A WOULD-be Newport developer is hoping to be third time lucky after two previous plans were rejected by the Hobsons Bay Council and the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
The Weekly understands that Domain Hill, which wants to put a multi-storey residential building on the former Newport Timber Yard, has hired a public relations firm to garner community favour the third time round.
Managing director Peter Cahill told the Weekly he would be “happy to talk in due course but not at the moment. I’d prefer our lines of communication to be direct with residents at this stage.”
Domain Hill first proposed a three-storey, 46-dwelling development for 6 Paine Street.
As reported by the Weekly, after it was knocked back by the council, residents said they felt “blackmailed” by a developer’s letter which indicated that if residents did not accept a new design, a four-storey, 136-dwelling social housing complex could be built without council approval. The council denied this could happen.
The developer’s second proposal was for a four-storey, 42-dwelling apartment block.
More than 360 objections were lodged against the second plan.
Protect Newport member Anthony Simmons said the latest plan was “essentially the same overdevelopment”.
“They’ve failed to submit an appropriately sized proposal that respects the neighbourhood character and surrounding predominantly single-storey homes. It remains a single, massive building containing 43 units, occupying most of the site, up to three storeys, plus a fourth-level rooftop deck and staircase structures.
“It’s not a compromise at all. In actual fact, they’ve gone up one unit.”
