By Anne Boyd
The biggest landowner in FTG Village is Victrack (Victorian Railways). The first trains came through in 1889, a decade after nearby land had been purchased for a cemetery. An obvious place for a train stop. Perhaps it could have been called ‘Cemetery End’? But they called it Lower Ferntree Gully to distinguish from the end of the line at Upper Ferntree Gully. After the railway station and a sawmill came clusters of shops in Forest Road, Alpine Street and Station Street.
When Albert Boyd moved from Sunshine to the Gully in 1949, after 17 years building up a transport business in the western suburbs, he took a ‘retirement job’ selling hardware in Alpine Street. He was astonished to discover the shops on one side of the line closed for lunch 12 -1pm, whereas shops on the other side closed 1 to 2pm. ‘This means nobody will come shopping between 12 and 2pm,’ he said. The sense of us and them ran deep; so did the clinging to long-standing practices. Albert Boyd did his best to over-ride all that.
In the years since then traders associations came and went. Sometimes two groups at the same time until February 2009 when the whole valley came close to bushfire destruction. That story has often been told (see my account about the founding of Ferntree Gully News at the meeting called by the Bendigo Bank).
The main proposal would be the setting up of an incorporated village traders association. Membership of the association would be open to businesses and to the community groups that cluster around this historic centre. The association and the newspaper could be a voice to Knox City Council in the forthcoming consultations on renewing the village streetscape.
‘In April 2009, just months after Black Saturday, the Ferntree Gully Community (Bendigo) Bank hosted a meeting to set up a new incorporated Village Traders Association and a tabloid newspaper. Membership of the association would be open to businesses and to the community groups that cluster around this historic centre. The association and the paper could be a voice to Knox City Council in the forthcoming consultations on renewing the Village streetscape.
‘The meeting ended with a steering group for a new Village Traders Association. Bank Board member (and newsagent) Des Higginbotham would preside; bank staffer Tina Leslie would be treasurer. I put my hand up to edit a newspaper and initially to be secretary of the group (a role later taken over by Mountain District Learning Centre). Transport immediately became a concern. (Perhaps a new group always needs a common complaint upon which to build a new institution.)
For the new Village Traders the first problem was car parking, initially the poor state of the railway commuters’ car park but also the lack of car parking beside the shops. Knox Council was planning a new streetscape for the Station Street Shopping Centre. By 2010 Lower Gully Traders (the name Village Traders was not available) had become incorporated. About half the 70 businesses had joined (initial fee of $10, the only charge).
In the minutes of the June 2010 meeting the secretary listed 19 additions to the streetscape plan to be sent to KCC. (Did they think: what have we here?) Both sides were learning to collaborate, thanks especially to Dobson Ward Councillors and the patient work of the Council’s landscape architect Justin Schroeder and staffer Jane Kuchins who visited all the Station Street shops. The outcome was a beautiful new Streetscape, with tree plantings, better signage and a broad pedestrian crossing beside the bus stop.
Railway carpark
Gathering confidence, the Traders next conducted a ‘Rail Users Survey’. Police, Neighbourhood Watch and Traders collaborated. The survey went online, was printed in Gully News and hard copy handed out to rail commuters. Questions included: where commuters came from (one third from Rowville), who used local shops and which ones etc. The 1300 responses were summed up in a detailed document submitted to local State MP Nick Wakeling, was presented to Parliament and was included in Hansard.
Action did not stop there. We now have an enlarged, sealed, railway car park with extra entry from Underwood Road. This success gave the Traders energy to take part in achieving an 8.5 metre height limit on new buildings in the Commercial Centre and later to contribute to a detailed Village Structure plan for future development.
Space does not allow the whole story to be told here. Knox Council minutes and Ferntree Gully News reports in the years around 2013-14 fill out the picture. A few quotes give a glimpse.
Ferntree Gully Village Draft Structure Plan
Part of a Response from residents meetings held at Mountain District Learning Centre in October and November 2013. Chaired by the Centre Manager, Janet Claringbold:
‘Let the beauty we love be what we do’
We welcome the proposal to include the FTG Village Activity Centre (FTGVAC) in the Foothills Overlay planning with its recognition of the area as a place of special landscape value.
We consider there is more involved than preserving a few glimpses of a mountain. For us, this is about a way to live in, as well as preserve, a place of significant landscape beauty. Many of us envisage a simpler, more sustainable lifestyle, one where people help each other and where frail, weak or disadvantaged people feel welcome and protected.
With this in mind we welcome the Draft Plan with the principal exception of the proposals for medium density housing with buildings to the height of 11 metres. . .
And from a Report in Gully News No 27 (February 2014) – Long-term Council watcher, Kevin Knox, asked a question at the January meeting of Knox Council: Would Council consider occasionally holding the meeting in one of Knox’s nine wards, as had been done formerly. Perhaps, he suggested, if people were more familiar with the process, the Council might get a better media profile?
Gully residents attending last Tuesday’s meeting at Knox Civic Centre may well agree. They had participated in a five year process of improvements to the Village Streetscape and the Structure Plan consultation. Many were anxious that a Plan which contained so many good things for the future of the Village also included provision for developments, especially buildings to three-storey 11m heights, that could negate those hopes.
They need not have worried. A brisk amendment intervention by Dobson Ward Cr Orpen proposing an 8 metre building height limit across the Activity Centre was accepted. With that provision in place, the Councillors unanimously approved the Draft Plan and congratulated Cr Orpen, as did residents after the meeting.
Lynn Brewster, a local community member who has campaigned against high-rise development in Ferntree Gully Village, was at the meeting. ‘What a relief ’, she said. ‘Councillor Orpen has worked extremely hard to ensure all the community have been listened to and to right a wrong made back in 2006 when the village was exempted from the Dandenong Foothills policy. This decision is a common-sense move that will preserve the view to the hills and protect our unique Ferntree Gully Village. Congratulations Karin.’
The Plan now needs State approval. As the process unfolds the people of Ferntree Gully can take heart from the recent Plan Melbourne which says, ‘local communities should lead the planning of their own centres’ (p.103). The Plan also recognises (page 140) the Dandenong Ranges as a place of special importance for its high biodiversity values, natural beauty and popular recreational opportunities.
Then came Covid and everything changed. Shops closed, travel was restricted. The State government was quick to offer new fundings via KCC to keep businesses going – and people fed. The editorial of Gully News 70 April 2021 picks up the story.
‘Welcome to issue 70 of Ferntree Gully News. We have come quite a way together, with you, dear readers, with the 70 or so volunteers who make and distribute this newspaper, and with Ferntree Gully itself, this edgy place that is not sure if it is in the suburbs or the ranges…
But what connects us better than food? Setting up a Village Food Trail, to launch renewal in the Shopping Centre, is both a symbol and an opportunity to connect. So let’s all join in the Trail fun over the next few weeks. And tell us what you liked about it.
‘Thanks to all our advertisers. And a special thank you to all who made the Food Trails possible, especially Knox City Council for funding, the project manager Kirsten Rappolt for her amazing energy and skills, the graphic designer Pete Rowe, the Village Traders Association and to all the shops participating.’
But by the time Covid restrictions were lifted membership of Village Traders Assoc. was falling. It was hard work to keep things going. Post covid exhaustion was one factor in the 2025 failure to find volunteers for a committee.
A year later the organisation was closed down.
