A community backlash has forced the scrapping of a West Footscray development proposed by a man with an extensive criminal history.
Helmut Kirsch had lodged plans with Maribyrnong Council for the halfway home at 23 Alma Street, in a joint venture with the property owner, local real estate agent Frank Forti.
However Mr Kirsch said the plans for the two nine-bedroom dwellings are being withdrawn after a campaign that included an anonymous letterbox drop drawing attention to the proposal and inviting people to Google Mr Kirsch’s history, which includes with more than 70 convictions and accusations of being a “slumlord”.
Maribyrnong Council confirmed it has received a letter of withdrawal on the 23 Alma St application, as well as receiving 34 submissions regarding the proposal.
Mr Kirsch of Prisoners Advocate Victoria formerly ran Arden Lodge, a residential facility in North Melbourne.
He runs a similar property in Eleanor Street, Footscray, which he says has operated for almost three years without serious incident.
While some residents objected to the plans as an overdevelopment of the site, much of the uproar surrounded the prospect of the property being home to the socially disadvantaged including ex-prisoners on parole.
Objectors have also drawn attention to Mr Kirsch’s underworld links and criminal convictions, as well as comments in Parliament by former Footscray MP Bruce Mildenhall describing Mr Kirsch as a con man and “social parasite and pariah” who preys on vulnerable and at-risk young people.
However Mr Kirsch said he has been a victim of an unfair campaign that will ultimately harm vulnerable people seeking a roof and a new start in life.
“They are discriminating against these people by saying they don’t want them here,” he told Star Weekly.
“They have a right to be living in society. It’s discrimination, like saying you don’t want Aboriginal or Muslim people living next door.”
Mr Kirsch said many of the people living in his other properties are on community treatment orders or suspended sentences and can only be released if they have an address they can provide the court.
“There is an enormous shortage of housing and we are taking a lot of the people nobody else will take.”
Mr Kirsch said Maribyrnong Council had treated him unfairly and was unduly harsh in requiring him to re-advertise the proposal for an extra 14 days after someone removed the permit application advertising sign at the site.
He said he had spent eight months and $20,000 on drawing up plans but was withdrawing the application in frustration at a campaign he suspected to have been linked with councillor-elect Catherine Cumming.
Yet Ms Cumming denied any link to the letter-boxing, saying it was likely to have been carried out by concerned residents.
She said she had “a long memory” and remembered Mr Kirsch taking on the Council over a property he opened at 633 Barkly St around 17 years ago.
In a November 3 letter to Maribyrnong Council withdrawing the application, seen by Star Weekly, Mr Kirsch said he had been subject to “a pattern of blatant bias and prejudice by the planning unit” since fighting the Council over the Barkly Street property.
Landowner Frank Forti said he had entered the Alma Street venture with the best of intentions, pulling the pin as soon as concerns were raised.
“My intention has always been to help the disadvantaged people and the troubled youth in the community,” he said.
“I have lived in the area 48 years and have always been community based, I can assure people I had the best intentions but because of what has been happening about this we have agreed to stop the development going ahead.”
Mr Forti said he has rented other properties to Mr Kirsch over a period of 15 years for use as transitional accommodation and he has never had a problem with him.
“I was told they have been built in Footscray as well and they have been very well run and very well managed,” he said.
“It was all in good faith, but because of the concerns by the people living in the community we decided to cancel it.”
An Alma Street resident, who asked not to be named, was relieved to see the planning permit was being withdrawn “in response to the very real growing concern about the proposed plans for the site’s redevelopment and the impact it would most likely have on the local family focused community.”
