By Cam Lucadou-Wells
After a decade of planning battles and redrafts, a developer has won a permit to build three-storey townhouses at 66 Herbert Street Dandenong.
The seven terrace units from WCL Development Pty Ltd come after a VCAT win in 2013, an expired permit, a refusal from Greater Dandenong Council and finally a refusal from VCAT for a three-storey, 13-dwelling apartment block on the site in April 2021.
WCL director William Lay, says he’s a small developer who has lived in Greater Dandenong all of his life.
He had been confident of winning the VCAT hearing given there were several taller apartments nearby.
However he was shocked when VCAT senior member Bill Sibonis ruled that the “bulky” three-storey apartment block didn’t suit the northern “edge” of central Dandenong’s “substantial change area”.
There was no dispute that increased density housing of up to four storeys was permitted in the Residential Growth Zone 2, Mr Sibonis stated.
However the “large and bulky” structure with shallow setbacks and expanses of “unrelieved wall planes” didn’t fit in with the “incremental change” area on the opposite side of the street.
“A more tempered built form is required,” Mr Sibonis stated.
Two previous applications for a three-storey building on the site were made in 2011 and 2014.
The first was refused by the council, the second was issued a permit by VCAT but had since expired.
Along the way, he pared down a more “cutting-edge” apartment building design as he sought but didn’t win approval in 2021.
“My family is a migrant family. And I see a lot of migrants just trying to get started, and there’s a lot of crumby old houses around Dandenong.
“I figured that I could make these townhouses and apartments with modern fittings and fixtures.
“We went for a design that you’d see in Glen Iris and Malvern – but it was too cutting edge.”
The ill-fated VCAT hearing – with the hire of barristers and experts in planning, traffic and landscaping – cost about $40,000.
Mr Lay says he expects to make a loss on the site. And that’s even with the hope that “the market doesn’t crash with the interest rate rise”.
After going back to the drawing board, the latest permit for a similarly bulky but blander townhouse project was quietly granted by a Greater Dandenong planning delegate on 23 December.
When asked why it was decided by councillors at a public meeting, city planning director Jody Bosman said the application “received only one objection, and was determined in accordance with relevant planning legislation and delegations”.
Mr Lay said he expected construction to start by July.
Unlike the stereotypical developer, he’s not greedy, and he’s not after a quick buck, he says.
“I feel that I do want to change things slowly. I’m not going to build the same thing as has been there in the past 5-10 years.”
