Wednesday, 28 May 2025

Yan Yean Road, Yarrambat

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:53): (1679) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Roads and Road Safety, and the action that I seek is for the minister to confirm that there will be no acquisition of private property between Bannons Lane and Laurie Street on Yan Yean Road for the stage 2 upgrade – or if she cannot, will the minister join me at a meeting with affected residents to hear their concerns about the current design for the project?

I recently received an email from a constituent of mine who was very concerned after receiving news that a compulsory acquisition of land from his and 18 other properties along Yan Yean Road was being proposed. Newly released plans show that the designers have chosen to build an extra-wide median strip along the stretch of Yan Yean Road between Bannons Lane and Laurie Street. In 2019 the residents received a letter from VicRoads indicating that there would be no acquisition of their property for the stage 2 upgrade of Yan Yean Road. But now lawyers have shown them details of a proposed new overlay along that stretch of road that would require the acquisition of 6 metres of depth from the front of these residential properties to allow the road to widen, and the residents are not happy about it.

Bringing an 80-kilometre road right up to the front of their homes will cause a significant increase in road noise and negatively impact the peace and quiet of the country homes that they bought precisely for the tranquillity of the area. The land removal would also take away valuable car parking space, making it difficult to host friends and visitors. While residents would receive compensation for the land, the change would also force residents to incur costs for double glazing of their windows and developing their property frontage to remove vegetation and build pavement for parking. The design choice seems senseless. The extra-wide median strip is not obviously necessary for any reason of safety or traffic flow. Even if the median strip was necessary, the required land could be taken from the other side of the road where there are no residential homes, just vacant land, and where the human impact of compulsory acquisition would be insignificant.

Residents believe that the driving force behind the decision to acquire their land is an environmental outcome. The environmental impact statement for Yan Yean Road stage 2 duplication says that the wide median strip was chosen so that vegetation can be planted there to offset the removal of native vegetation elsewhere. But the environment effects statement also notes that the median strip is not strictly necessary in that location, that there will be some vegetation impacts regardless and that the median strip should not be treated as a design constraint if a better outcome can be achieved. Minister, I urge you to find a better outcome for these people, because to remove 70 trees in order to plant 20  on a median strip is not a good outcome. As my constituent noted in his email, acquiring a strip of land 6 metres deep from the front of their properties would require the removal of those 70 trees.