Wyndham Council pushes for school to be built on Woods Rd, despite government pulling out

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny has been called in to play referee in a game of “political football” between a developer and a council in Melbourne’s booming west over a heated land dispute.

A council in Melbourne’s booming west and a developer are locked in an ugly land battle, with councillors desperate for a school to be built on a site despite the government having no interest.

It comes as the Allan government notified Wyndham City Council it would consider reclassifying land at Woods Rd, Truganina from a “potential government school site” to “residential” at the request of developer Intrapac Ellarook after more than a year of legal disputes with council.

The government abandoned plans to build the Forsyth Creek primary school at the Woods Rd site — owned by Intrapac — in 2023, saying at the time that a larger block of land purchased 400m away would be a better option for a school — where it built Warreen Primary School.

An attempt by Intrapac to then build on the Woods Rd site was opposed by council and unsuccessfully appealed at VCAT last year, with the developer taking the fight to the Supreme Court.

That case is scheduled to be heard next month.

But last week council was told Intrapac had requested Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny use powers under the Planning and Environment Act to amend the planning scheme and reclassify the land.

Warreen Primary School opened in 2024 at the site the government chose to build on over Woods Rd, Truganina. Picture: Department of Education

Wyndham councillor Preet Singh said reclassifying the site would be “disastrous” for Truganina which “lacked important infrastructure like schools”.

“I don’t know why the government thinks it’s a good idea to put more pressure on growth suburbs like ours with more housing when we clearly lack infrastructure. Schools being a vital infrastructure,” he said.

“I can name several schools in Wyndham that are severely overcrowded. I live locally and my kids go to schools in Truganina. There has been a lack of parking for teachers and parents, it’s chock-a-block and all the problems have been put on council to manage.

“Having more housing there will not improve anything.”

Intrapac chief executive Max Shifman said the company had planned for a school to be built on the site and the “logical” response after the government pulled out was to build additional housing.

“We’ve been holding that land for a potential school since 2017 and every year we’d ask the government if they wanted a school there and they would say ‘no, not this year’ and then they made the call to buy a bigger site which now has that school (Warreen Primary School),” Mr Shifman said.

“We always wanted to provide a school here but the state wrote to us that they did an analysis and didn’t want our site, so we needed to find an alternative use and the only logical use for that location is to turn it into additional housing which would be useful during a housing crisis.

“You can’t have a scenario where you have a piece of land sitting there in infinite hiatus which is what the current planning documentation leaves us with.”

Construction at the Ellarook estate owned by Intrapac at Truganina. Picture: Intrapac

Mr Shifman said the Wyndham councillors had turned the matter into “political football”.

“We made the initial submission thinking common sense would prevail and we didnt make the application for more than six months while we discussed with council officers what our plans were and we even went to the local community to see if there were other potential education uses for the site and we couldn’t identify any,” he said.

Truganina father of two Sarfaraz Shaikh said schools were needed more in Truganina than an “oversupply” of houses, worrying overcrowded classrooms would have a negative impact on education.

“If it’s an overcrowded classroom, teachers and the school cannot give proper attention to all the kids,” he said.

“(The government) wants to build new estates without any plans for the schools, or if there was a plan, they’d cancel it — that’s pretty disappointing.”

Mr Shaikh also said Truganina lacked secondary schools.

“There is already pressure on the education system here. Even in the old estates, there are not enough (primary) or secondary schools,” he said.

Mr Shaikh said the state government did “not care about the quality of life” in the west, particularly in areas with high migrant populations like Truganina and Tarneit.

At a council meeting on Tuesday, Wyndham councillors unanimously voted to write to the planning minister and object the amendment.

Councillors will also ask that the government to purchase the site and put it on the market for non-government schools to build there.

Labor MP Sarah Connolly — the Member for Laverton — posted on social media that she had “deep reservations about the relinquement” of the site.

“I will be advocating strongly for more community and public spaces for Truganina. I will be urgently raising this with the Minister,” she said.

Council research revealed by 2041 Wyndham would need 74 government schools to meet the government’s school provision ratio of one public school per 3000 dwellings.

In 2025 Wyndham had 49 government schools, with another three scheduled to open next year.

The Herald Sun previously revealed — on current trends — Wyndham would have a shortfall of six schools by 2031, with this blowing out to 16 by 2041 amid a population growth.

By 2036 Wyndham was projected to have 475,000 residents, making it the largest growth corridor in the state.

According to council data Wyndham had 14 babies born every day — enough newborns to fill nearly five primary school classes a week.

A Victorian government spokeswoman said all submissions would be considered before a decision was made.

“We will consider the council’s submission and advice from the Department of Education before making a decision about reclassifying the site,” she said.