Port Phillip’s Councillors voted unanimously on 2 March to support 5,935 petitioners who strongly opposed Port Phillip’s heavy handed, draft Nature Strip Guidelines. The petition was initiated by Emma Cutting who started The Heart Gardening Project
https://www.theheartgardeningproject.org.au/ 

The Port Phillip community overwhelmingly rejected the draft Guidelines which Emma Cutting said “would mean the end of street gardening for the vast majority of residents”. Emma stated in the petition that “these new NSGs effectively deny residents the ability to contribute to the natural beauty of our city and also individually respond to climate change and declining urban biodiversity”.

In response to the petition, Council acknowledged the benefits of nature strip gardening including community connection and wellbeing; improvements to biodiversity and aesthetics; and flood and urban heat mitigation.     

Council have committed to several updates for the draft Guidelines including:  

• Updating the guidelines as a celebratory and encouraging guide 
• Shorten the guidelines with more information available online, including information about biodiversity and planting suggestions  
• Reassess setbacks and consider differences in parking arrangements to accommodate more planting 
• Undertake further review of under tree planting  
• Develop a de-paving program to provide more areas for nature strip gardening 
• Provide warnings about growing edible plants in contaminated soil

Council stated that they are not looking to remove existing non-compliant gardens; removing a garden would be a ‘last resort’ option if they were unable to make it safe. If a nature strip garden was identified as being unsafe or obstructing accessibility, Council committed to work with the community gardener to develop modifications.