St Kilda Park Primary School and Fitzroy St business owners fight with City of Port Phillip over toilet block development

A dispute over a planned toilet block development has reached boiling point at a council meeting in Melbourne’s inner south.

The dispute over the location of a planned public toilet development has spilt into a council meeting, dividing councillors and residents in the City of Port Phillip. Image: Gemma Scerri ​

A council meeting has turned nasty as parents and residents fought for their voices to be heard over the “deplorable” plan to build a public toilet block just 100m from a primary school entrance. 

The City of Port Phillip has been fighting for the past 14 years over the location of the development, citing requests made by locals and shoppers in the area for access to a public toilet.

Despite there being a history of public toilets being developed and later demolished due to public safety issues, the council claims this development would be different.

During the June council meeting, parents of children at St Kilda Park Primary School and business owners from Fitzroy St rallied together to protest against the toilet block proposal.

Among them was Hannah Lawson, the vice president of the school council at St Kilda Park Primary, alongside multiple residents, and business owner Darren Robinson.

“The council has reported ongoing challenges with cleaning up human waste. The areas identified are not in the vicinity of the proposed block, but closer to other proposed locations. Could these locations be revisited, as the additional cleaning is still needed in that area?” Ms Lawson asked.

“The current community safety crisis on parts of Fitzroy Street, including high levels of open drug use, dealing and violent and threatening behaviour is far from normal.”

Mr Robinson also slammed the council for its claims that design changes would curb illegal activities and revamp the area.

“You will not prevent anti-social behaviours through your design principles — a toilet block will not revitalise Fitzroy St,” he said.

Deputy Mayor Tim Baxter chastised the complaints, saying “there seems to be this argument that toilets create crime out of thin air — there is no evidence for that at all”.

“This is driven by people who want to talk down the area, who are annoyed that they have to look at people with serious issues,” he said.

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