By ALESHA CAPONE
VCAT has given permission to demolish the former Port Phillip Woollen Mills in Williamstown, paving the way for residential homes to be built on the site.
Earlier this month, developers Nelson Place Village applied to Hobsons Bay City Council for consent to knock down existing structures on the land at 3-39 and 41 Nelson Place.
After the council refused the application, the developers took the case to the Victorian Civil and Administration Tribunal.
VCAT member Geoffrey Code overturned the council’s decision and said Nelson Place Village should be allowed to destroy the existing vacant industrial buildings.
However, Mr Code warned the developers against allowing the unoccupied land to become “a longstanding bomb-site”.
The demolition application did not contain three former historic hotel sites including the Oriental Hotel and Telegraph Hotel.
Mr Code said before any significant works were carried out, an archaeological survey and photographic record of significant relics and structures had to be prepared and submitted to the council.
Late last year, the council also granted permission for two other Port Phillip Woollen Mills applications.
Council’s special planning committee issued a permit to build seven three-storey townhouses in Ann St, with a minor reduction in the statutory car parking rate.
Mayor Angela Altair said the other approved permit would see 12 townhouses from three to four storeys high built in Nelson Place, also with a minor reduction in the statutory car parking rate.
The mayor said the council received almost 350 objections to three PPWM applications considered by the committee.
She said the objections were mainly concerned about the safety of locating high-density homes near Mobil, historical significance and the lack of a master plan for the whole PPWM site.
The council deferred a decision on building 51 apartments in Nelson Place until another special planning committee decides the fate of the former Oriental Hotel.
