Stockland's Proposal & TAG's Concerns
Speculators propose an over-development at Tooronga
Coles Myer Limited and Sydney-based developer Stockland are proposing a massive over-development on the Tooronga Village site at the intersection of Tooronga Road and Toorak Road in the heart of Melbourne's inner east. This over-development will profit the developers, but at the cost of residential amenity, and it will worsen traffic problems in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, including Hawthorn, Camberwell, Glen Iris and Malvern.
The Tooronga site is situated on the fringe of the City of Boroondara and within the Glen Iris postal district.
The land includes an existing outdated shopping centre ("Tooronga Village") and the old Tooronga
brickworks/quarry site adjoining the Monash freeway.
Coles Myer currently owns the shopping centre and the Brickworks site, although it does not own the adjoining
Coles Myer National Headquarters office building in Toorak Road
which it occupies as a tenant.
In 2001, the local planning authority (the Boroondara Council) appointed a working group to develop an Urban Design Framework for the Tooronga site. Participants included Coles Myer (as the landowners), councillors and residents, including representatives of the Tooronga Action Group. This working group adopted a design framework that the community could live with.
Since then, however, Coles Myer has arranged to sell the shopping centre and the brickworks site to Stockland as soon as Stockland can win suitable permits from the planning authority. These planning permits will enhance the future value of Stockland's property.
Seeking the biggest possible permits, Stockland has persuaded the Victorian Government's Planning Minister, Rob Hulls, to remove Boroondara Council as the planning authority for Tooronga. The Minister has "called in" Stockland's proposal to his own office, thereby disfranchising several hundred thousand Melbourne citizens in this region. There was no valid justification for the Minister's take-over.
The Tooronga Action Group (TAG) is monitoring this process.
TAG's concerns about Stockland's proposal
TAG is pro-development. We support the re-development of the Tooronga Village shopping centre and also the development of dwellings around the site. However, TAG is alarmed about aspects of Stockland's proposal:
- Stockland's proposed density is excessive. As well as the shopping centre, Stockland is proposing 600 flats and houses and 3800 square metres of office space. And the proposed height is excessive—an 11-storey building and a 9-storey building.
- This over-development will generate enormous traffic to and from this site, thereby worsening the chaos along Toorak Road and Tooronga Road—two of Melbourne's main arterial roads. To avoid these two roads, arterial traffic will be forced to do a "rat-run" through residential streets in Hawthorn, Camberwell, Glen Iris and Malvern.
- The developers have refused to sign a public agreement (which would be included in the planning scheme
for Tooronga) to provide parking for over 700 staff cars from the Coles Myer National Headquarters office
building
that currently park, all day, on the Brickworks & Tooronga Village site. This means that this office
parking would spill onto residential streets in Glen Iris, Hawthorn and Camberwell.
- The development encroaches too near the Gardiners Creek bicycle path and walking track, both of which
are becoming increasingly popular with thousands of cyclists from outer suburbs.
Tooronga is not merely a local issue. The proposed scale of development, in a neighbourhood centre, sets a dangerous standard for developments in other areas particularly those with greater infrastructures. The Planning Minister's action, in cutting out the Boroondara Council and giving himself the right to grant permits to Stockland, will set an unfortunate precedent, undermining the independence of other municipal councils around Melbourne.
