MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire Council is pushing ahead with its plan to amend the planning scheme to protect the peninsula from inappropriate development.
The council’s proposed Amendment C270morn, if passed by planning minister Lizzie Blandthorn, will ensure nine parcels of special use’ zoned land better align with its council and wellbeing plan’s theme of healthy natural environment and well-planned townships that are “resilient to the climate emergency and development”.
Under the amendment four sites – including the home of the former Melbourne Business School in Kunyung Road Mount Eliza – will be rezoned green wedge, two to public park and recreation zone, and one to public conservation and resource zone.
Four of the sites, which includes two inside the urban growth boundary, will be removed from the schedule to the core green wedge provisions (clause 51.02), which excludes the need for the land to adhere to green wedge planning requirements and land uses.
Despite an independent planning panel’s recommendation that the Kunyung Road land – the site of a proposed retirement village by Ryman Healthcare – not be included in the amendment, on Monday 31 October councillors unanimously voted to include the site.
Ryman Healthcare is currently appealing the council’s earlier rejection of its development plans for the site, but the outcome of the Amendment C270morn is certain to change what the land can be used for.
The aged care/retirement centre developer bought the 8.9-hectare site, complete with Moondah mansion, from Melbourne university in 2016 for close to $40 million.
For 59 years the site was allowed to operate as an education centre under a special use zoning which kept it separate to the surrounding green wedge zone.
Ryman’s general manager of development David Laing said the planning panel’s report “speaks for itself and we welcome its finding”.
Laing said Ryman remained focused on the VCAT hearing (which has now concluded) and was working “constructively through that process so the tribunal can make a decision based on the facts”.
VCAT is expected to hand down its decision on the appeal within weeks.
Laing said described the historic Moondah mansion as a “local heritage treasure”, saying Ryman was excited at the possibility of fully restoring it and “placing it at the heart of a community that provides the care and support older Mount Eliza locals deserve”.
However, at last Monday’s public council meeting an officer’s report stated that the green wedge and inter-urban breaks applied to all land outside the urban growth boundary, and that the special use zone was a “legacy zoning” that could result in “defacto urbanisation” if left unchanged.
The report disagreed with the planning panel’s findings that there was no “strategic justification for the amendment as it relates to 60–70 Kunyung Road, Mount Eliza”, but accepted the planning panel’s recommendation not to rezone the Scouts Victoria land in Hearn Road Mount Martha (where the scouts had canvassed with council plans for a retirement development and aged care facility) due to “outstanding bushfire risk issues” raised by the CFA.
Council will now submit its recommendations on the amendment to Planning Minister Lizzie Blandthorn who cannot make a decision before the state election.
Objectors to the Kunyung Road development are also focused on gaining the support of election candidates in their bid to have the 60-70 Kunyung Road site and others protected from over-development.
All candidates have publicly stated their support for the green wedge amendment.
Apart from 60-70 Kunyung Road, Mount Eliza, the amendment applies to the area listed as Sunnyside Beach off Sunnyside Road Mount Eliza (the area in front of the Ryman site); 50A McGregor Avenue, Mount Martha (South East Water easement); 19 Tallis Drive, Mornington (Mornington Golf Course) where the planning panel rejected residential development along Tallis Road; 46 London Bridge Road, Portsea (Portsea Golf Course); 35 Sunnyside Road, Mount Eliza (Manyung Recreation Camp); 3875 Point Nepean Road (Point Nepean National Park); 74-76 Marine Parade, Shoreham (Mentone Grammar School); and 62 Oakbank Road, Mornington (Padua Catholic College).
First published in the Southern Peninsula News – 8 November 2022
