Victoria Development
CITY BACKS LENDLEASE’S TRIPLE- TOWER GURROWA PLACE PLANS
Author: Marisa Wikramanayakewed Urban Developer
Kerstin Thompson Architects’ design of the podium entrance to Scape’s student accommodation tower for Gurrowa Place.
The City of Melbourne’s planning committee has voted unanimously to support a triple-tower project in the heart of the CBD.
Lendlease’s Gurrowa Place previously received support from Heritage Victoria for its redevelopment of the heritage-listed Franklin Stores site at the southern end of the Queen Victoria Markets in Melbourne’s CBD. The Federal Government, however, has noted that the project has triggered the start of another process that will assess the site and the project plans for its environmental impact. This means that under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) there is a controlled action that has to be taken and the project plans need to be reviewed due to its proximity to the markets site. The Queen Victoria
Markets site also sits on one of the earliest and largest cemeteries in Melbourne. City of Melbourne councillor and chair of the Future Melbourne Committee Rohan Leppert said the state planning process and the federal assessment process under the EPBC Act were able to proceed separately, particularly because the council was required to provide its recommendations to the Victorian planning department without delay. “This is, of course, a very major development, and although some of the submitters aren’t accepting my arguments about what the role of the council today is, I do need to make it very, very clear that we’re not issuing any planning permits today,” Leppert said.
52 – August / September 2024
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