Both sides in planning stoush demand decision as bid for 400 homes next to Heide stalls

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Key points

• Pokies billionaire Bruce Mathieson wants to build 400 homes at the Yarra Valley Country Club, next to the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen.
• The planned development is opposed by the local council, and the directors of Heide want to see the land used to extend the gallery.
• All parties have grown frustrated by the delays, with the application sitting on the planning minister’s desk for two years. 

A proposal to develop 400 homes on a former golf course in Melbourne’s north-east has been sitting on the planning minister’s desk for two years, leading to growing frustration.

The former Yarra Valley Country Club, next to the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen, is waiting on a decision from the minister on a proposed development of 350 to 400 apartments and townhouses on a 25-hectare site.

Ross Blair-Holt, director of Yarra Valley Country Club Property, wants the green light to build townhouses and apartments. Credit: Eddie Jim

The development would also include giving up 16 hectares along the Yarra for public parkland and bike paths. However, the local council opposes the development and Heide is pushing for the land to be used to expand the gallery.

The site at 9-15 Templestowe Road is owned by pokies billionaire Bruce Mathieson and the planned development was first called in by former planning minister Richard Wynne in 2019.

A 21-day advisory committee hearing was held in 2021 and the committee delivered its report to the minister in December 2021.

Despite multiple letters and approaches to current Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny, the application by developer Yarra Valley Country Club Property has not progressed for two years.

Ross Blair Holt, director of Yarra Valley Country Club Property, said the delay was frustrating when there was a housing shortage in Victoria.

“We are sitting on something pretty powerful – it can provide housing and it is just like a slow-motion wreck,” he said. “They say they need more housing, and housing in the suburbs rather than out in the Meltons of the world.”

Blair Holt said there was a lot of money tied up in the proposed development and nothing happening.

“It is costing us a shitload holding 25 hectares of land,” he said. “We have all the interest rates, all those sorts of things, plus stopping vandalism of the old social club.”

The former golf course was shut down last year and has fallen into disrepair. Credit: Eddie Jim

The developer shut the golf course and attached country club and social club last year after 50 years in operation, and the land has been sitting unused since.

In 2020, Manningham Council valued the site at $10.85 million; if rezoned for housing, Blair Holt said the site would be worth “tens of millions” and the land to be gifted for public use alone had a value of more than $34 million.

Andrew McMaster, acting director of planning at Manningham, said the council supported the development of the southern part of the land and acknowledged the benefit of giving the northern part of the site along the river bank to the public.

But he had rejected the current application because the Manningham planning scheme restricts development in the “sensitive and highly valued” river valley landscape.

“The current redevelopment lacks strategic justification to support such an expansion,” he said.

McMaster also said the council was concerned whether the development in its proposed form could be achieved given hydrological, environmental, ecological, visual and cultural considerations.

City of Manningham councillor Stephen Mayne, who moved a motion opposing the development in 2021, said the council wanted the minister to reject the rezoning application and did not understand what was behind the delay.

“We opposed it two years ago and it has been gathering dust on the minister’s desk since then,” he said.

An early image of the proposed development. Heide is at the bottom of the image.Credit: Grimshaw Architects

Mayne said Manningham rejected the development application as the site was in a flood zone and because earlier plans to include 5 per cent affordable housing on the site were dropped by the developer.

“The obvious use for the site is an expansion of the Heide art gallery next door,” he said.

Heide has proposed an additional $70 million gallery to house more of its permanent collection and better accommodate exhibitions.

Gallery director Tim Sligo said he was also frustrated by the delay and wanted a decision.

“We would like to see it resolved so we can determine the future of Heide’s masterplan and business case,” he said. “That envisages a new gallery and it is the positioning of that new gallery which the outcome of the cultural precinct plan will help determine.”

Kilkenny did not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

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