Point Grey development considers cultural impact

CONSTRUCTION of Lorne’s Point Grey development is moving forward with designs approved and a start date scheduled for the first half of next year.
The progression of the project has been aided by a Creative Counsel, established by Great Ocean Road Coast Committee (now the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority) last year.

According to GORCC’s website, the Creative Counsel was established to “tap into the wealth of knowledge regarding Lorne’s history and culture”.
Ian Stewart, the chair of the Committee for Lorne and a member of the Creative Counsel, said the Counsel helped form a collective community vision for the project.

“We formed the Creative Counsel to best manage the preservation and creation and portrayal of our heritage culture,” he said. “We had the permit application set in stone for the new buildings, but we didn’t have a clear pathway for how we were going to present our heritage and culture through the precinct.

“We wanted community groups to be involved to get good cross-representation, not just from the Committee for Lorne, for example, but Lorne Historical Society, Friends of Lorne and members of the Lorne Angling and Aquatic Club.”

Mr Steward said the Creative Counsel had provided a framework for a thorough vetting process.

“It has enabled us to pull together every vision, every thought, every concern and try to incorporate it in some way, shape or form, or at least consider it for those on the group to eventually make a decision.

“We are trying to give the opportunity for members in our community to have buy in and input into what we are trying to visualise and create, because the community has got to own it.

“It’s as much about getting community involved today as what it has been making sure we don’t lose sight of our past – our fishing and our timber industry and that sort of thing.

“We are endeavouring to create something that generations in front of us are going to say ‘Geez that was done well’.”
In an impassioned piece in last week’s Surf Coast Times, Committee for Lorne member John Agar wrote about the drawn-out and at times divided planning process.

“The longer the re-imagining of this emotive sea-burst shard of rocks and pools has lingered, lurched, flamed, then spluttered across the past decade and a half, the harder seems the task to achieve cross-community acceptable of the end product of its re-development. Yet this time … this time … we are finally moving forward.”