Wantirna Caravan Park resident wins right to stay at home: VCAT hearing
A RESIDENT at the recently-closed Wantirna Caravan Park has won a David and Goliath battle that will allow him to stay at the property for another year.
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A RESIDENT at the recently-closed Wantirna Caravan Park has won a David and Goliath battle that will allow him to stay at the property for another year.
Property developer the LongRiver Group bought the park for $35.6 million in August 2016 and evicted almost 200 residents without compensation on January 8.
It has plans for a $304 million housing development of 294 dwellings on the site.
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But in a plot reminiscent of classic movie The Castle, David Filliponi took his fight for his home to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal — and won.
He is now the sole resident at the once-lively family park, with his home surrounded by abandoned sites and rubble.
“It’s just so wrong what they have done to innocent people,” Mr Filliponi said. “I was going to let it all go, but thought: ‘No, this is my right’.
“They haven’t paid anyone a cent. I’m not going anywhere until they give me back some of my losses.”
Representing himself, Mr Filliponi, 57, successfully argued at VCAT that LongRiver had failed to follow the correct procedure in delivering his eviction notice.
By law, the notice is meant to be handed directly to the tenant. But it was given to his daughter.
“Everyone told me, as the little guy, I didn’t have a chance,” he said.
“So when I won, I thought: ‘You flamin’ beauty’. I think it has really knocked them off their feet.”
The win meant LongRiver had to again give Mr Filliponi 365 days’ notice to vacate.
In January, Barry Bedwell, 81, was given another year to vacate on the same technicality, but while he is still paying rent and visits daily, he moved out last year into a unit closer to his wife’s retirement home.
Mr Filliponi and Mr Bedwell both say the only way they will leave the park sooner is if the new owners pay them the value of their houses: $130,000 and $160,000 respectively.
MORE: Wantirna Caravan Park’s Barry Bedwell, 81, takes on developer and wins
He said he now wants the owner to refill the swimming pool and reinstate other facilities, including the knocked down library, at the park.
The win has put a spanner in the works for the new owner’s plans for a $304 million housing development on the land.
Any future development will now have to be put on hold.
LongRiver Group director Andrew Yu, who has avoided speaking publicly about the site, could not be contacted.
On Thursday, project manager Josh Taylor, from property and infrastructure specialists APP, would not discuss the development when contacted by the Herald Sun.
“I can’t comment on it, it’s as simple as that,” he said before hanging up.
Planning approval for the construction of 294 dwellings at the Mountain Highway site was knocked back by Knox Council in July last year.
The council said the development proposed failed “to comply with multiple elements of the Knox Planning Scheme and is considered by (the) council to be an overdevelopment of the site”.
An appeal was lodged with VCAT. It’s decision is yet to be handed down.
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