A small business owner in the Yarra Junction Shopping Centre has been forced to move after the expansion of the Woolworths strong-armed them from their location.
Cortella discount store Clea Reynolds felt “devastated and disappointed” in the outcome after having campaigned against it since July.
“I think that council, they didn’t make the right decision, but they’ll see the effects of that down the track when the plans go ahead,” Ms Reynolds said.
The controversial decision to approve the planning application, submitted by retail property service provider RetPro, was made at the 15 October council meeting in the face of strong push back from business owners and community members, bolstered by a petition with 889 signatures and 54 formal objections made to council.
It will see the expansion of the Woolworths kick out the Cortella discount store, swallow up the arcade and move shopfronts to face the car park.
Ms Reynolds said she felt for the community and that her customers also shared the concern.
“I think I’m just really disappointed, I feel for the community really more than anything.”
“From the customer’s point of view, they are all pretty disappointed. I think they’re pretty concerned about it, but they’re also very annoyed with council.”
Council mayor Jim Child said this application “has weighed heavily” on himself and the other councillors.
“I feel for those tenants, their business has been disrupted.”
But Ms Reynolds said Cr Child’s comments felt disingenuous.
“It really didn’t come across that there was genuine feeling or regret in that manner.”
Cr Child said in an ideal world, the application would be refused.
“We can sit here as a council and refuse this application, everyone can go home happy, the mayor and ward councillors have done the right thing.
“But I can’t do that, because it would be against the planning scheme which we govern, it would be against the original strategy plan.”
Yarra Junction Community Group Monica Blanchfield spoke at the meeting and urged the council to reject the application as it was contrary to the Yarra Junction Place Plan’s vision, of which she helped curate.
“We clearly do not want to have our shops in the car park. We want to have a nice main street and we are disappointed that the place plan was used against it to justify this whole design.”
But Yarra Ranges Council planning and sustainable futures director Kath McClusky said the Yarra Junction Place Plan “is not incorporated into the planning scheme”.
“We do rely on the planning controls that are set out in the local and state policy. As part of the application, the officers have looked at the design outcomes and what we can do and what we can reasonably ask the developer to do in this instance,” Ms McClusky said.
Despite the outcome, Ms Reynolds said she was grateful for the support of her customers.
“Our customers are supporting us and they’re always coming with all their kind words. So we’re lucky that we’ve got that support behind us.”
