Planning Minister Matthew Guy has offered to overturn a Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision handed down last week, effectively giving the green light for a new Coles supermarket in Mernda.
Whittlesea council contentiously supported a plan by Coles and developer partner Ascenzo Industries to build the supermarket and shopping centre complex at 1435 Plenty Road, but VCAT ruled in favour of a bid by rival Woolworths to stop it.
Mr Guy wrote to Whittlesea mayor Cr Mary Lalios offering support for a ministerial amendment to facilitate the Coles plan.
“I would be willing to implement a planning scheme amendment which allows the proposed development,” Mr Guy said in his letter. “With regard to your council’s adopted position on this matter, I wish to acknowledge the state government is supportive of ommercial and retail investment in strategically located areas. The Mernda growth corridor is one such area.”
Whittlesea council said its councillors were now considering Mr Guy’s proposal.
Ascenzo Industries manager James Hunt said construction would start immediately if councillors voted to take up Mr Guy’s offer.
“It’s a fantastic result that Matthew Guy has stepped in,” he said. “Otherwise the residents of Mernda would be without a supermarket. It’s also a fantastic outcome for competition.”
Mr Hunt said Woolworths’ VCAT win was fought on a “very technical basis”.
Woolworths owns 25 hectares on the south-west corner of Mernda town centre and proposes to build a $100 million shopping centre with 80 mixed-use shops, two department stores and two supermarkets, one of which it will occupy.
The Coles and Ascenzo proposal for a 2.4-hectare site on the north-west corner of the Bridge Inn and Plenty roads intersection includes a supermarket, medical centres, childcare, gymnasium or associated retail, residential and office spaces.
VCAT voted down the proposal last week on the basis that if it went ahead, the council’s plans to create a compact, pedestrian-oriented and traditional mixed-use town centre would be “frustrated and potentially thwarted”.
Coles and Woolworths were contacted for comment but did not reply.
