By Cassandra Morgan and Alexander Darling
Off a busy main road bordered by fuel tanks and bleak industrial sites, a buzzing community is marked by brick flats and dotted with trees – and it’s the residents’ “slice of paradise”.
After two years of fighting eviction by the local council, residents of the storied Techno Park Drive industrial estate in Williamstown have been allowed to continue living in their homes.
Techno Park Drive residents (fom left) Arnie Hindhaugh, Matt Robinson, Nida and Vincent Schirripa and Lara Week in 2024.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Thursday’s decision applies to one of five blocks of units on the estate, which had housed refugees and migrants since World War II before it was sold on the private market in the late 1980s and rezoned as an industrial area.
Residents received notices to vacate their homes in May 2023 after the council suddenly enforced the 37-year-old rezoning order, meaning they were not legally allowed to live there.
Hobsons Bay Mayor Daria Kellander announced on Thursday that the council had approved applications by residents to stay in their homes.
“This is a great outcome for those living in this section of Techno Park. I’m really pleased that they now have more certainty over their future,” Kellander wrote in a statement on Facebook.
“We will continue to work with the rest of the residents within Techno Park to resolve this issue.”
The block where residents can now stay, block 11, has about 25 units. Residents including 65-year-old Matt Robinson felt relief after the years of fighting, as well as hope for other residents yet to learn their fate.
Residents are confident the same council ruling will apply to the four other blocks on Techno Park Drive.
They were given fresh hope in February 2024 when the state government amended the planning scheme so that councils explicitly had to recognise “existing use” rights, meaning they could not compel people to stop using land if that land had been used in a certain way continuously for more than 15 years.
Residents and supporters of Techno Park Drive rallying outside the Hobsons Bay Civic Centre in 2023.Credit: Joe Armao
This allowed the residents of Techno Park Drive to claim existing use, even if individuals had lived at the site for less than 15 years.
The campaign to save the blocks has amassed hundreds of followers online.
“From where I am right now, it would probably take me 40 seconds, and I can walk up onto a bike track and get a view of the whole bay,” Robinson said. “And then if you follow the bike track around, it takes you all the way to Point Cook if you want to.”
He has a small workshop and does maintenance for his block.
“It’s like a little paradise tucked away from everywhere. And the people here are fantastic,” he said. “This is what people can do if they band together and fight.”
Organiser Lara Week is working with her neighbours to prepare applications for the remaining blocks, including the one she lives in, and said Techno Park Drive residents recognised their fight was one of many housing battles in Victoria.
“We see this as part of a much bigger struggle for housing justice.” Week said. “Right now there are residents of 44 public housing blocks across Melbourne also fighting eviction by the state government … and so we also hope, [with] what we’ve been able to achieve together, we’re able to support other people in the community fighting the same kind of struggle.”
Kellander said Hobsons Bay City Council was awaiting further applications for other properties within Techno Park to confirm whether existing use rights had been established for those properties.
Residents have until January next year to apply for a certificate of compliance.
The battle to save their homes had brought the community together, Robinson said, adding that he hoped to gather with his neighbours to celebrate once the full fight was resolved.
“If this had never happened, I wouldn’t know the people up the road,” he said.
Upon issuing the notices to vacate in 2023, Hobsons Bay said the decision came after complaints from WorkSafe, fuel company Mobil and the Environment Protection Authority over the previous 12 months, though at the time none of these three confirmed to The Age that they had made complaints.
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