Stonnington’s open spaces provide several benefits including:
- improving the health and well-being of everyone who works, lives or plays in Stonnington
- supporting the City’s biodiversity
- mitigating the impacts of climate change
At present, Stonnington has the second lowest amount of public open space per person in any Victorian council.
Council has two Strategy documents in place which work together to increase the provision and improve the quality of the City’s open spaces.
The Public Realm Strategy (2010)(PDF, 29MB) provides strategic direction for the provision, development, design and management of the public realm. The public realm can be defined as all external spaces that are accessible to the public; this includes parks, civic squares and streets. Many of the actions in this strategy have now been implemented and Council will begin preparing an update to the open space component in the future.
One of the actions within the Public Realm Strategy was to prepare a land acquisition and conversion strategy to support increasing the provision of open space in Stonnington. This is known as Strategies for Creation Open Spaces(PDF, 10MB). It is a long-term, 20-year plan to deliver an increase in public open space across the city.
The Strategies for Creating Open Space identifies a range of options including:
- relocating car parks underground and creating open space above
- promoting and encouraging green roofs and walls
- extending existing green spaces
- exploring opportunities to provide new open spaces
In its implementation of Strategies for Creating Open Space:
- Council does not compulsorily acquire land for open space. It looks to identify and reserve land for future public open space should that land become available in the future.at some future time
- Council is carefully and strategically pursuing open space opportunities by identifying options based on partnerships, negotiations and agreements.