Merri-bek tries to block Lionsville retirement site tower in neighbouring Moonee Valley Council
City of Merri-bek is trying to block a tower planned for the old Lionsville retirement home site in a neighbouring council.
Victoria
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A Melbourne council will try to torpedo a $165m apartment tower development in the municipality next-door.
Aged care giant Ryman Health wants to build five towers in Essendon in a wedge of land bordered by Moonee Ponds Creek and Five Mile Creek.
It is on the old Lionsville retirement home site which has been levelled in recent years to make way for the planned development.
But the application to the Moonee Valley Council will be opposed by the Merri-bek City Council after a unanimous vote at an extraordinary planning meeting.
Merri-bek sits on the other side of the Moonee Ponds Creek from where Ryman wants to build towers with heights of up to 20.6m.
Among its concerns are that the structures will throw properties within its boundary into shadow.
The site, on 2.5ha on the corner of Pascoe Vale and Moreland roads, was developed as retirement accommodation decades ago.
Local fundraising and grants created what became known as Lionsville, where many local people moved in their twilight years.
Much of the site was crown land.
However, the Lionsville charity bought the land from the state for about $11m and last April sold it to Ryman for about $25.9m, reaping a profit on the transaction of almost $15m.
Lionsville’s lawyer, Greg Thomas of Velocity Legal, said the purchase of the land from the state was funded by an advance on the sale from Ryman.
The purchase from the state was “done through a valuation process, and all the boxes were ticked”, he said.
He said the charity’s directors worked for free and the proceeds would be used to support the needy.
“No-one’s getting any money behind the scenes or anything like that,” he said.
There has been low-key, grassroots resistance to the proposal from many locals.
The Friends of Moonee Ponds Creek group has been letterboxing the area recently urging locals to object.
FMPC said it was concerned about the legality of approving six-storey buildings, the handling of asbestos during clearing of the site and whether indigenous heritage had been properly considered.
“It would be a visual and environmental eyesore of drastic proportions,” the organisation’s leaflet says.
“It would result in massive overshadowing between May and August each year.”
One local said he did not understand how a community asset had wound up being used for a big money development.
“Public land has ended up with a foreign company and there’s been no process and no consultation. How the f**** does that work?” a local said.
“Everyone respected Lionsville. That’s where people went (to retire).”
The Moonee Valley Council had not responded to a series of questions from the Herald Sun about the mooted development by Friday evening.
That was despite the approach for answers being made nine days earlier.
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