Occasional newsletter, July 2022

Affordable housing for Lorne’s key and essential workers

Late last year you might have seen an announcement in the Surf Coast Times that a group in Lorne has set up a Community Lands Trust with a view to acquiring vacant land and building 20 homes in two years. The aim is to provide affordable homes for nurses, teachers, tradespeople etc., close to their work in Lorne.

Friends of Lorne is highly supportive of affordable housing for key and essential workers. But we are reluctant to see expansion of the current town boundaries. As much as possible we want to preserve the open space, tree cover and wildlife habitat within and around Lorne. Instead of new housing on vacant land, we’d like to see if it’s possible to increase housing availability and affordability using rental incentives and shared equity purchase schemes that make use of our existing housing stock. Why encroach more into the forest and/or remove more of Lorne’s tree cover if we don’t need to? Bush fire overlays (since the Royal Commission) preclude residential development in much of the area around Lorne anyway. And bushfire risk will worsen with climate change.

Towns in Queensland, some of them jammed up next to national parks, are creating affordable housing with existing housing stock. We should be able to learn from them. So, watch out for some webinars and conversations over the next few months as we investigate flexible ways of addressing the affordable housing problem along the Surf Coast. It’s a new and unfamiliar idea, but one worth feasibility-testing because of its lower impact on the natural environment.

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Sculpture Bienniale emerges from lockdown

Graeme Wilkie OAM, prime mover of Lorne’s Biennales and curator in 2022, with a part of Gunther Kopietz’s Peoples Award winning entry. Image: Leon Walker

This year Friends of Lorne, a long-time supporter of the Sculpture Biennale, combined with Karen Pitt to sponsor the People’s Choice award which, as the name implies, is determined by the votes of visitors not by a judging panel.

Gunther Kopietz won with his series of wooden figures, mostly human but also canine and inanimate (surfboards), set on the foreshore near the swimming pool. In total about 1,000 people cast a vote.

Although there were fewer major exhibits than in past years, they were more specific to Lorne. Friends of Lorne member Ross Dimsey combined with David McKenzie to reimagine the first landing of an aeroplane in Lorne just over 100 years ago. The shift to works that reflected some aspect of Lorne was achieved by granting $9,000 to the major, invited exhibitors.

And there was a technical innovation. Accurate estimates of visitor numbers to events are very difficult to achieve and are often little more than guestimates. But the estimate of visitors to the 2022 Sculpture Biennale is based on the output from people counters set up in a couple of locations. These counters work by interpreting data from a motion detector. The official result is that about 23,000 people came to the exhibition.

For the organisers wrap up of the Biennale 2022, including information about how to get a catalogue, click here

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The coming year – involvement, issues and webinars

We get tuckered out doing Friends of Lorne business. We welcome people to join our Committee. Or, alternatively, you might like to just put your hand up for some occasional tasks like reviewing planning applications, writing for our Newsletter, or putting together submissions with us on things that might help improve the environment, liveability, and the visitor experience in Lorne. Let us know at committee@friendsoflorne.org.au.

Right now, for example, we are worried about excessive tree removal in Lorne – in fact this is a perennial issue, very déjà vu. Must we lose what makes Lorne special?

Gregory Moore, a specialist in arboriculture with active interests in all matters related to trees in urban environments is lined up for a webinar in early October 2022. You may know Greg. He writes prolifically and is a regular on Melbourne radio. More about the webinar in coming months.

It’s whale season again. Information about ‘our’ whales is here

And lastly, subscription time has come again. Expect a notice soon. If you are not yet a member, we would very much appreciate your support. You can get in early by completing the form here

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Great Ocean Road coastal walk

View of the Cumberland River from Castle Rock. The Great Ocean Road coastal walk will descend to the Cumberland via a steep, upgraded track along the hill to the left. Image: Mary Lush

For several years now the Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (DELWP) has been working on plans for a walking trail to connect Fairhaven and Skenes Creek. When complete it will connect other tracks, making it be possible, for some people anyway, to walk from Torquay to the Twelve Apostles. Many people are expected to do just one or two shortish walks, but it’s hoped that this will mean they stay in the region overnight rather than just driving on through it.

About half of the walk is along existing tracks. Some ‘informal’ tracks, more entertainingly known as ‘pathways of desire’, will be upgraded. Surfaces will be a mixture of natural earth, gravel and boardwalk. A few places now known to only a few will become known to many.

The original concept included some dual purpose sections for mountains bikes and walkers, but the trail is now being developed for walkers only. There were also some heroic suspension bridges, such that what was supposed to be a ‘natural’ experience looked like being promoted as a visit to man-made structures. In the course of testing potential routes however, which included lots of consultations with specialists, individuals and organisations such as the Friends of Lorne, revisions have been made. Overall these changes reduce the environmental impact of the trail, with care being taken to identify and avoid areas known to have particular value for plants or animals.

The next draft alignment is due for release at the end of August. It may not include the section from Grey River to Skenes Creek. Various routes have been considered here. A beach route is difficult and most of the coastal land beside the road is privately owned. Tortuous alignments behind the private land are now being pencilled in.

Once released comments on the draft will be called for via Engage Victoria. Don’t miss the change to have your say. The designers have been listening .

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Pt Grey – it’s not a case of back to the drawing board

In March 2022, the VCAT decision on Pt Grey came down. The Tribunal upheld the appeal, meaning that the original planning application (including the “Beacon Building”) was rejected. This sent the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (GORCAPA) away to revise the plans in a manner consistent with the Marine and Coastal Policy of 2020 , which is the primary means whereby the Marine and Coastal Act (MACA, 2018) is implemented. The MACA requires activities on coastal land to be coastal dependent. A boat ramp and fishing club are coastal dependent, but a new restaurant is not.

But, of course, GORCAPA was already on the case well before March. They were working with the Lorne community to investigate how the fishermen’s co-op building could be remodelled and reused in some way. The new plans were the subject to public consultation in March 2022. The feedback on these plans from the public survey was overwhelmingly positive.

The issue now is how can the plans for the precinct be amended in ways consistent with the MACA. If a new restaurant is not permitted, for example, then what type of food outlet is? The community co-design group will now be given a chance to form whole-of-precinct plans, in contrast to just working on the co-op building. This will likely involve the community co-design group being reconstituted and reorganised to take up the challenge.

But in the meantime, please don’t think your community co-design group volunteers (of which Friends of Lorne is one) are despondent. We know there are some adjustments to be made, but so much has already been achieved. We now have an opportunity for the LAAC to get its traffic and boat wash issues right. We have said goodbye to the excessive car parking on Shelly Beach. All parties are keen to create a workable maritime precinct that preserves its cultural and historical values.

Thanks to all of you who have made your voices heard on this issue.

Communities up and down the coast are watching, as there are ramifications of the MACA for them too.

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We are part of the Great Ocean Road Communities Network (GORCN)

Friends of Lorne meet regularly with 17 other organisations along the coast who form the Great Ocean Road Communities Network (GORCN). These organisations are committed to:
• coastal and bush protection and regeneration
• thriving, diverse local communities
• limitations on tourist numbers
• community involvement with relevant decision- making
• recognition of climate change, the need to act to mitigate its causes and to address its risks
• protection of local character
• nature-based and regenerative tourism
• analysis and communication of tourism’s invisible costs
• evidence-based research to establish the carrying capacity of the Great Ocean Road
• an agreed set of indicators to monitor Great Ocean Road conditions
• appropriate infrastructure provision consistent with the above.

GORCAPA meets with GORCN for updates and conversation about whole-of-GOR issues.

Right now, we are trying to strengthen the draft Community Engagement Framework that GORCAPA has put out for public consultation. For example, we would like it to be backed up with more accessible public information systems to help us know what is happening where. We’d like to see guidance for “first responders” on GOR issues (to avoid falling down the cracks between different jurisdictions). We’d like to get a better sense of the depth and intensity of engagement we can expect according to the size/scope of an issue. And we would like to see guidance for resolving disagreement and disputes. It’s a Big Ask, we know. But the GOR region is precious. GORCAPA is keen to get this right too.

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Natural history note on Lorne’s gum trees

From Mary Lush

Smooth-barked eucalypt on left, rough-barked one on the right. The name gum tree is sometimes restricted to trees with smooth barks, but here I use it for both. This particular rough bark is an example of a stringy bark. Images: Mary Lush

CSIRO asserts, with reckless abandon and unnecessary precision, that there are 934 species of eucalypts in Australia. What makes this a risky statement is the tendency of botanists to relabel plants and get excited about whether the term ‘eucalypt’ includes more than the genus Eucalyptus (CSIRO takes the view that it does, more on this later).

About 20 species of eucalypts occur naturally in the Otway Ranges, but just four or five species make up the lion’s share of those that occur naturally in Lorne. This limited number brings acquiring expertise on local gum trees well within the range of the possible.

When sizing up your unknown eucalypt the first thing to check is the bark. Is it rough or smooth (see photo above)? You should assess this about half way up the trunk because some species and individuals classed as smooth-barked have rough bark at the base. Just to confuse the issue.

Smooth barks
If your unknown eucalypt is smooth-barked, then there is something like a 90% chance that it is a blue gum (scientifically speaking, Eucalyptus globulus). These are the ones that scatter large, warty nuts all over the ground, give Lorne its distinctive smell and simply are all over the place. Just about every eucalypt along the foreshore between the surf club and the pier is a blue gum. If your tree is resprouting from the trunk, then the new growth may be blueish, as is the foliage on very young (juvenile) blue gums.

Bits of blue gum. Top: leaves buds and open flowers. Lower left: dry nuts. Lower right: juvenile, ‘blue’ leaves. Images: Mary Lush

It is just possible, but fairly unlikely, that your smooth-barked gum is not a blue gum but a manna gum or mountain grey gum.

Manna gums (Eucalyptus viminalis) grow at Teddy’s Lookout (see below). Teddy’s is borderline for my definition of being ‘within Lorne’, but I assume they may be in more central parts too. Manna gum buds mostly come as a group of three, in an approximately cross shaped arrangement. Once the buds have become nuts, one or two of the original threesome has often fallen off, so an imaginative reconstruction may be needed to see a cross.

Mountain grey gums (Eucalyptus cypellocarpa), are not common on the seaward slopes of Lorne, but are very common just a little inland. You can see them on the upper and lower corners of the Bay Street/Lorne Avenue intersection. It may be hard to get your hands on grey gum buds without tree climbing equipment, but scrabbling round on the ground below sometimes yields some twigs with buds or nuts. Look at the stalk that bears the buds/nuts. Is it flattish? And are there more than three buds in a group? If so, probably a mountain grey gum.

Buds and nuts of two other gum-barked eucalypts found in Lorne. Top two images: manna gum. Bottom two: mountain grey gum (flattish stems arrowed). Images: Mary Lush

Rough barks
Moving on to rough-barked trees, these will probably be either scent-barks (Eucalyptus aromaphloia) or messmates (Eucalyptus obliqua).

Leaf size and shape are usually downplayed as diagnostic features, but they are really handy when it comes to Lorne’s rough barks. If the leaves are large and wide it’s a messmate, small and narrow, a scent-bark.

Large (dried) leaves of a messmate with small green leaves of a scent-bark. Image: Mary Lush

Scent-barks abound along Otway Street and Lorne Avenue. One of their characteristics is supposed to be scented bark, but I find this pretty iffy as a diagnostic feature. Their torpedo shaped buds occur in clusters of about five (or a couple more).

Most of the rough barks in Queens Park are messmates, as are the majority of rough barks along the Bert Alsop Track in North Lorne. All the eucalypts around the Bert Alsop plaque (just north-east of the North Lorne picnic area) are messmates bar one small tree near the road which is a scent-bark. Messmates have clusters of up to 15 (11 in the photo below) club-shaped buds and are responsible for the spectacular display of flowers we see every summer as we drive into Anglesea from Geelong.

Buds and nuts of Lorne rough-barked eucalypts. Top two: scent-barks. Bottom two: messmates. Images: Mary Lush

Others
Gardeners have introduced lots of non-local eucalypts to Lorne, but something about them often alerts you to the fact that they are imports. They might have huge red flowers and large nuts, in which case they are often Corymbia ficifolia and come from Western Australia, or interesting bark like the spotted gums (Corymbia maculata) from the NSW coast. Not all ‘eucalypts’ as you can see belong to the genus Eucalyptus. If you want to learn more, Costermans’ “Native Trees and Shrubs of South-Eastern Australia” is an excellent reference.

And eucalypts are part of complex food chains involving, among other things, sundry insects. In my experience psyllids and sawfly larvae make life hazardous for young Lorne eucalypts, and over the past summer cupmoth larvae did a lot of damage to mature trees over a wide area.

Whatever the insect, it will be food for other animals so we should be careful about assuming that trees need to be protected from infestations. Often, but not always, ‘plagues’ come and go without doing long-term damage. The Corangamite CMA has more information about the cupmoth attacks of last summer here.