Plans for two new apartment towers inside the historic bluestone walls of Coburg’s Pentridge Prison are being opposed by Merri-bek City Council, which argues the developer is attempting to overshoot agreed height limits set out in a masterplan 10 years ago.
The council voted unanimously last week to reject an 11-storey and a 12-storey apartment building containing 245 units.
A render of one of Shayher Group’s proposed new residential towers behind Pentridge’s historic bluestone walls.Credit: Shayher Group/ Merri-bek Council
Pentridge closed as a prison in 1997. Brisbane-based Shayher Group, part of the giant Taiwanese apartment developer Par Jar Group, acquired the northern half of the prison site in 2013.
In the decade since, large parts of the site were developed, including construction of a shopping mall, cinema, 19-storey apartment tower, townhouses and the 16-storey Adina apartment hotel.
A masterplan for redevelopment of the prison prepared by Shayher and signed off by the state government in 2014 contains “proposed” – not mandatory – height limits of eight and nine storeys for the two buildings known as Building 1 and Building 2 facing onto Champ Street.
In 2022, Shayher submitted applications for the buildings to Merri-bek Council with one additional storey each (nine and 10 storeys respectively).
A spokeswoman for the council said Merri-bek planning officers had indicated support for the original application even though it was one storey above the preferred limit, but the application was on hold while the developer worked through heritage issues with Heritage Victoria.
Then in December last year, Shayher resubmitted plans with a further two storeys included on each building.
The council did not make a decision on the permit within its designated 60-day timeframe, and Shayher took the matter to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal earlier this year.
On Wednesday, councillors voted to oppose the application at VCAT, arguing three storeys more than the preferred height would make the development too bulky and cast too much shadow.
The proposal also did not include ground-floor commercial or retail space to activate nearby courtyards as intended under the masterplan.
AP Planning consultant Annabel Paul, who spoke on behalf of Shayher Group at the meeting, argued that the building heights in the masterplan were not maximum limits, and plans for retail and commercial space had contained the caveat “subject to market conditions”.
“While we agree that the overall vision for the whole of the Pentridge site includes a range of uses, this is not to apply to every building within the precinct,” she said.
“It is simply not viable or desirable in our view to provide retail in every building across the site.”
Paul said the proposal was generally in accordance with the masterplan and would provide 245 new homes in Coburg that were clearly required in a housing crisis.
The state government has committed to delivering 80,000 homes a year for the next decade, arguing increasing supply will address the state’s housing affordability crisis.
Greens councillor Mark Riley said while there was a housing crisis, the design should not be “this high and this bulky, behind bluestone Pentridge walls.
“There’s huge buildings up close to the fence … it’s going to really change the feel of that street with these imposing buildings,” he said.
The vision of the future Pentridge precinct as set out in the 2014 masterplan.Credit: Pentridge Coburg Masterplan 2014
Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton said there were “no fantastic elements of this development that would justify the developer just trying to make big bucks out of going way over the height limit”.
Pentridge’s bluestone walls incarcerated some of the state’s most infamous criminals for nearly 150 years, including Ned Kelly and Chopper Read.
Shayher Group did not respond to requests for comment. The matter returns to VCAT on May 31.
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