Moyne Shire Council is preparing to defend itself from two opposing parties in an ongoing development dispute in the quiet coastal town of Peterborough.
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The proposed development at 8 Hamilton Street has its first Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) date on June 30, and both the developer and the objectors have decided to oppose the council's decision on the application.
It is the latest chapter in a decade-long saga that has already involved the objectors, the developer and the council going through a full VCAT dispute process over the development of the site in 2014.
While a permit was granted for that previous application, a large motel-style development, the developer never started building. Eight years later in 2022 they submitted an amended application dividing the site into 33 lots and building semi-detached cabin accommodation.
The 33-lot proposal was reduced to 25 lots in response to objector and council concerns about over-development.
The council opted in February to grant provisional approval to the amended application, subject to a list of 54 conditions that the developer had to meet.
The objectors immediately decided to take the matter to VCAT, saying the council had never supplied them with the amended plans for the development and had therefore denied them procedural fairness.
They will also be objecting to dozens of other aspects of the proposal.
But the developer has also rejected the council's decision, in particular a condition requiring the development to abide by the strict minimum lot size guidelines for Peterborough.
In Peterborough the smallest allowable lot size is 600 square-metres, whereas some of the proposed lots in the application are a fraction of that size.
The developer said the council's decision to enforce the minimum lot size requirement was "potentially unlawful on its merits for being unreasonable, potentially unworkable and effecting such a degree of change that it is susceptible to being characterised as resulting in a different permit than the permit that was granted".
The developer's planning consultant, Myers Planning and Associates, has separately applied directly to the Victorian Planning Minister for a Special Control Overlay for the site that would overrule the council's planning guidelines, essentially going over the head of the council.
Major property developer Mirvac successfully used the same tactic in the inner Melbourne suburb of Brunswick in May 2023, getting planning approval directly from the minister after being rejected twice by the local council.
Myers Planning has also asked for the project to be fast-tracked through the Development Facilitation Program, a post-COVID scheme to expedite building projects that provide substantial public benefit.
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Ben Silvester
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
