By Charlene Gatt
A BITTER planning application dispute between Maribyrnong City Council and the Western Bulldogs has erupted on to the public arena.
Maribyrnong City Council mayor Michelle MacDonald has slammed the AFL club after media reports that although the Bulldogs might be snarling on the field, a behind-the-scenes battle with the council nearly handballed the club into debt.
Bulldogs chief executive Campbell Rose told The Age on Friday the club “was on the verge of being brought to its knees” because the council had refused a planning application for a Victoria University (VU) Education Centre in the redeveloped John Gent Stand.
Mr Rose sought – and received – an 11th hour State Government intervention from Planning Minister Justin Madden.
The application for the education centre featured five main components across two levels and would be accessible by a number of VU faculties.
Cr MacDonald refuted claims the council had dismissed the permit and said it was currently out for public comment.
The proposal had not yet been taken to vote when the State Government overruled the council’s planning permit processes.
Cr MacDonald said the Bulldogs had robbed residents of their right of reply and had “bungled the management of the redevelopment”, despite maintaining a profile as a community club.
The council invited residents to look at the proposal in public notices published in Star and other local publications over the last fortnight.
“The Bulldogs were well aware that in line with (the) council’s need to follow due process – including community consultation – we would not be able to make a decision on the application until September 2008,” she said.
“(They) have set up our council as the scapegoat for their own mismanagement; they’ve failed to deliver what they said they would.”
“How is (Mr Madden) going to tell the hundreds of neighbouring residents who, up until last night, had the right to prepare a submission objecting to the permit, that their concerns will no longer be heard?”
The council had received one objection to the proposal at the time of the overruling.
Cr MacDonald said the partnership between the council and the Bulldogs was “shattered” after “this latest stunt”.
The council is also outraged at claims that they had not committed their $1 million contribution towards the Whitten Oval redevelopment.
Cr MacDonald said the money had been allocated in the council’s budget over three years, and that the Bulldogs were well aware of the arrangement.
She said the council had also offered the Bulldogs an additional $1 million to complete the Whitten Oval’s not-for-profit children’s centre and leased the site out to the Bulldogs for $1 a year – a peppercorn rent.
“We love the Bulldogs footy team and our City is proud of their on-field achievements. The Bulldogs are an important part of our community, but they are not the only part of our community,” Cr MacDonald said.
Fellow councillors Catherine Cumming and Janet Rice also expressed their disapproval at the Bulldogs’ behaviour.
In a statement released on Friday, the Bulldogs said it was “not the club’s intention to have unsettled relations with our local council” and hoped to move forward “now that this matter has been resolved and is behind us”.
“The Bulldogs gratefully appreciate the State Government’s intervention without which the Whitten Oval redevelopment would have been partially completed and the financial implications to the club would have been most serious,” the statement read.
