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Vision and Principles for the new Urban Forest Strategy!
Our 2040 Vision
In the City of Port Phillip, urban greening is healthy and abundant, biodiversity is valued and supported, and nature connects community.
Collectively with Council, community and industry partners:
1. We work together to value, protect, grow and care for healthy and sustainable greening everywhere.
2. We retain first, respecting established character, and adapt by adding more resilient plant species where they are most needed to reduce heat and flood vulnerabilities.
3. We prioritise biodiversity, supporting healthy ecosystems and creating habitat.
4. We invest in thriving integrated urban greening in streetscapes, buildings, parks and gardens.
5. We value the urban forest as a long-term asset that is critical to the health and wellbeing of our community and to our City’s character and function, through quality design, construction and maintenance.
The Strategic Directions set the vision and guiding principles to 2040 (Stage 1), informing the targets, actions, implementation and evaluation planning (Stage 2) currently in development.
View the Urban Forest Strategy Strategic Directions.
View the feedback report on the Strategic Directions.
Developing Evidence Based Targets.
Information from Community Workshops October 2023.
What we've done so far
In May, we held a Mayor’s Roundtable with key stakeholders representing local environmental groups, business, older people, young people, and cultural heritage to get early input into the challenges, ideas and aspirations to green Port Phillip.
Our specialist consultants also prepared a detailed Background and Benchmarking Report which provides a solid evidence and research base that considers our local context, benchmarking and best practice.
And we used the latest technology to map and analyse our current tree canopy coverage.
In July and August, we invited the whole community to work with us as we develop the new strategy. We asked our community:
- Do you support the draft Vision and Principles?
- How do you think we can green our public land and private land?
- How much tree canopy cover should we aim for, and what are you willing to change to achieve it?
- Which actions would you support Council taking to help green Port Phillip, and what actions are you personally likely to take?
- Do you have a BIG idea to green a space near you?
The feedback we received helped set a good foundation for the Urban Forest Strategy and informed the next stage of engagement.
In October, we held three Ward-based workshops. Participants included 14 members of 11 key stakeholder groups and 20 individuals. Participants had an interest in urban forests, biodiversity, environment, cultural heritage, or sustainability, and included local business owners, local residents, young people, and community members.
Workshop participants were presented with a list of proposed initiatives and actions for each of the five Strategic Principles emerging from the research and previous two rounds of consultation undertaken for the UFS development.
Participants were invited to indicate their level of agreement and views with the initiatives, actions and targets proposed for each of the five Principles (abbreviated to Together, Resilient, Biodiversity, Integrated, and Quality), nominate any additional action ideas and help prioritise actions for implementation.
The insights gathered will be used to inform the development of the draft UFS Action Plan, which will be considered by Council before further input and feedback is invited from the broader community.
Do you have a vision for transforming a particular place in your neighbourhood? Show us or tell us what that might look like.