Melbourne Racing Club are delighted to announce details of a land exchange that will see the creation of a new public park in the City of Glen Eira. The park will be located on Booran Road, at the Glen Eira Road entrance to the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve. The parcel of land is currently well populated with mature trees, characteristic of an era when the racecourse was established over 135 years ago.
The land exchange is required to fulfill both Local and State Government Planning Policy for the development of the Caulfield Major Activity Centre. The Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) who administer land exchange processes, have selected three parcels of the Club’s freehold land totaling 7,229m² in exchange for 5,865m² of Crown land known as the Tabaret car park. Part of the exchange includes the creation of the park which will be professionally landscaped with costs being met by the Melbourne Racing Club.
DSE policy requires that the Land Exchange meets the following criteria:-
- Freehold land to be exchanged must have greater public values (ie environmental, conservation, resource protection, historical or cultural)
- That the monetary value of the exchange must favour the Crown
- A valuation of the land be carried out by a qualified Valuer under the guidance of the Valuer General
- The process must be vetted by the Land Monitor
Subject to formal approval by DSE and the Parliamentary process, the Club expects to complete the landscaping works by the latter half of 2010.
Glen Eira City Council recently raised concerns in regard to the suitability of the area for a park and in response to this the Club sought advice from
@leisure, a market leading and award winning recreation consultancy firm to assess the area. In summary the report finds the land exchange is highly desirable in terms of creating a valuable asset to the community and preserves an area that has significant cultural and historic value. The report addresses Council’s concerns relating to the suitability of its location on a busy five way intersection, parking, access to other public land area, crime prevention and concludes that the proposed park will not only meet these criteria but is immanently suitable for that purpose. Please
click here to read the
@leisure report.
As part of theming and naming of the park, Melbourne Racing Club is encouraging the community to register their interest and suggestions through the
Contact Us page of this website. One of the ideas put forward is to celebrate the history of the Caulfield Racecourse Reserve and its use during World War II.