An application to demolish a heritage house at Albion will be one of the first planning issues facing the new Brimbank council.
A developer submitted plans to the council last month for a $10 million, 47-apartment development on the Talmage Street site, home of the 79-year-old Stuart McKay house, which is currently owned by Sunshine City Club.
Sunshine City Club manager Brian Smart said the club had provisionally sold the land pending the council’s approval of the developer’s planning permit application.
The latest application to demolish the circa 1937 double-storey weatherboard house is the third to have gone before the council, which has knocked back previous attempts, in 2012 and 2010.
Mr Smart said the council had not received any objections to the most recent plans after they were advertised at both entrances to the club in mid-September.
He said since the council blocked off access to Anderson Road from Talmage Street, patronage at the not-for-profit club had dropped off.
If the sale proceeds, Mr Smart said the club would be able to repay some of the debts it has incurred.
“It would help us a lot,” he said. “If this submission doesn’t go through, it wouldn’t be fair.”
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Sunshine and District Heritage Society vice president Alan Dash said, while it was the society’s position to preserve any property with heritage, this “looks an absolute disgrace”.
“It was derelict for a long time and squatted from time to time,” Mr Dash said. “What’s the best solution going forward? I … don’t know.”
In August, Star Weekly revealed the house was the subject on an ongoing police investigation after nine suspicious fires ravaged the house over a 10-year period.
The property has a heritage overlay recognising its connection to H.V. McKay, a pioneering industrialist who was involved in the Harvester judgement, which brought fair wages for employees.
It was home to Stuart McKay, H.V. McKay’s nephew, who played a prominent role in the McKay business’s overseas arm.
The Victorian heritage database notes the Georgian revival weatherboard is the last surviving McKay house in Talmage Street. The integrity of the house was “good” when the database’s report was written in 1998.
