By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Greater Dandenong councillors have voted down a proposed 102-dwelling estate, citing concerns about adding further cars on Chapel Road, Keysborough.
Developer PEET’s submission to subdivide the 4.1 hectares of L-shaped former farmland was rejected 6 votes to 4 at a council meeting on 15 February.
Under its plans, PEET were to build 58 dwellings at 182 Chapel Road and sell the remaining 44 lots for dwellings built to prescribed guidelines.
Opposing councillors raised concerns including the scale of development, traffic, emergency vehicle access and impact on “sensitive” wetlands to the north.
Keysborough South Ward councillor Rhonda Garad said the estate was “directly opposite” Keysborough Gardens Primary School – already packed with drivers at school pick-up times.
She estimated at least 200 extra vehicles would be added to an “already extremely congested road network”.
Keysborough Ward councillor Tim Dark upped the ante to potentially 400 extra resident vehicles due to the estate’s high number of four-bedroom homes.
It was a “significant amount of townhouses in an area already dense with townhouses”, he said.
The estate’s design, including the single entry point without traffic lights, posed problems for emergency vehicles.
“I’d be significantly worried about how the local fire brigade would get in and out of this development.
“This development … could potentially cause the loss of a life if something were to go drastically wrong.”
In favour, Springvale North Ward councillor Sean O’Reilly said it provided “much-needed housing” but conceded there were “valid” points against the project.
It was unfortunate that under the Planning Code, average traffic movements were assessed, not peak-time traffic, he said.
“However we’re bound by the Planning Code. It’s really futile to make objections to an application that meets the Planning Code.”
Greater Dandenong’s planning department had recommended approving a permit after negotiating amendments over the past two years.
City planning director Jody Bosman said engineers from the council and Department of Transport agreed that the project’s parking and traffic impacts met the “relevant requirements”.
In negotiations, Greater Dandenong planning officers had reduced the proposed lots down from 140, Mr Bosman said.
The proposal had been “vastly improved on what may have been approved by VCAT”.
They “arrived at a suitable balance” between two-, three- and four-bedroom dwellings.
“Considerable” work had been done to minimise vegetation loss, to protect five of the six remnant large trees on the site’s perimeter, and for a 0.12 hectare park within the estate.
Meanwhile, 338 dwellings are planned in four “super sites” at 182, 185, 199-209 and 220 Chapel Road, Mr Bosman said.
Each estate had been through a “full planning assessment”, including traffic, environment and infrastructure matters. Each of them complied with the planning scheme, he said.
Mr Bosman said it was open to PEET to appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
