By Cam Lucadou-Wells
Environment groups have called for the State Government to publicly reject Keysborough Golf Club’s push to rezone its Green Wedge course for housing.
The club plans to shift to 256-356 Pillars Road, pocket a windfall of up to $40 million and has offered a massive 71-hectare sports precinct nearby to Greater Dandenong Council.
It rides on whether its current course at Hutton Road, which lies just outside the Urban Growth Boundary, can be rezoned for a housing estate of up to 1100 dwellings.
Last month, a spokesperson for Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny reiterated the Government’s general support for Green Wedge policy and the Urban Growth Boundary.
Greater Dandenong Environment Group president Isabelle Nash says the Government should be more specific.
“In 2016 when there was a similar rezoning push the then Planning Minister Richard Wynne gave a clear no” she said.
“We are looking for the same clear direction from the current Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny”.
Ms Nash rejected the golf club’s claims that its course was a Green Wedge “anomaly” or “infill development” within an established suburb.
“The Government has spent the last 20 years agreeing it is not (an anomaly).
“Once you move the Urban Growth Boundary for one landowner , hundreds of others will argue for the same treatment, including land owners south of Hutton Road.”
The course was a “key site of canopy cover in a municipality that has so little”. It contained remnant plains grassy woodland with culturally-significant Aboriginal scar trees and artefacts, Ms Nash said.
Defenders of the South East Green Wedge spokesperson Matthew Kirwan also called on the Minister to “clear up the situation” on the “misleading” anomaly reference.
“Instead it is the land bridge between the Kingston Green Wedge and the Greater Dandenong Green Wedge – critical to the Defenders of the South East Green Wedge mission to preserve the integrity of the South East Green Wedge” he said.
Greater Dandenong city planning director Jody Bosman told a council meeting last month that a UBG anomalies advisory committee found the site was not a Green Wedge anomaly in 2012 – despite councillors at the time pushing for it.
He said the golf club land would meet the definition of “infill development”.
“The UGB just prevents the further spread of urban development but it would still qualify as underutilised land within an urban area.”
Mr Bosman rejected that the council had a “conflict of interest” due to being the potential beneficiary of a sporting hub from Keysborough Golf Club.
“Many planning scheme amendments have the potential to benefit Council in various ways, including the provision of new community infrastructure that might occur if this proposal is approved by the Minister for Planning.
“I do not see any need to get legal advice on it.”
Keysborough Golf Club captain Darrell Swindells recently told Star Journal last month that “like the Government, we accept there’s a Green Wedge but we think our site is an anomaly”.
The site was “nothing like most people imagine as Green Wedge”.
“It’s an infill site in a middle-ring suburb, surrounded by existing housing and major roads.
“Listening to what the Government wants, the best way to solve our housing shortage is infill.”
The State Government had also set up a Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee to advise on re-purposing golf courses inside and outside the UGB, he noted.
