Revised Point Nepean National Park Masterplan considers community, context and future

Taylor Cullity Lethlean (TCL) in consultation with Tonkin Zulaikha Greer has revised its Point Nepean National Park Masterplan to reflect government policy and community views.

With the initial masterplan developed in 2010, TCL was re-engaged in 2016 by Parks Victoria to ensure that it aligned with current community aspirations, that it was reflective of broadened contexts (geographic, thematic and political), and that it established clear and unequivocal parameters for future management and private investment in the park.

Located on the far western tip of the Mornington Peninsula adjacent to Portsea, the 560-hectare national park adjoins Port Phillip Heads Marine National Park, Mornington Peninsula National Park and Police Point Shire Park. The Point Nepean area (known as Mon Mon by the site’s Traditional Owners) has a long and rich history spanning thousands of years of Aboriginal occupation, military defence, quarantine and, most recently, as Point Nepean National Park.

Recent policy captures a tension between private investment and regulation. The task of the masterplan is to strike an appropriate balance between two types of ‘public benefit’ – the first being the benefit of private investment in tourism infrastructure to the Victorian economy, the second being conservation of the park’s environmental, cultural, social and aesthetic benefits as a public space, national park and heritage landscape.

Point Nepean in the context of the Mornington Peninsula, the Heads, the Rip and the Port Philllip Forts infrastructure

The renewed masterplan document has been updated to reflect feedback from the community captured by an early 2016 consultation process. This process builds upon extensive community engagement undertaken in 2010 for the prior Draft Masterplan.

In 2010, the site’s Traditional Owners were also engaged during the preparation of the initial masterplan. During 2016, Parks Victoria met with the Bunurong Land Council (BLCAC) and Boon Wurrung Foundation (BWFL) to gauge the Traditional Owners’ response to the 2010 Masterplan, their aspirations for the Point Nepean National Park Masterplan Renewal process and to clarify how their values might become more central and overarching within the masterplan. These discussions envisioned the renewed masterplan as a bipartisan document leading towards a partnership and ongoing collaboration.

SUMMARY OF SITE VISION

The draft masterplan is approached through six site themes, which highlight the site’s key qualities and stories – shared cultural landscape, peninsula, country, coast, the Heads and Quarantine. These inform the masterplan’s principles – revealing stories, peninsula connections, caring for country, coastal experiences, the Heads and Quarantine – and, in turn, focus its keys initiatives for the park’s future.

Revealing stories

Layers of human intervention and custodianship are evident throughout the park, providing access to the many stories relating to the site’s rich history of entanglement between human activities and environmental dynamics.