However, designs, timelines and budgets are yet to be developed for further stages of works.
Project history
As part of the implementation of the Victoria Street Structure Plan, Council is preparing streetscape improvements along Victoria Street, from Hoddle Street to the Yarra River.
This project also aims to implement one of the key recommendations of the Structure Plan which is to create a gateway and identity to the Victoria Street West precinct.
The gateway project and its associated works have been the subject of discussions between Council, the Richmond Asian Business Association and other local community representatives for several years.
Funding commitments from the Federal and State governments (announced in 2010) provided the impetus for more detailed design planning to proceed.
In 2011, award winning Gregory Burgess Architects and Thompson Berrill Landscape Design were selected to research and prepare designs for the gateway following a public tender process.
Those concepts were presented to a project reference group involving members from the Richmond Asian Business Association, Collingwood and Abbotsford Residents' Association and service authorities, before they were put out for wider community comment in June 2012.
Next steps
Having adopted initial design concepts in August 2012, Council resolved to continue work with its consulting architects and key stakeholders to prepare detailed designs for Stage One of the proposed works (Hoddle Street to the rail bridge).
Once detailed designs have been completed, they will be submitted to the Federal Government for review as part of a process to secure federal grant funding previously committed to the project.
Meanwhile, officers have also been given Council approval to begin developing designs for stage two of the project which will involve streetscape improvements along Victoria Street, between the railway bridge and Church Street.
Further information
Richa Swarup
Coordinator - Urban Design
9205 5149
Richa.Swarup@yarracity.vic.gov.au
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