Buckingham Arms Hotel owners want Walkerville Tce site rezoned for housing
The Buckingham Arms Hotel is an easily recognisable sight on the city ring route – but its owners want the site rezoned so it can be turned into houses.
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The owner of the Buckingham Arms – which had its beginnings as a hotel in the 1840s – want the site rezoned to pave the way for a housing or aged-care development.
The Matthews Group, which owns the hotel, is funding a Development Plan Amendment to attempt to get the property’s zoning changed to allow for medium and high density living, which could include a nursing home.
The Gilberton site is currently zoned local centre, which limits buildings to two storeys.
It comes as Walkerville Council this month accepted a request from the Matthews Group to employ its own consultant to investigate whether the Buckingham Arms building warranted its local heritage listing.
“Discussions with senior administration of council have revealed that the heritage value of the
Buckingham Arms Hotel has been significantly compromised by the dilapidation of the building and more recent unsympathetic alterations and additions,” a letter from the consultant to the council said.
The hotel, at 1 Walkerville Tce, opened for business around 1846, according to a Walkerville heritage survey.
From 1869 it was owned by the Simpson family, who sold it to Seymour Matthews in 1955.
A year after taking the hotel over, Mr Matthews introduced the popular “value for money” smorgasbord, that the Buckingham Arms is still known for today.
It was given a local heritage listing in 2007 because it contributed to the character of Walkerville and Northcote Tce.
Cr Marylou Bishop said she supported the zoning change, so long as any future development “was not ugly”.
“It is a fantastic concept and I am really looking forward to plans they are putting forward and the fact they want to work closely with council,” Cr Bishop said.
“But I don’t want it higher than five storeys and I don’t want the facade to go – what they put behind there is at their discretion.”
Mayor Elizabeth Fricker said the proposal came out of “left field” and that she would be guided by the community to form an opinion on what should happen at the site.
If the council supports the DPA, it then goes to the State Government for final approval.
The Matthews Group did not respond to The Advertiser’s questions, including whether the building would be entirely demolished or its historic facade kept, should the DPA go ahead.
The company also owns the Feathers and Maylands hotels, among others.