New plans out from Woolworths

The latest plans distributed by Woolworths for the proposed supermarket in Station Street Mt Evelyn have stirred up new opposition in the community.

The revised plans show a building up to 20 metres tall, with a 2-level underground carpark that goes to 7 metres below ground.

The plans don't include a traffic management report, or detail how and when the trucks will deliver goods to the supermarket through the narrow streets of Station St and Snowball Ave.

MEEPPA (Mt Evelyn Environment Protection and Progress Association) who have spearheaded the fight aginst the development on behalf of the community will hold another public meeting on March 12. The meeting will be at the public hall starting at 7:30 pm.

MEEPPA are objecting to the development at VCAT, citing serious deficiencies in the plans submitted. These objections include:

* There is no Landscape Report – which is constantly referred to under each of the set of materials.

* There is an inappropriate lack of scale to design parameters – particularly in relation to how the Elevations match the Floor Plans. The Visual Bulk of the building unusually shows 14 different roof levels that only relate to 5 different floor levels and the site plans in this regard appear to be in severe error.

* Nothing has been done to address the unsatisfactory original Traffic Assessment Report. In fact due to the reconfiguration of the Loading Bay at the Northern end of the site we believe that this will only exacerbate the original problems as previously outlined. The removal of one crossover in this area will further exacerbate these problems.

* The amended Plans do not address the Economic Impact of the increased retail space.

* The Visual Bulk of the building unusually shows 14 different roof levels that only relate to 5 different floor levels and the site plans in this regard are wrong.

* The amended plans do not respond to the Residential Interface with Snowball Ave. and because of the dramatic increase in size it is impossible to see how this could be done in any sympathetic way given the visual bulk of this development and the addition of the Administration block (?) on the corner of Snowball Ave. and Station Street.

* The additional Retail Space in these plans does not address the deficiency in Car Parking spaces. There is a net deficiency of 80+ Car Spaces and no part of this application considers ‘Dispensation’ for the lack of the extra car parking spaces that would be needed. In addition to this the height of 2.1 metres in the Car Parks would not allow for various disabled Commuter buses that use the facilities regularly.

* There is no Lighting Report

* There are no Northern elevations of the development.

* There are no 3 dimensional representations of the development as were provided in the original application

MEEPPA president Franc Smith syas the group will keep fighting so long as the community wants action taken against such a large development in that location. "The community needs to be aware though that the fight has taken a toll, and the people of MEEPPA can't keep on with this without more actual support from the hundreds of objectors living in Mt Evelyn. We need a hand to keep going."

back to index