This Urban Forest Precinct Plan (UFPP) aims to guide tree planting and biodiversity projects to achieve the targets of the Urban Forest Strategy and to develop a healthy, biodiverse, and connected urban forest. We want to know what you think of the plan.

Or follow the tabs on this page which explains each section.

Provide feedback via the survey: Once you've reviewed the This Urban Forest Precinct Plan (UFPP) please take our survey below to share your satisfaction with the plan and provide any additional comments. Your feedback will help us refine the plan to ensure it reflects the community's vision.

Book some time to provide your feedback with our Urban Forest Coordinator

To schedule your 20-minute meeting with the Urban Forest Coordinator, click on the following link:

Book a time here

Choose a date and time that works for you. Then choose your preferred meeting location:

• In-Person: St Kilda Town Hall (99A Carlisle Street, St Kilda 3182) or
• Microsoft Teams: Online meeting

A confirmation email with all the meeting details, including the Teams link (if applicable), will be sent to you after bookings:

Dates and times we are accepting bookings:

• Tuesday 6 May 2025 - 11 am to 2 pm
• Wednesday 7 May 2025 - 9.30 am to 12.30 pm & 3 pm to 5 pm
• Friday 9 May 2025 - 1 pm to 3 pm

Urban Forest Precinct Plan Balaclava and St Kilda East

The Urban Forest Strategy, adopted in August 2024 has a target to achieve 30% canopy cover on streets and a minimum of 40% canopy cover on public space (non-sports field areas) by 2040 and to increase biodiverse planting.

The purpose of the Urban Forest Precinct Plan is to guide tree planting and biodiversity projects to achieve these targets and a healthy, biodiverse, and connected urban forest. In Balaclava/East St Kilda canopy cover on streets is currently 25% and public spaces 31%.

As an older municipality, a lot of streets in Port Phillip are narrow, have narrow footpaths, have no nature strip or narrow nature strips. The constrained space in some Port Phillip streets, particularly in St Kilda, East St Kilda, and Balaclava are challenging to retrofit, with above and below ground services, contaminated or poor soils, accessibility, car parking, footpath crossovers varying between streets.Planting trees in streets need to respond to these challenges and sound planning taking opportunities and constraints is critical to ensure trees are planted where they are needed to increase canopy cover.

This precinct plan provides Balaclava and St Kilda East with more trees and access to nature. It aims to make walking safer and cooler by adding shade where it's needed most. Researchers looked at the area, and this plan will guide how to plant trees and improve access to nature, based on the neighbourhood's needs. This plan will be used as a model for other areas in Port Phillip

The plan is for:

• Growing more trees and nature in Balaclava and St Kilda East, with the goal of creating a healthier, more connected urban forest.
• Improving walking conditions by adding shade and making streets safer and more comfortable for pedestrians.
• Creating a model for future plans, this plan is a pilot, designed to be used as a template for other neighbourhoods in Port Phillip.
• Targeted tree planting, by identifying key areas needing trees, like high-heat areas, busy walking routes, and public transport stops.
• Boosting biodiversity, finding opportunities to plant diverse plant life in streets and parks.
• Practical implementation, outlining how to carry out these changes, considering factors like water usage, traffic safety, and working with other landowners.
• Improving existing trees, finding ways to fill in gaps in existing tree cover and gradually change tree species for better canopy coverage.
• Providing a ten-year action plan, giving a prioritised timeline for implementing these changes.

This transformative project requires significant financial investment. We are actively seeking funding opportunities to support the necessary infrastructure changes, including potential adjustments to street layouts and parking configurations, to accommodate increased tree cover and enhance accessibility for all residents. We recognise that realising this vision will require commitment and collaboration, but the long-term benefits for our community's health, well-being, and environment are tangible.

View the Focus Area Map

What has been considered in the development of the Balaclava and St Kilda East precinct plan

This section outlines the key actions of the Urban Forest Precinct Plan for Balaclava and St Kilda East. Expand the dropdowns for detailed descriptions. The map in the next tab shows possible implementation areas.

Our streets and public spaces are the heart of our communities, playing many important roles.

Alongside greening and urban cooling, open spaces are valued as places to socialise, relax and unwind, to be outdoors and connect with nature, to play sport and exercise. Streets and public spaces serve a variety of interconnected roles that extend far beyond just facilitating movement.

What do our streets do?

• Connect us, they help us get around, but they also bring us together for festivals, markets, and everyday meetups.
• Keep things running underneath the surface, streets carry power, water, and help manage rainwater.
• Support nature and are vital for plants and animals and help keep our city green and healthy.
• Parks and green spaces boost our well-being, they are where we relax, play, and connect with nature. They make our city a more enjoyable places to live.

What do our street trees do?

• Cool down our city, trees act like natural air conditioners, keeping us cooler in hot weather.
• Clean our air and water, trees filter out pollution and help manage rainwater.
• Give homes to wildlife, trees provide food and shelter for birds, insects, and other creatures.
• Make our neighbourhood nicer, trees increase property values and make our streets more beautiful.

We need to find a balance

We want safe, functional streets and vibrant public spaces, and we want more trees and green areas. By working together, we can make Balaclava and St Kilda East greener and more enjoyable for everyone.

Want to Learn More?

Read about the multi-functional role of streets and public spaces.

Understanding our Streets Balaclava and St Kilda East

The streets of Balaclava and St Kilda East are laid out in a grid, with main roads (boulevards and high streets) and smaller local streets and lanes connecting them. To help us plan improvements, we've organised these streets into 10 different 'types'.

We looked at several things to decide the street types, including:

• Overall width (property boundary to property boundary)
• Footpath width
• Number of vehicle lanes
• Verges and verge planting
• Bicycle infrastructure
• Car parking
• Infrastructure (powerlines, public transport modes)
• Existing canopy coverage
• Street function (through street, one-way, commercial strips, local streets)
• View street types and opportunities map here

Based on these features, we identified 10 street types:

• Access Laneways (3.0 - 5.0m Wide)
• Micro Street (10.0m Wide)
• Narrow Street (12.0 - 12.5m Wide)
• Typical Street (14.5 - 16.0m Wide)
• Green Street (15.0 - 15.5 Wide)
• Connector Boulevard (18.5 - 21.0 Wide)
• High Street (19.5 - 21.0m Wide)
• Movement Corridors
• Unique Streets

Most of our streets are 'Narrow', 'Typical', or 'Green', making up about 65% of all the streets.

By grouping the streets this way, we can create a 'street improvement toolkit' (called the ‘Interventions Toolkit’ chapter). This toolkit has ideas for improvements that can be used on many streets at once. This means we don't have to design a new plan for every single street, which saves time and helps us improve our neighborhood faster. These interventions can be scaled up or down to apply to multiple street types.

Keeping our trees healthy in Balaclava and St Kilda East

Why we care about tree variety

• Our city needs many different kinds of trees. This helps protect them from bugs, diseases, and changing weather.
• We have goals to keep a good mix of tree species, not too many of one type of tree.

What kind of trees do we currently have?

• We have a lot of different tree types in Balaclava and St Kilda East.
• We have a high number of gum tree family trees (Myrtaceae). We're working on balancing that.
• Some Desert Ash trees aren't doing too well, we'll need to replace these.

Why tree age matters

We want a mix of young, middle-aged, and older trees.

This helps with:

• Shade on hot days
• Keeping our air clean
• Making sure we have trees for the future
• Spreading out the cost of tree care

What we're doing

• We're replacing sick or old trees with new, different kinds.
• We're planting new trees to keep our urban forest growing.
• We will continue to prune and care for all the trees.
• We're making sure our trees are healthy, diverse, and will be here for everyone to enjoy for years to come.

Learn more about how we plan to accommodate trees and vegetation on streets.

Shared spaces within Balaclava and St Kilda East are essential for both our quality of life and the unique identity of our community

Public space contributes to the liveability of our city and defines our unique sense of identity and place. It is open and accessible to people. It is essential to our physical and mental wellbeing and provides significant canopy cover and biodiversity. Public space is an essential part of creating sustainable urban communities, particularly as urban density increases.

Alma Park, segmented by the railway is the largest open space. Land owned by other agencies including the St Kilda Cemetery managed by the Southern Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust and the railway reserve contribute to public space and urban biodiversity.

Local, and small local open spaces in the neighbourhood include:

• Te Arai Reserve
• Hewison Reserve
• Packington Street Reserve
• William Street Reserve
• Town Hall Reserve (St Kilda Town Hall)
• St Kilda Library green space
• St Kilda Community Gardens

These reserves have strong local communities where people meet friends, exercise, play sport, relax, walk dogs, and care for nature in Friends of groups and gardening in communal garden beds.

Public space canopy cover in Balaclava and East St Kilda is 31%, however Balaclava/St Kilda East has the lowest amount of open space of all neighbourhoods in our city. Currently, Balaclava and St Kilda East have eight open spaces, making up only 5% of the total neighbourhood area. This is significantly lower than the City of Port Phillip average of 17%.

Learn more about open space types and opportunities

Council has acquired several properties within St Kilda East for the creation of much-needed open space at the following locations:

• 49, 49A & 51 Pakington Street, St Kilda (abutting Pakington Street Reserve)
• 30 Kalymna Grove, St Kilda East
• 14 Lansdowne Road, St Kilda East.

This delivers on priority actions in our Places for People: Public Space Strategy 2022 – 2032.

Council has acquired these properties in line with our new Public Space Land Acquisition Strategy.

The new or expanded parks will deliver:

• increased usable open space and passive recreational facilities
• safer and clearer links and connections for walking and cycling
• accessibility for all site users, including people with disability
• increased tree canopy cover and shade
• increased biodiversity and greening
• increased site permeability and improved drainage.

Design Toolkit

A toolkit of planting opportunities can be applied in various ways across the neighbourhood. The toolkit forms the base for further detailed design for each case dealing with site-specific conditions.

1.Localised lane narrowing

2. Corner build-out

3. Tree containers and packets

4. Protected pedestrian crossing

5.Kerb outstands (within road)

6. Footpath Widening

7. Tree Cut Outs (within footpath)

8. Central medians

This chapter provides guidance on implementation of the Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan.

This guidance is broken into several categories:

• Precinct-wide general approaches - Explaining what can be worked towards within the scope of this strategic project.
• High-Priority Streets - Using the findings from the opportunities and constraints analysis to determine which streets should be considered a higher priority, and then further prioritising these.
• High-priority streets & Interventions - Providing an indicative list of interventions which can be applied to each street.
• Open Space Guidance - Collating the existing design guidance available for each open space and augmenting it with tree canopy specific guidance.
• Future Implementation process - A process map for how City of Port Phillip can take advantage of synergies across departments to align towards the goal of increasing tree canopy.

The Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan can be viewed below:

Part One (sections 1 to 4) and Part Two (section 5 to 7).

The Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan Appendices

Appendices A, C, D and E Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan

Appendix B Part One Maps Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan

Appendix B Part Two Maps Balaclava and St Kilda East Precinct Plan

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