Copuchas

so one minute it's the ease of undertaking commercial activity (presumably for tenants and their customers) and the next it is parking for MFC players and officials via the Brunton Ave MCG southern stand car park will be fine? Really?

2 or 3 stories of the Jolimont site would need to be dedicated to car parking (unless a separate car parking building gets up). A higher building would likely be approved for the Richmond station site given the already elevated railway and the other buildings in the area and parking would be underground. Way more commercial space, jeez we could even open an alternative scan clinic to compete with the monopoly over at AAMI. Car Sales.com.au don't seem to go all that badly being run out of the Punt Rd precinct!

Timbo, in addition to living in East Melbourne, I'm also fortunate enough to have a home in W1 in Central London (not the business district). If you look at what's playing out in London in terms of the congestion charge etc and you look at the growth projections for Melbourne, it's pretty clear where things are headed from a public transport versus car point of view. You're missing my point on today's news re CBD - it's the same people who are in charge for planning in the area we're talking about ie Melbourne City Council. And don't get me wrong, I'm a mining industry guy, not some inner urban latte sipping socialist greenie!

tkx CBDees. On a day when news breaks about active planning work to eliminate cars from the CBD / slow them to 30kmh / increase cycle times for pedestrians, I have to express doubt that a multi story car park on the fringe of an inner Melbourne park is going to get up in this day and age. And I'm sorry, as passionate as I am about the Dees and cognisant of the need for a true home, an option that is the "best outcome for the Club, players and members" but which doesn't fully consider the wishes of the community and residents is frankly going nowhere. Collingwood can make the Holden Centre work away from their spiritual home of Vic Park so it's dismissive to say that Gosch's Paddock can't be expanded upon in what already is a clearly designated sporting precinct.

Your total bias clearly on display CBDees!! - there is precisely one soccer field between the area flagged by DV8 and the AFL oval in Gosch's Paddock that's currently used by the MFC and the distance is all of 120m to the goal square of the AFL oval - it is not at all heavily used, no more heavily used than the AFL oval, which is barely used - you continue to rabbit on about building over Swan Street, even though DV8 has explained that his concept is to use the under utilised area in front of the southern entrance of Richmond Station - you dismiss the very valid point made by DV8 that underground car parking could be incorporated in this site which is not available at the Jolimont site due to the railway "culvert" - that would be railway cutting but even though you're an architect you clearly have limited engineering knowledge - there will be bureaucratic (as opposed to buerocratic) issues to deal with for any proposal put forward. It's called planning law.

The station butts right up against the Wellington Pde Sth road over-bridge so there's no space down that end. The planning issue here is that nobody to date has proposed an economically feasible solution that addresses all issues. Total elimination of car parking from Yarra Park is a laudable objective but is it realistic to force all MCG sporting precinct patrons on to public transport? I'd suggest not. Richmond station is an ugly eyesore that would benefit from redevelopment of some kind. The railway reservation between Richmond and Flinders Street is a vast area and unattractive. Most of it could be placed underground (or the cheaper option is to roof over it) but given the insistence that it's mainly green space that's created, there's no commercial proposition on which this can take place. I think the issue that the MFC will have is that their project will get lost in the larger debate about what to do.

you've obviously never worked in railway engineering LH! There's a tunnel portal one end of the area being contemplated (with West Richmond station the other end) and Jolimont station (heritage listed?) the other. The tracks are going nowhere.....

and the Federal member is Adam Bandt! So it certainly looms as a battle! What will be interesting to hear will be Guy's perspectives on the concept, having seemingly flipped from a pro-development bulldozer to a development naysayer. No guarantee he gets in of course...

Yes, Murray's already on the job! It may well be that this is a pincer play between Bartlett and McGuire (and the new Lord Mayor Sally Capp who's a Collingwood Board member) to get traction on the sensible outcome which would be to cover over the Richmond - Flinders Street rail corridor.

Don't shoot the messenger guys, but as East Melbourne resident that lives a couple of hundred metres from the proposed development, I think this is going to be VERY difficult to get up, most particularly the office component which would place a 6 story barrier between East Melbourne and Yarra Park. The oval may be more doable but even then, the residents have been campaigning for years that Yarra Park is just that....a park. Not a car park, not a sporting field. Furthermore, the civil works required to incorporate a level oval on what is a quite pronounced sloping piece of parkland would completely change the nature of the area. I'll be very surprised if this gets traction.

Not to mention the 12 months we lost on Melksham for what was generally regarded as an overs premium at the time it was concluded. Looks like turning in to a who blinks first exercise. Is there any possibility we have a quality alternative use in this year's trade period for 29 so that we can present Dodo head with a take it or leave it? Or are we determined to go to the draft with a 2nd round pick in hand?

The beauty here is that we get to see if the leg's come good before we play in the space (unlike O'Meara and Prestia). We are now a destination club without doubt IMO and can afford to be choosy going forward. No need to entertain Lumumba type trades where the desperate need for run off half back and line breaking abilities outweighed the existing concerns about H's mental state / robustness.

Saw the Gawn and Garland ones. Which was the 3rd?

What was disappointing for me was the lack of support from his team-mates when he was obviously labouring under a heavy tag. Jones and/or Vince could've done more in my view, along the same lines that Viney himself has flown the flag for team mates several times this year. I think Clarrie will be superb in this arena in due course and hopefully Gus. Doesn't seem to be Tyson's thing, not Vandenberg for that matter.

Can someone please go over to the Freo board on Big Footy and ask them what....exactly....would be the value proposition to Hogan? !!