Brimbank council will spend $2.5 million on sealing two Brooklyn roads despite fears from adjacent landowners their land could be acquired for building the east-west link.
Budget documents reveal the council will spend $1.96 million on Jones Road and $628,000 on Bunting Road for “construction of road and ancillary works”.
On May 16, three Brooklyn landowners –
Hanson Construction Materials, Transpacific Waste Management and Jones Road Properties – objected in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal to the council imposing a special rate to pave the roads. The council expects a decision within the next six to eight weeks.
The project is part of a broader program to tackle high levels of dust in the industrial precinct, partly caused by unsealed surfaces.
Twenty-one Brooklyn businesses will pay between $91 and $638,991 for the $2.7 million scheme. Other businesses have objected to a similar scheme for Bunting Road with a VCAT hearing scheduled on September 15.
Director Infrastructure and Environment Paul Younis said additional money would be spent in 2015-16.
“The amounts allocated in the budget are for the cost of undertaking the project construction, with funding initially provided by council, with businesses to be invoiced one month after construction commences for them to contribute towards the scheme,” he said.
“An assumption has been made that around 50 per cent of the businesses will choose to pay the scheme off over 10 years, with interest payable, and 50 per cent will pay in a lump sum, once works commence.”
Star Weekly revealed in August last year legal letters to the council from affected businesses which state any development would be “unnecessary, unreasonable, excessive, insufficient and costly”.
“Our clients’ land will be severed by the [East West Link] project and the use of the land will be terminated,” one legal letter said.
But a council report found upgrades to Bunting Road would last 10 years and “based on discussions with representatives of the Linking Melbourne Authority, this is the estimated timeline for construction of the East West Link”.
