Scotch College bid to build basement carpark in flood zone wins at VCAT

Scotch College has won the right to demolish buildings in a heritage area and redevelop on a flood plain, despite deluge fears.

Scotch College is one of Melbourne’s most prestigious schools. Picture: John Ferguson

One of Victoria’s most prestigious schools has won its battle to build an underground carpark in a flood zone.

Melbourne’s riverside Scotch College was this month given the go-ahead by the Victorian Administrative Appeals Tribunal (VCAT) to construct a basement carpark, despite concerns by authorities over its flood management system.

That system essentially relied on “manually installed planks”, which Melbourne Water could not guarantee would work in a flood, the tribunal heard.

Scotch College — bordered by Gardiners Creek to the south and the Yarra River to the west — “is partly situated on a designated flood plain … parts of the campus are subject to flooding from both watercourses during large flood events,” VCAT documents note.

The Hawthorn site is also covered by a heritage overlay.

“The proposed demolition and works occur within the area described in the application as the Keon Cohen building, within the Scotch College campus … among other changes … (the) application seeks to convert the proposed basement storage to an undercroft carparking area of 18 spaces, linked to the existing science building car park,” the documents state.

The recently redeveloped Keon Cohen precinct revolves around a modern dining hall – replacing its 98-year-old tuckshop – and, according to the school, is a “Scotch agora”.

Scotch College’s McKeon-Cohen dining hall.

The school has described the new hub, which opened earlier this year, as “a meeting place, a marketplace, an informal collision space” where teachers and students “can take time away from routines and let their minds wander to all that might be possible”.

But Melbourne Water feared inundation might be possible in the proposed Keon Cohen underground carpark, because the plank system was “outside the standard measures for flood protection”.

While the school’s redevelopment masterplan had originally gained Melbourne Water and Boroondara Council approval, the authorities opposed its amendment application to swap the basement storage area to a carpark.

Melbourne Water wanted Scotch to assume sole, legal responsibility for any future flooding and “wholly accept the risk to human safety and property associated with flooding in the event that the flood plank system fails,” VCAT members Ian Potts and Peter Gaschk were told.

“(Melbourne Water) says it would be unfair for a publicly funded authority … to bear any costs or damages arising from reliance on such a system in these circumstances (and) on this basis it seeks indemnity against any future liability arising from the failure or fault of that particular system,” they noted.

In granting the college a conditional permit to build the carpark, the tribunal said the school had a detailed, flood plan which aimed to reduce the risk of property damage and human harm across all its grounds.

Scotch College Melbourne is home to some 160 boarders.

“The flood plank system which Melbourne Water holds concerns about, is in fact the last step of a series of actions designed to progressively respond to the nature and extent of any flood event,” the tribunal noted.

It ordered the school provide an updated Flood Response Management Plan (FRMP) for approval before starting further building work and agree to take responsibility for its flood plank mitigation measures, but agreed with Scotch College that responsibility did not need to take the form of a legal agreement, as sought by Melbourne Water.

“The FRMP must include an acknowledgment by the owner of the land that the high flood levels predicted onsite within the Keon Cohen Centre basement from the Yarra River require management of risk in accordance with the FRMP and that the owner is responsible for the FRMP implementation measures including the flood plank wall system,” the tribunal concluded.

A Scotch College spokesperson this week said the points “clarified” in the VCAT decision were relatively minor.

A Melbourne Water spokesperson said the authority had not opposed the underground carpark on principle, “but sought to ensure there was appropriate flood mitigation to ensure the safety of future users of the car park development”.