The Story of MITS

This research is based on going through the records of council meetings of the present term, checking on factual matters with council officers and other officials and interviewing all councillors willing to cooperate. This is only the first version of the report, and it is published to coincide with the beginning of the postal voting period of the 2020 council election. It is based on finite investigation and limited contributions from participants. Some of it is necessarily surmise. Some of it will be wrong. Publishing the first version should encourage more input.

Conclusions are tentative, facts subject to correction and enlargement. It is not the end of the story.

I mean to be objective about facts and objective about opinions but here and there, if you find something that is more opinion (about opinions or facts) than fact, please supply a contrary opinion and we can flag the point as debatable.

Summary

To begin with the conclusions, tentative as they are, the Moreland Integrated Transport Strategy (MITS) project stands out as a notable failure of the present council term. The result is wasted time and money and likely missed opportunities. MITS was misconceived in some ways but not fatally so and even now a satisfactory resolution might be possible though it may not be possible for this council or the next to grasp it. That is how it looks.

The evidence is that ALP councillors torpedoed MITS for their own purposes and Greens councillors bailed out as public opinion turned unfavourable. There is no particular conclusion to be drawn about independent councillors but the MITS was a collective project and a collective failure.

Cr Yildiz has said publicly and to me that the MITS project turned into a waste of money. Cr Sue Bolton, at my suggestion of the words, adopted the American expression "train wreck". Cr Kavanagh declined to be interviewed saying that he wanted to keep good relations with his colleagues. The Greens (Natalie Abboud and Mark Riley) on the contrary assert that MITS is still a good thing maybe even with parking reform taken out. When in the May 2020 council meeting the C187 amendment was abandoned (those were the words used) Cr Riley said he was delighted because the thing would be scheduled to resurface sometime into the next council term rather than be killed off altogether.

Key Facts

MITS is a report and a program split into the Parking Implementation (PIP, the bigger part) and what is left of MITS in a plan itself called MITS. C183 is an amendment to council laws that would implement PIP.

MITS] excluding PIP is an overgrown glossy brochure concerning miscellaneous measures such as improving bike paths, pedestrian safety, and adjusted speed limits which could be done without being integrated into a larger picture (following Cr Bolton's observation that MITS is an omnibus project).

Key Players

• Greens councillors Natalie Abboud, Mark Riley et al
• Carlo Carli, former mayor and MP, influential ALP figure, man of action and ideas.
• Lambros Tapinos, Annalivia Carli-Hannan, ALP councillors
• John Kavanagh, independent councillor
• Oscar Yildiz, independent councillor
• Fair Parking Moreland, facebook operation
• GTA Consultants, who wrote the various MITS plans
• Moreland council staff who won't return phone calls, anonymous mostly, but it good to hear more from them.

Key Documents

• MITS 2019
• Parking Implementation Plan

Background

The council's documentation is highly recommended:

Background to Moreland Integrated Transport Strategy

Amendment C183: Moreland Parking Implementation Plan

Timeline

Timeline is extracted from council web pages.

  2010 to 2016          First stirrings resulting in a primeval MITS concept
  2016 to Dec 2017      *A new council resolves to rejuvenate MITS.
                        Consultancy commissioned, details lacking
  December 2017           Initial consultation period
  February - March 2018   Period of community engagement
  11 July 2018          *Draft MITS incl Parking Strategy presented at Council meeting
  16 July - 31 Aug 2018   Consultation on draft MITS incl Parking Strategy
  17 October 2018         Hearing of submissions
  13 March 2019         *MITS incl Parking Implementation Plan adopted by Council
  18 August 2019          Authorisation from the Minister to exhibit C183
  19 Sep - 11 Nov 2019    Public exhibition of Amendment C183
  11 December 2019      *Report to Council to consider submissions
  29 January 2020         Directions Hearing
  24 - 25 Feb 2020        Panel Hearing (Dept of Planning review)
  1 April 2020            Receive Panel report
  13 May 2020           *Council decision

Key Events (corresponding to highlighted items in the time line)

Mar 2019 council mtg     Adoption by council with signs of ALP renegade action
Dec 2019 meeting         Resistance to MITS is out in the open
                         Handball to Planning dept signalling Green evacuation
May 2020 meeting         Opposition to MITS solidifies. Evacuation completed.
                         Council washes its hands of the MITS project 

Key Ideas

Some of the key ideas come in opposing pairs.

• Thesis: People who think they don't want a car could be badly mistaken. Council can compulsorily help them.
• Antithesis: The workings of market will allocate parking resources more efficently than by command or regulation.
• People have a customary right to park in their own street. If the change on offer is that they now have to pay something for that, and cop an occasional parking fine, they don't react favourably.
• People not happy about out-of-towners using their street as an all-day car park without making any contribution.
• Thesis: There is an oversupply of parking built in to the present stock of apartment buildings due to planning regulations.
• Antithesis: The reason for congestion in Moreland is that planning requirements on built-in parking are waived too frequently.
• Thesis: When a developer is let off building a car-parking spot $50,000 is deposited into his bank account inevitably if not immediately.
• Antithesis: The cost of car-park construction becomes is inevitably born by the apartment-dweller.
• Thesis: Anti-car crusaders want to promote congestion
• Antithesis: Forced purchase of car-parking spots promotes car use.
• Thesis: There was an idea to disallow any car-parking at all in new apartment blocks.
• Antithesis: There never was.
• There have been questions asked in public forums about the cost sunk into the MITS plans by consultants and council staff. My unanswered question to the council is whether the cost question has been answered.
• Micro-economic treatment of parking rights and management (Donald Shoup, Carlo Carli, Moreland Council staff).
• Mode Change. The concept that the council should anticipate, encourage, or force people to do without cars.

In connection with mode change, people sometimes talk about the carrot and the stick.

• Thesis: carrot
• Antithesis: stick
• Thesis. Cars are bad from the environmental point of view.
• Antithesis. People have a right to use cars and there are various good reasons for them to do so.
• Thesis: Councillors are best to do what they think the locals want. Facebook is a good way to find out.
• Antithesis: Politicians should lead

In the dialectic method I believe the next step after thesis, antithesis is synthesis. Just saying.

Acknowledgements

I have attempted to contact most or all councillors (though recently excluding Cr Tapinos).

Thanks to Natalie Abboud for speaking to me for the Greens point of view. The other Green councillors have been hard to get hold of. Thanks to Cr Yildiz for explaining his views and to Cr Kavanagh for explaining why he did not wish to assist. There has not been much help from ALP councillors. In the case of Cr Tapinos, I believe it is more appropriate to have a public discussion. Acknowledgements of the help of some council officers but not others. Council has good resources for those with the time to delve into the public decision-making process, including video recordings of meetings, agendas and minutes over the entire council term.