Whittlesea council has approved a controversial zone change to its urban growth boundary that will enable medium density housing to be built on a ridgeline overlooking Plenty Gorge and a future state park.
Two councillors declared a conflict of interest and abstained from voting when amendment C170 returned to the chamber for approval last week.
Cr Ken Harris lives in the vicinity of the area to be rezoned, while Cr Ricky Kirkham works with the principal organiser of people objecting to the zoning change and future development.
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The site is split across three zones: Residential 1 Zone (R1Z), Low Density Residential Zone (LDRZ) and Rural Conservation Zone (RCZ).
The boundary of the RCZ is Planning Minister Matthew Guy’s new “hard edge” of city sprawl, known as the urban growth boundary, which will ultimately be the boundary of the future Plenty Gorge Park.
The total area of the site is about 16 hectares, which the urban growth boundary bisects, and there is a development plan overlay applying to more than eight hectares.
The site also adjoins the recently developed Bellevue Estate, a residential subdivision with a mix of one and two-storey dwellings with some medium-density lots.
The amendment to change the zoning at 100 Gorge Road was lodged earlier this year and attracted 10 submissions, which were heard by an independent planning panel in August and approved in September.
A petition including 273 signatures was presented to the council after the matter had already been before the panel.
Head petitioner James Somerville told the Weekly he was “very disappointed” with the panel’s approval of the rezonings and he criticised the council for its lack of strategies to deal with medium- density housing.
Foremost among resident concerns, he said, was the lack of connectivity of new estate areas on to main roads, a situation brought to the fore when wildfire came to the doorsteps of Plenty Gorge earlier this year … that and the fact streets are very narrow, meaning that when cars are parked legally on the kerbside, other vehicles can’t pass through.
Having approved the rezoning, the council must now wait for the developers, Moremac Property Group and the Proll family, to produce actual development plans.
