2 weeks ago
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Residents of a St Kilda retirement home are taking their battle against a proposed storage facility to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and say it will put elderly drivers at risk and destroy the community feeling in their beloved neighbourhood.
The site in question, 180 St Kilda Road, was previously home to Fox FM and Triple M radio stations, but has sat empty for the past three years. Now, Storage King wants to build a five-level storage facility that residents say will bring unwanted noise and traffic.
Europa on Alma chair Vanessa Lucas (left) and neighbours Barbara Kessell and Georgina Buskens in the laneway to be affected by the development.Credit: Justin McManus
The dispute centres on a laneway that Storage King clients will use to access the facility, and which also serves as the entry for residents of Europa on Alma retirement village and to other homes. Port Phillip Council does not have the final say on whether the proposal goes ahead.
“The building in question has a commercial zoning because it is 180 St Kilda Road, but all of the commercial activity will happen off this little skinny lane, and everything off that lane is residential,” said Vanessa Lucas, the chair of the residents’ facility at Europa.
“A 600-plus storage unit with vehicles going up and down a very narrow laneway will make it very difficult for elderly people here to be able to get out. If there’s an ambulance [at] the apartment building across the lane, sitting in the laneway, it’s very hard to get out.”
Lucas said the development was inappropriate, and that Europa’s 90 residents instead wanted the former radio studios to be converted into residential apartments to address the shortage of housing in the area.
If Storage King’s proposal went ahead, Lucas said, “neighbourhood amenity will be destroyed and lives of elderly drivers will be endangered”.
Across the road from the laneway, Georgina Buskens lives with her husband and two children. She is pregnant with the couple’s third child.
“I can’t think of anything that would be worse than this proposal,” Buskens said. “We are terrified because we don’t want to live next door to a commercial loading dock. This commercial proposal doesn’t care about the human costs involved in getting their plans ticked off.”
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The development proposal this month went before Port Phillip Council, which heard from concerned Europa residents and neighbours.
Barry Pratt told the council meeting he was 79, lived in the Europa and was concerned about the adverse effects of noise, exhaust fumes and intrusive lights at night.
Phillip Bird said Australian standards required an access roadway to be at least 5.5 metres wide, but the laneway in question was only five metres wide.
“Why do we have Australian standards if we don’t follow them?” Port Phillip councillor Beti Jay asked.
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Councillor Justin Halliday said it would be a “very different discussion” if the proposal was for new housing, but the council had to consider the impact on residents against storing consumer items.
“I wish we were the decision makers in this particular case, but we are not going to be,” Halliday said.
The councillors unanimously moved a motion to inform VCAT that the council did not support the amended plans because “the proposed access and servicing of the building from the rear lane will result in unacceptable amenity impacts at the interface with the adjoining residential uses”.
The dispute will go before VCAT on Monday.
Storage King did not respond to a request for comment.
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