By Cam Lucadou-Wells
A $25 million deadline appears to have expired for the former owners of Kingswood Golf Course in Dingley Village.
Peninsula Kingswood Golf Club were set to gain the ‘bonus’ if the 54-hectare site’s proposed housing redevelopment was approved by 5 September.
The date was set eight years after the $125 million sale to superannuation-funded AustralianSuper Residential Properties.
However as of 9 September, alternative Planning Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has yet to decide the matter.
Ms D’Ambrosio was given charge of the application in July after recently-installed Planning Minister Lizzie Blandthorn recused herself due to the “risk of a conflict of interest”.
Save Kingswood Group member Kevin Poulter said it was a “small achievement” and “karma” after many years of opposition from MPs, Kingston Council and community groups against the proposed 823-dwelling estate.
He questioned why successive Planning Ministers had sat on a Golf Course Redevelopment committee’s report on the issue for six months.
“This leads to the common belief in the South East that it’s become a hot political football.
“If the decision is for little or no development, is it being withheld until closer to polling day, for political advantage?
“Or will the Labor Planning Minister withhold bad news for residents until after the election? The latter would be seen as deception by over 10,000 Dingley Village residents.”
An AustralianSuper spokesperson declined to comment on the $25 million bonus clause due to “commercial confidentiality”.
Star News also emailed Peninsula Kingswood Golf Club for comment.
According to a 2020 newsletter by the PKGC, the $25 million would have been paid into the club’s Future Fund three years after the site’s rezoning.
It’s believed that PKGC members have been since assured of the club’s strong financial position despite the deadline’s expiry.
Members were told that Ms D’Ambrosio had been briefed of the deadline’s importance to the golf club, and that the club was seeking possible legal options, such as a bid for compensation.
Since the 2014 sale, objectors have argued against the loss of vast green space, increased flooding risk, and traffic congestion.
The developer’s plans to rezone the fairways as well as gain a planning permit for a housing estate were heard at a state planning advisory committee hearing in 2021.
The committee’s report was handed to then-Planning Minister Richard Wynne in March. He didn’t announce a decision before his sudden departure from the Cabinet in June.
His successor Ms Blandthorn announced she would recuse herself from any planning decision involving or mentioning a client of lobby firm Hawker Britton due to her brother John-Paul Blandthorn being a director.
This includes the protracted and hotly-opposed Kingswood Golf Course application.
The State Opposition has vowed to reject the project if the Government failed to make a decision prior to the state election.
