A GROUP that saw a bid to build a place of worship on green wedge land in Carrum Downs dashed by VCAT on religious grounds is appealing to the Supreme Court of Victoria to press ahead with its plan. The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal ruled in February that the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) is not a recognised religion for the purposes of being allowed to build a church on green wedge land (“Religion ruling ‘a win for the wedge’”, The Times 27/2/17). A Supreme Court appeal against the VCAT decision is listed to be heard on Friday 31…
Author: Neil Walker
IT wasn’t a bird. It wasn’t a plane. People in Westall who saw an unidentified flying object hovering over the suburb in 1966 are still sure they saw something extraordinary and unexplained on 6 April that year. A flying saucer-shaped object was seen by more than 200 witnesses in broad daylight including schoolchildren and teachers at Westall Primary School and Westall Secondary School. ‘The Westall Incident’ as it came to be known has long fascinated UFO watchers and some of the eyewitnesses on that April day five decades ago will gather to recall the strange events surrounding the mass UFO…
A MAJOR facelift for the gateway to Frankston has been unveiled by the state government after two years of community consultation and a nationwide design competition.A new train station designed by Genton Architecture will be the centrepiece of a planned rejuvenation of the centre of Frankston including a revamp of Young St now underway.Labor Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan and Frankston MP Paul Edbrooke congratulated the Melbourne-based architectural firm for seeing its design for the train station chosen from 40 entries in a nationwide competition.Construction work on the new train station, part of a $63 million revamp of the Frankston…
A COMMUNITY push to have more access to Kingston councillors to provide feedback may see ward-based committees of residents formed to formally speak to council’s elected representatives. Councillors decided, on the casting vote of mayor Cr David Eden, to defer a motion by Cr Ron Brownlees to ask council officers to prepare a report on how ward based committees could be formed. The debate at the latest public council meeting in February came two years after a majority of councillors in the previous council voted 5-4 to axe the village committees system of consultation. Advisory committees on specific subjects including…
HOMES will be able to be built slightly higher but not wider, depending on the size of a block, according to changes made by the state government to Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 development guidelines. Labor Planning Minister Richard Wynne announced this month that mandatory height limits for properties built in General Residential Zones will be 11 metres, up from nine metres. The maximum height for Neighbourhood Residential Zones — classed as “no growth” areas — is nine metres. Kingston Council in 2014 asked the state government to class 75 per cent of Kingston as “non-growth” NRZ as part of a review…