A Labor government will restrict high-rise development on most of the Port Phillip Woollen Mill site at Williamstown, incumbent MP Wade Noonan promised residents at a candidates forum last Thursday.
Mr Noonan vowed that if his party won government on November 29, it would approve any planning scheme amendment put forward by Hobsons Bay council for the 60 per cent of the mill site that has not yet received approval.
The pledge came as the Heritage Council determined it would not include the development site’s Oriental Hotel on the heritage register. Built about 1850, the Oriental is Williamstown’s second-oldest building and believed to be the state’s first three-storey hotel.
Evolve Development plans to demolish it to build a six-storey, 83-dwelling apartment block – part of its much bigger development plans over several blocks of Williamstown.
Evolve has gained planning approval on appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for the first two stages of its development, most recently for a 128-dwelling 10-storey tower and 41 three-storey townhouses. Mr Noonan said the latest decision set a precedent, and now the “sky is the limit” for the developers.
He said the council had assured him it “wouldn’t waste a minute” if given the chance to restrict high-rise development at the site.
“Let me put this in its purest terms – if Labor wins the election, and if the Hobsons Bay City Council come forward and they want to change the planning controls on those parts of the site that haven’t been the subject of a successful application to date, Labor will accommodate that by way of a planning scheme amendment.
“That will ensure, for example, that the height limit – which was recommended to be a mandatory height limit of 25 metres in the centre of the site – will be accommodated.”
Mr Noonan said a Labor government would also order an inquiry into appropriate buffer distances between residential development and major hazard facilities (MHFs).
The mill site is next to Mobil’s Point Gellibrand tank farm, which is classified as a MHF.
Liberal candidate Alan Shea did not attend the candidates forum.
Evolve did not respond before deadline.
