A PLAN to transform a huge beachside Dromana site, including a former holiday park, into 69 homes has been approved despite strong community opposition.
Mornington Peninsula Shire councillors have given the green light for the 1.7-hectare site to be developed at 105-113 Point Nepean Rd that comprises eight allotments of varying sizes, one of which was formerly used as a service station and the Kangerong Holiday Park.
The plans, endorsed at council’s 17 December meeting despite receiving 79 objections, proposes a mix of three and four-bedroom residences across two-storey buildings, each providing private open space and garages that have two car parking spaces. It would also have open spaces including a playground, barbecue, and outdoor seating area and a “community sustainable zone and food production area”.
Under the plans, internal pedestrian paths would connect the development with the existing public footpath on the western side of Kangerong Ave.
But the development proposes not to include any social or affordable housing. Several trees would also be removed as there are no vegetation controls in place except for the front portion of the site. According to the plans, “the subject site provides an opportunity to facilitate diverse housing of higher density that could provide a wider housing choice for residents”.
Joseph Indomenico, senior principal at Tract Consultants Melbourne planning team, which acts on behalf of the site’s owner and applicant, Samuel Property, addressed the council meeting saying “that we have met a really high bar” with the application. “Both the Samuel Property and the wider project team are acutely aware of the responsibility that is before us on a site that is very prominent and very important on the gateway entry to Dromana,” he said. “The application is a result of an extensive and highly collaborative pre-lodgement and assessment process with councils’ technical staff, as well as some voluntary community engagement that Samuel Property undertook with the community very early in the application process.”
But residents have raised several issues, chief among them being the scale and bulk of the development, loss of coastal character, increased traffic and lack of parking with a total of only 13 parking spaces being provided. Other concerns included noise, loss of tourism from the closure of the holiday park, no affordable housing, insufficient infrastructure, construction impacts, a lack of parking for local business customers, and overshadowing impacts.
Further objections cited amenity loss, privacy impacts, building on contaminated land (former petrol station), homes being used for Airbnb’s and therefore leading to increased parties and crime, as well as concerns of stormwater runoff into the beach, vegetation loss and flooding from the site being flood prone.
Despite the backlash, a council report said the overall proposed development “is considered complementary to the surrounding prevailing neighbourhood character”. It was also “considered tokenistic to provide a range of sizes and types that only cater to larger, family or group-oriented occupants of dwellings,” it noted.
However, the council’s transport team did not support the proposal due to traffic concerns at the intersection of Kangerong Ave and Point Nepean Rd and that the proposal would not maintain direct access to Point Nepean Rd – but the determining authority, the Department of Transport, did not hold this view. The existing crossings to Point Nepean Rd would be removed but a crossing at 8 Joan Ave would be kept.
Parking was a point of contention at the meeting and whether 13 parking spaces was enough, but Indomenico said, “one of the key drivers for the layout of the site was to provide as much green space on site as possible” and that visitor parking complied with the planning scheme. But Cr Ranken believed council should look at “increasing that substantially, maybe, 18 to 20 (parking spaces) or even more”. “I think being a holiday destination and noting that there could be Airbnb’s down there and all sorts of stuff, we need to be aware that there’s going to be additional traffic, additional parking on roads, which then creates safety issues,” he said.
Cr Patten, who was the only dissenting councillor, asked why the proposal did not include affordable housing to which Indomenico responded, “we accept that affordable housing is a statewide issue, but considering the planning controls that apply to the site, the application has been made to comply with those requirements”.
Indomenico said it was hoped the development, if approved, would start in the new year. On 20 November last year, the developer lodged an appeal with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) for council’s failure to grant a permit within a prescribed time. But the council report stated that in recommending that the application was supported, “council advise the VCAT and the relevant parties that it would have issued a notice of decision to grant a permit”.
First published in the Mornington News – 14 January 2025
