PLANS FOR ANOTHER MULTI-STOREY CBD OFFICE TOWER

Public left in the dark

A NEW bid to add another towering office building to Geelong’s rising skyline has raised concerns about a lack of public information on the proposals.

Plans were lodged with the State Government last week for a “multistorey office building” at 12-18 Bayley St, Geelong.

Approval was granted in 2015 for part of the land to host a $16 million eight-storey student accommodation complex.

But the site, less than 100m from Deakin University’s waterfront campus, remains undeveloped.

Material on the new application is scarce, with the only other detail released on DELWP’s website being the need to reduce car parking requirements. The Bayley St venture is the fourth major planning application for the CBD that the Government, on advice from the Geelong Authority, is yet to decide on.

Others include a 106-room residential hotel at the dilapidated Ritz site on Bellerine St, which was lodged more than eight months ago.

None of the four proposals have been publicly released, which prominent National Trust member Jennifer Bantow said was wrong.

She quizzed the council’s administrators last month about the prospect of publishing information about the large-scale proposals.

“The public need to know that the city centre is changing shape,” she said. “It needs to be informed about the applica- tions ... the public has a right to be consulted.”

Applications as small as a two-lot subdivision are advertised on the Geelong Council’s website and are open for public submissions.

However the major proposed developments for the CBD, which fall under the auspice of the Government, are reviewed by state and local government bureaucrats without any public input.

Ms Bantow said the effects of this had already been felt, with a large number of National Trust members dismayed by the loss of heritage assets in two major developments: the new headquarters for the National Disability Insurance Agency (21 Malop St) and WorkSafe (1 Malop St).