A LAVERTON truck driver wants to form an alliance of landowners to fight Hobsons Bay City Council over zoning issues.
Michael Sergi is leading the charge to form a coalition to get council to look at planning controls on a large parcel of industrial land and issue planning permits for owners to develop the land or sell it at market price.
The land, consisting of 504 blocks and a reserve, sits south of the junction of Kororoit Creek Rd and the Princes Freeway in Laverton, between Burns and Harcourt roads.
It is unusable in its present state, because of planning controls, and is the subject of several on-going disputes between landowners and the council.
Convincing landowners to form a “single entity” is the key to Mr Sergi’s plan, and is a move he hopes will markedly increase bargaining power with the council and other levels of government.
About 60 landowners held a meeting last week in the Altona Theatre to discuss the collective action plan.
Mr Sergi handed the landowners there a bound presentation booklet detailing the history of the site and his vision for its future.
With industrial land value soaring in Melbourne’s West, Mr Sergi believed the owners were sitting on a potential gold mine and should be able to get an appropriate return for their investment.
“I’ve got a lot of passion about this. I know what the land is worth,” he said.
However, Hobsons Bay mayor Carl Marsich defended the council’s handling of the issue, saying he supported the move to consolidate the land and move forward.
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“Council is quite happy to work with (a landowners group). From the council’s perspective, having the land vacant is not the best option,” Cr Marsich said.
The council has insisted on an ‘all or nothing’ approach when dealing with this issue, demanding that all landowners must agree to a course of action or no progress could be made, a condition Cr Marsich vigorously defended.
“It’s the best way to go to have everyone in…otherwise (the council) may be forced into compulsory acquisition.”
“We’d be hopeful that if there is support on this we will be keen to examine it and resolve (the issue).”
Some landowners said they believed the council was ‘holding out’ on addressing the issue in the hope that rate payments would lapse and they could take control of the land, block by block, with a view to eventually acquiring the entire estate.
But Cr Marsich denied the council had any interest in the land.
“We have absolutely no interest in purchasing that land for ourselves,” he said.
The council has been drawing rate revenue from the land for decades, despite it being unserviced, undeveloped and unusable.
Cr Marsich defended charging ongoing rates on the land, saying this was a matter or course, based on the land valuation.
Mr Sergi’s campaign was sparked four years ago when he bought several blocks of land on which to park his trucks.
When he applied to build on the land, he was told that due to zoning regulations no building could take place on blocks smaller than two hectares.
Undeterred, he purchased more blocks to satisfy the two-hectare requirement but was then told he could not build because of flora and fauna issues.
“For the last 18 months I’ve been fighting,” Mr Sergi said, “I spent the money (on the land) but I can’t use it.”
Mr Sergi, a man renowned for his hard headed determination, has left no stone unturned in this effort, hiring property consultants, solicitors and investigators to assist in his fight.
Independent property consultant Danny Borzillo said the only way to force the issue with the council was for all title owners to come together.
“Own your own, you wont get any where,” Mr Borzillo said, “We need to get together as a group.”
As often occurs with zoning issues, the layers of red tape surrounding this issue are immense and clash with each other.
Hobsons Bay council sent all land owners letters telling them to cut the grass on their blocks, an action that would have breached State flora and fauna regulations and left them open to prosecution.
Many landowners, some that have owned the land for 35 years, said they faced similar problems to Mr Sergi when they tried to develop the land.
One couple said they bought the land around the time the West Gate Bridge was built, thinking the west would become prime industrial land in decades to come.
Their foresight proved correct; the land is now in the heart of prime industrial territory, but the zoning issue has stripped any value from what should be valuable land.
The couple said they thought the collective action plan was the only way to move forward.
“I think it is the only way the council is going to declare its hand.”
Another owner said the council was responsible for the current situation and had a responsibility to see it corrected.
“The problem is that the council has mismanaged this land from the start. When they rezoned it, they didn’t even tell the owners,” he said.
