Malvern East park: Percy Treyvaud Stadium to be built after covenants removed

It’s been a four-year saga that’s divided Stonnington. But could the much-fought over new netball stadium be a step closer to fruition?

A proposed netball and basketball stadium at Percy Treyvaud Memorial Park is a step closer. Picture: Hamish Blair

A contentious $26.7 million sports stadium in Melbourne’s inner east is a step closer after the local council won a Supreme Court battle to build near residents’ homes.

Stonnington Council has won the right to remove historical covenants preventing work at Malvern East’s Percy Treyvaud Memorial Park, which also covered neighbouring properties.

The covenants were introduced in the 1920s to prevent quarrying and meant the council could not progress with a planned underground carpark.

It went to court to get the covenants removed, with 23 people including local residents objecting to the plan, leading to a three-day trial in November and December last year.

Associate Justice Mary-Jane Ierodiaconou handed down her judgment on March 1, declaring the covenants were “obsolete” and did not “operate to ensure the continued use of the subject land as a neighbourhood park nor to maintain open space”.

“I do not accept the defendants’ submissions that the covenants, properly construed, provide them with ancillary benefits such as the maintenance of the existing parkland and the character of the neighbourhood,” she said.

“The covenants do not operate to prevent construction or development of the subject land.

“For the foregoing reasons I will allow the plaintiff’s application for discharge of the

covenants.”

The proposed stadium is set to boast four netball and basketball courts and has been the subject of a four-year saga.

The council commissioned a review of alternative sites while the Supreme Court case was being heard, including East Malvern RSL sub-branch, Holmesglen Tafe and on top of a parking lot at Chadstone shopping centre.

Stonnington chief executive Jacqui Weatherill said a final decision on the stadium’s location would be made in April.

“Regardless of whether a basketball and netball stadium is constructed at the site (the park), this decision paves the way for possible future upgrades to the community bowls club, tennis club or sportsground pavilion,” she said.

In a post on the ‘Residents Against the Stadium’ Facebook page, the group hoped the project’s recently-formed site review committee would “acknowledge that the location is wrong”.

“The current decision regarding the location sees no winners,” they wrote.

“Prahran Netball Club wants their courts in Prahran. The Stonnington community want their parks and trees left alone. Ratepayers want their money spent wisely and cost effectively.”