ISPT tries again to replace Kingswood Golf Club
ISPT is a step closer to replacing Dingley Village’s Kingswood Golf Club with a housing estate (artist’s impression, top) – submitting its plan to a newly formed advisory committee, which this month put it on display.
The move comes three years since Kingston City councillors rejected the proposal which attracted 8000 objections – the highest ever recorded for a project in the municipality.
The property giant then approached the state government for permission.
Shortly after – in August, 2019 – planning minister Richard Wynne established the Golf Course Redevelopment Standing Advisory Committee to make a recommendation.
ISPT, via its subsidiary, AustralianSuper Residential Property No 1, paid $125 million for the 53.9 hectare block seven years ago.
At 179-217 Centre Dandenong Road, the site also has access to McClure and Spring roads, Mungari Street and Toorak Drive.
823 lots
ISPT is planning an 823 lot subdivision of the ex-golf course – slightly more than in 2018.
Townhouses will be contained at the centre of the site.
Standalone homes would be on blocks of less than 300 square metres.
The proposal also includes 14ha of open space and linear reserves along site boundaries and a former landfill.
About 850 plants should be retained, ISPT said.
New streets will be tree-lined.
The area would be permitted for liquor consumption too.
The exhibition period runs until August 6 with a directions consultation booked at the end of that month.
A public hearing will take place on October 11.
The recommendation will be delivered no more than 40 days after that (story continues below).
Mr Wynne could still reject any decision.
Golf courses in the rough
The government’s standing advisory committee claims that on an overall basis, Victorian golf club memberships have been declining.
It adds that courses, particularly within Melbourne’s Urban Growth Boundary, should be considered for rezoning.
While three years ago the Glen Eira City Council announced it would convert Elsternwick Golf Course into a park, many more have recently closed for development.
In 2017, Queensland’s Pask Group picked up Rowville’s 67ha Kingston Links, now making way for an estate, Bankside.
Also that year the Scanlon and Smorgon families, through their development company Intrapac, acquired a 2400 sqm piece of Aspendale’s 44ha Rossdale Golf Course.
The same company is seeking to develop the 76ha Keysborough Golf Course – about 10km from there.
In 2015, former AFL footballer Fraser Brown purchased Cranbourne’s former Amstel Golf Club, on 48ha, for housing.
Just over a year earlier, Crown Resorts paid Lloyd Williams $67.6m for Heatherton’s exclusive Capital Golf Course.
The casino owner now offers that property to guests.
A decade ago the 47ha ex-Eastern Golf Club, at Doncaster, sold to Mirvac which has been replacing it in stages as an estate, Tullamore.
In 2008, Frasers Property Australia – then known as Australand – built a new Sunshine Golf Course after buying the old one, also for residential.
The same developer five years before then acquired the 43ha Croydon Golf Course on Dorset Rd, for a housing community, The Range, with 413 land plots and 160 medium density lots.
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