Maribyrnong residents are unhappy with the state government’s plan to establish the area as a residential growth zone.
The zone would allow apartments and buildings up to four storeys high to be built next to houses in some areas of the municipality.
Submissions to the council to create residential growth zones closed on November 10, but locals insist that they were not directly notified.
Stirling Street, Footscray, resident Jill Wilson said nobody was aware of the submissions and local residents did not have a say. “They put the advertisement on page 21 of the local paper, in with the phone sex ads in the Maribyrnong Leader, so nobody was aware,” she said.
Greens Western Metropolitan Region MP Colleen Hartland said the residents should have been properly notified.
“It’s very disappointing that the government failed to directly notify residents whose homes are to be rezoned [to] give them the opportunity to write a submission,” Ms Hartland said.
Ms Wilson said Stirling Street was a small thoroughfare with no capacity for that level of infrastructure or development. She said rezoning could result in the suburb losing its character.
The residential growth zones also allow for a greater range of non-residential uses to serve local community needs, but the rollout of the plans has sparked anxiety for residents.
Ms Hartland said the government just wanted to “cram more and more people in with little regard to provision of essential services”.
The new residential zones have been planned by consecutive governments over the past decade, and have been introduced to 22 of Melbourne’s 31 council areas.
