In the last article, I wrote:

“the divide of Fitzroy Street has become our very own “Berlin wall.”  On the West side, you will find streets that are prosperous, shopping centres that thrive, and landscaping and tree planting abound. Even a fountain that works! – Our side ‘The East” of Fitzroy St, St Kilda, appears not to have the same focus, access, or concentration of beautification by the CoPP. 

When you ask Councillors why they are not spending money on the renewal of urban St Kilda and especially Acland Street, they say either “we do spend money in St Kilda” (usually on the foreshore) or the favourite response of “money is tight”, or “it’s not our responsibility”. 

A recent study unearthed the following Council expenditure and while St Kilda Post code 3182 was not fully isolated in the table, it nevertheless demonstrates the wide variance in expenditure between certain post codes in CoPP.”

Comparison on Capital Expenditure Draft Budget from 2022-24/5 Analysis of 3 areas. 

It is extraordinary that the wealthier suburbs in Port Phillip far exceed per capital expenditure, compared to the poorer St Kilda/Balaclava area, with Port Melbourne spending $1,283 per citizen, Albert Park and Middle Park, $684 per citizen and the St Kilda area $248 per citizen. 

This wide variance explains the visibly obvious failing infrastructure in St Kilda, from poorly developed street scapes, lack of adequate and consistent tree plantings, poor roads and a patchwork of tired footpaths. The argument that money is spent on the arts in St Kilda is all good but where do we visibly see the improvement? “Bread and circuses” are fine, but the rate payers also want to see value in terms of meaningful infrastructure spends and a serious rejuvenation of our urban environment. A good example of neglect is the lack of street curb plantings.  In neighbouring suburbs as part of environmental as well as general beautification, they abound. Not the case in urban St Kilda. 

Need for greater transparency in postcode spends.

Moving forward, Council as a transparent reporting mechanism should table all post code total spends broken down by category and attach a per capita value. Ratepayers have a right to know where the money by post code is being spent to ensure that St Kilda gets its share of rate payer money going forward. After all, its our money Councillors are spending. If they are going to treat us like an ATM, we certainly should demand the receipts!

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Acland Street Update

Lightboxes

This week we saw the installation of temporary light boxes in Acland Street advertising St Kilda’s once proud history of music. Once again, besides the cost of such another ad hoc initiative without a master plan to support it, other issues are relevant:

Firstly, powerlines run along a plastic protection conduit that crosses the Mall from a central power source. It would not be too hard to imagine potential safety issues with people tripping over the plastic protection.

Secondly, temporary light boxes cover the CTV camera that provides a visual line of sight to the problematic area of vagrancy on the large podium seating, where often illegal drinking occurs along with unruly behaviour. This challenging problem has improved with the actions of police as well as local laws personnel who monitor the situation daily, but the question remains. Why cover the direct line of sight of the security camera?

Thirdly, what is the cost of yet another temporary infrastructure for the street? Cannot the council do better with a serious master plan for the street including a proper consultative process?

Patching the Mall

Outside the entrance to the Acland Court, a vital revamp internally is occurring by the owner, turning this part of Acland Street into a destination point. Unfortunately, just outside the Acland Street entrance, the roots of a large palm tree have been spreading its wings and uplifting the stone pavers for over a year. Sadly, Council’s recent response is unfortunately like so much of St Kilda, “a patch job” and also a year too late! Instead of replacing the stone pavers (ordering them well in advance), this is what we got. Enough said.