By Goya Dmytryshchak
A major row has erupted over a proposal for a four-level marina with dry stack boat storage in Williamstown.
Plans for the site known as Knights Slipway at 266-268 Nelson Place include a 75-metre pontoon and 14-metre-high building with storage for 208 vessels.
Williamstown Marine Centre’s application to build on the Crown land is with the planning minister.
Hobsons Bay council last week voted to formerly object to the plan unless it was redesigned to reflect the heritage character of Williamstown with a maximum height of eight metres (two storeys).
Cr Peter Hemphill told last week’s council meeting the development would be an “eyesore” and that the council did not want “an ugly bulk-building of sheds”.
“It’s been a very sensitive issue and that’s because it is right in the heart of Hobsons Bay’s most significant heritage area … being Nelson Place,” he said. “This really is the gateway to Nelson Place and it’s important that any developer there has got it right.”
But Williamstown Marine Centre director Scott O’Hare told Star Weekly after the council meeting that the project wasn’t viable if it was restricted to eight metres.
“The reality is that the Hobsons Bay council like to think of themselves as being marine friendly, but they’re not, they never have been,” he said.
“They bang on about how Williamstown has a marine heritage and they really leverage off it, but they’re just not prepared to do anything more to provide more public access to the water.
“They don’t like having to pay for boat ramps, they don’t like having to improve any of the facilities whatsoever but they stop the private sector from being able to do that.”
Cr Hemphill told the council meeting that “no one that I know of” was objecting to a maritime redevelopment at the site.
“It’s just that they don’t want it to be an eyesore and they want it to reflect the heritage of the area,” he said. “It would be fine at the other end of Nelson Place, but not in the gateway to the tourist precinct of Williamstown.”
Cr Hemphill said the council’s heritage adviser had warned that the impact of the proposal would be irreversible.
The plans have met with strong opposition from the two immediately adjoining yacht clubs.
The Royal Victorian Motor Yacht Club, on the southern boundary, objects to the proposed 75-metre pontoon down the middle of a fairway – the water equivalent of a public road.
“Fairways are there so that the boats from Hobsons Bay [Yacht Club] and the RVMYC can navigate between the clubs with safety and give them enough room to be able to manoeuvre, especially in high winds,” Commodore Paul Doherty said.
“A fairway is like a freeway – it’s not meant to be built on. It’s there for access.”
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