A DEVELOPER planning to build a high-rise development at Williamstown has lashed out at Hobsons Bay Council after it rejected an application to demolish one of Victoria’s most historic hotels.
Evolve Development managing director Ashley Williams said he would appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to reverse the council’s refusal to allow the demolition of the Oriental Hotel.
The demolition of Williamstown’s second-oldest building and possibly the state’s first three-storey brick hotel, circa 1854, would pave the way for a six-storey, 83-dwelling apartment block.
The council also refused an application for a four-storey, 51-dwelling development next door.
Evolve’s final development of the entire Port Phillip Woollen Mill site could add 2000 people to Williamstown’s population.
“Hobsons Bay Council has yet again failed to show leadership in supporting the implementation of planning applications that are supported by the planning scheme and . . . its own planning officers, and has made decisions that respond to political and emotive pressures,” Mr Williams said.
Emotions ran high at last Thursday’s special planning committee meeting of the council, where some of the 220 objectors to the Oriental’s demolition and high-rise development pleaded with councillors to protect their community. Many said decisions should be adjourned until a risk assessment was done, given the development site fell within a 300-metre safety buffer from Mobil’s tank farm supplying half Victoria’s fuel.
Ann Street resident Ralph Humphries feared residents would be unable to evacuate from the peninsula in the event of “another Coode Island,” referring to a 1991 chemical explosion caused by lightning which ignited 8.5 million litres of chemicals.
“As far as the Oriental is concerned, I came to Williamstown because, like the signs outside say, ‘This is an historic seaport’. And if we start wrecking all the historical buildings in the place, it stops being an historic seaport and we get a kind of Beacon Cove effect and that is just no good at all.”
Hanmer Street resident Ralph Nicholson was apologetic about how deeply he felt.
“They’ll trash our culture, trash our way of life, all to make a better margin per square metre,” he told the panel.
Residents said the proposed development had insufficient parking, noting that many local spaces were taken by 1000 workers at Williamstown’s largest employer, the BAE shipyard opposite the development site.
Others said there was a lack of school places for children and the Williamstown train line had more service replacement buses than any other Melbourne line.
Save Williamstown spokesman Godfrey Moase urged mayor Angela Altair and councillors Paul Morgan and Colleen Gates to make a decision consistent with the community’s values.
“That is why we’ve entrusted you with this position of leadership within this community . . . all I urge you to do is step up to that role that you’ve taken and protect this community and protect your legacy as leaders of this very unique place because once you’ve made this decision, there is no going back.”
