Mentone Junction’s future as an apartment precinct was confirmed when VCAT allowed another residential tower, despite opposition from Kingston council and residents’ groups.
Pace Development Group, which is turning the former Mentone Tenpin Bowl site into a five-storey, 56-apartment block above shops, plans to build a nine-level block – with 87 apartments above shops and a café – on the site’s car park, at 1-9 Balcombe Road, on the Nepean Highway corner.
The council rejected the development as too high, preferring four to five storeys for this location.
However VCAT found that the design was suitable and that Mentone should cater for a changing demographic by providing higher-density housing.
Two years ago, VCAT upheld the council’s opposition to Pace’s bigger proposal for this precinct, which included 191 dwellings in two towers of eight and 12 storeys. The tribunal last year allowed Pace’s reduced Arc complex over five levels on the tenpin bowling site.
Pace has built 41 apartments over three storeys in nearby Childers Street and the three-storey, 77-unit Adesso complex on the railway line at Balcombe Road.
Further along Nepean Highway, at the corner of Collins Street, Pace is building the four-storey Lumiere complex, with 34 apartments slated to be finished by August.
Other developments selling off the plan or being built include:
■ The Palms, 15 Balcombe Road, Mentone – 24 units in a four-storey building.
■ No. 9, 9 Chesterville Road, Cheltenham, near the highway and 200 metres from … Southland – 38 units over four storeys.
■ Sapphire apartments, 1324-1328 Nepean Highway, Cheltenham (on the site Nepean Gardens aged-care home site at the corner of Latrobe Street) – 43 apartments over three levels.
■ The Charman, 323 Charman Road – 38 apartments and five offices over four levels in Cheltenham village.
■ Garfield, 28-34 Garfield Street, Cheltenham – 35 units over three levels near Southland on Nepean Highway; and another complex of 22 units at 31-33 Garfield Street.
