Goya Dmytryshchak
The face of Altona’s main shopping strip is about to change after three adjoining multi-storey dwellings were approved on appeal by the state’s planning tribunal.
The former Aero Wash n Fuel service station and car wash at 102-106 Pier Street was bulldozed in 2018 to make way for residential development with retail on the ground level.
Hobsons Bay council had refused three applications to build a five-storey building on each of the three parcels of land that make up the site.
The council argued that pursuing three separate applications across the five lots “leads to cumulative impacts that degrade the Pier Street streetscape, has unacceptable external amenity impacts and provides unacceptable standards of internal amenity for future residents”.
Destino Investments last week won an appeal at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to build two five-storey buildings and one four-storey building on the site. A permit condition was included requiring the building at 102 Pier Street be reduced to four storeys to address the overshadowing impacts on the backyards of the adjoining dwellings to the south.
Each development will comprise ground level retail and car parking at grade and in vehicle stackers.
A mix of one, two and three-bedroom apartments are proposed at the upper levels.
In overruling the council’s refusal, VCAT senior member Laurie Hewet said the site was in an activity centre that had “experienced significant transformation in recent years resulting from a succession of multi-storey mixed-use developments along both sides of the northern part of Pier Street”.
“These developments are strategically appropriate given the activity centre’s locational attributes and the planning scheme’s encouragement for that level of development,” he said.
An adjacent site at 108 Pier Street has been granted a permit for a five-storey, 19-dwelling apartment block.
