By Kath Gannaway
Aldi Stores have been given the go ahead to build a new supermarket in Healesville, but with stringent conditions attached.
Aldi will need to find a way to reduce the overall height of the building from 7.42metres to 7metres along the Maroondah Highway frontage and from 11.26metres to 9.6 metres along Church and River streets frontages.
Other conditions introduced in an alternate motion by Cr Fiona McAllister at the Yarra Ranges Council meeting on Tuesday, 26 April, were around aesthetic finishes and landscaping.
In all, there were 22 conditions attached, a number of them addressing issues raised at a community consultation meeting in February, and in written submissions by objectors.
There were 13 formal objections to the proposed plan.
Councillors heard from local residents Stuart and Elaine Truman, an architect, speaking on behalf of objectors.
Ms Truman described the building as “absolutely massive” and said that on scale and height 65 per cent of the proposed building exceeds the Design and Development Overlay on the site.
They said a requirement for ‘active shop fronts’ was not met in the design with the front windows looking into an access ramp against a blank wall, and called for stronger graphics along the lines those featured on the Innocent Bystander and Giant Steps buildings.
They called for the use of more natural materials to offset the high percentage of concrete , increased landscaping, and the continuation of Healesville’s iconic lamps along the front of the store.
And, they warned that allowing Aldi to exceeding the maximum height recommendations could set a precedent in the town.
Town Planner Colleen Peterson from Ratio Consultants represented Aldi and said the height of the building was a response to the slope of the land and functional imperatives such as refrigeration equipment and floor to ceiling heights in the store.
“Aldi has a much smaller footprint (than other supermarkets) and the consequence of fitting in the supermarket and getting the required number of car parking spaces means the only place the plant and equipment can go is on the roof,” she said.
Responding to concerns about a lack of an active shop front, Ms Peterson said, “There will be pedestrians, sales packing activity … there will be direct eye contact into the supermarket.”
“These plans represent positive changes as a result of consultation and they represent a vibrant and attractive addition to the Healesville township,” she said.
Cr Heenan said he was unhappy that the councillors were being asked to make decisions without access to all the plans and with no resolution of the opposing information being presented.
“We are sitting here horse-trading about certain things, we have people answering questions from the gallery, and I’m not happy that we can’t look at plans that the town planner has in front of her,” he said.
Crs Avery and Cox called for the matter to be deferred.
Cr Avery said Aldi should have the opportunity to look at what was being proposed given “ … these (conditions) have been sprung on them in the last 20 minutes.”
Cr Cox said redesigning the application ‘on the run’ was not the answer.
“It appears that some of the objectors didn’t see the final plans until a few days ago, and that’s too brief a time for them to be able to comment on it.”
Cr McAllister defended her motion saying, council had been looking at the Aldi application for many months and that there had been a lot of community interest and opportunities for community participation.
“I’ve gone through these plans with a fine tooth comb and there are things that concern me,” she said.
“Do I really want to have a building with those heights … I don’t; but ultimately it’s the towers that are the sticking point and that’s why we’re reducing the height, so you don’t have 12 metre towers.
Aldi is considering its options.
An Aldi spokesperson told the Mail on Friday that they are looking forward to coming to Healesville, and said they were pleased the council had issued a notice of decision.
“We will take planning conditions into consideration and determine the impact that these will have on our overall design.
He said they would update the community as developments progressed.
