CAPP Policy: 'Empowering Citizens & Building a Sustainable Community'
CAPP candidates and elected councillors want to build on the achievements of our Council with bold local initiatives that will provide tangible benefits to residents and local businesses.
The policy document below describes the Policy Framework that CAPP has most recently developed [Updated in July 2017].
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The 2017 Policy Framework includes:
BUILD A BETTER COUNCIL
- Review spending priorities and cost controls to keep Council expenditure within CPI limits.
- Benchmark Council’s financial goals and performance with other local governments to ensure residents and businesses receive maximum value for their rate dollar
- Demonstrate leadership in deliberative and participatory democratic governance using technology, citizen panels and other means to ‘hear the breadth and depth’ of the community concerns and enable residents and businesses to contribute to the ‘big issues’
- Undertake bold advocacy to State and Commonwealth Governments on planning, housing, schools and child care, transport, environment and cultural issues to improve the quality of life, sustainability and affordability of Port Phillip
ACT FOR THE FUTURE
- Create a Port Phillip Energy Foundation to promote composting, grey water recycling, rain water collection, solar energy and energy efficiency programs to residents and businesses
- Introduce a green waste household bin program
- Power South Melbourne with its own solar panel array
- Water capture and release programs to protect the Shakespeare Grove and Elster and Elwood Canal precincts from flooding
- Boost Council investment in safe cycling and walking modes and advocate for improved public transport for residents and visitors
- Support key elements of the Fishermans Bend Network vision, with a precinct of mixed density, quality design, affordable housing and community infrastructure of transport, schools and child care designed for a real city with a living soul
- Challenge the dominant model of skyscrapers with their stacked, gated communities
HOLD ON TO OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY
- Protect the village ethos of the Middle Park, Albert Park, Ripponlea, Ormond Road, Clarendon and Carlisle Street shopping strips
- Celebrate the unique South Melbourne market – maintaining its affordability, preserving its attractiveness and viability
- Call a summit of landowners, traders and residents to develop a comprehensive vision and plan to revitalise Fitzroy and Acland Streets with attractive retailers and culture – not just new street beautification
- Implement a main street program to encourage a more robust, diverse and attractive mix of traders through active Council involvement
- Investigate consequences for retail sites left vacant without reasonable cause over the long-term (more than 12 months). Examine possible Council and State Government options to deter this behaviour
- Implement the Carlisle Street Structure Plan
- Embark on a new vision for the St Kilda Junction - advocate to government for a fully planned approach to the Junction rather than issuing individual permits in an ad hoc manner
- Work with the community, the State Government and others to deliver a beautiful cultural asset on the St Kilda Triangle site. If that takes time so be it. Better to get it right rather than achieve mediocrity
PROMOTE COMMUNITY SAFETY
- Co-operate with local police and local communities to ensure all citizens are safe and secure on our streets
- Lobby for increased local police presence in areas of high crime or a high risk of crime
- Strictly control the irresponsible provision and consumption of hazardous quantities of alcohol at hours and places threatening reasonable expectations of civic peace
- Support programs that adopt harm minimisation and ameliorative responses to drug and alcohol issues
INVEST IN PEOPLE
- Advocate strongly for additional government investment in local schools
- Develop a Port Phillip Youth Charter to affirm young people as a valued part of the Port Phillip community
- Support our great youth and local sports clubs in South Melbourne and St Kilda – advocate for clubs facing rising rents, loss of access and damage to grounds in Albert Park and elsewhere
- Promote local arts, music, galleries and rehearsal and workshop spaces through investment and better use of under-performing Council and community assets
- Ensure that the community has priority access to all public spaces and that they are not enclosed for private uses. Any use of public spaces for events should be in the public interest
- Maintain direct provision of Council Aged Care Services and invest in their expansion and improvement
- Directly provide children’s services to the community and support and resource community managed services including child care centres, kindergartens, family day care, after school care, teenage and holiday programs
- Establish high quality playgroup, parent groups and maternal health services to meet the city’s growing population
- Increase the proportion of social housing dwellings in Port Phillip as a percentage of all dwellings in the municipality over the next eight years, ensuring our community is a place for everyone
