MARIBYRNONG and Waterford Green residents took to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) last week to oppose a 272-unit affordable housing development on Wests Rd.

Residents told the hearing the apartment blocks would be a gross overdevelopment of the site that would burden an already traffic-laden Raleigh Rd with hundreds more cars.

The proposed Australian Affordable Housing Association (AAHA) development includes three L-shaped apartment blocks standing between four and seven storeys high.

The development is earmarked to house 272 apartments, a convenience shop, gym and café at 62 Wests Rd in Maribyrnong.

The units are a mix of one bedroom, two bedroom and three bedroom spaces.

The planning permit calls for a 75 per cent reduction of the recommended car parking spaces – a drop from the Maribyrnong Planning Scheme’s 580 to 155.

Maribyrnong City Council, who received 22 objections to the proposal, rejected the development at February’s ordinary council meeting.

In a submission tendered at the hearing, the council conceded that medium-density housing was suitable use for the site, but said the current proposal failed to correctly interpret the existing streetscape, neighbourhood character and constraints of the site.

Residents backed up the argument last week.

“This development, if approved in its current state, can only result in forsaking our neighbourhood character, impediment to traffic flow, severe overflow of car parking to already saturated adjoining estates (and) will set an inappropriate precedent for future developments in the area,” Bob Cook from the Waterford Green Residents Association said.

“Could anyone say, with any degree of truth, that compacting 272 units, 155 car parks…would push Maribyrnong anywhere but down on the quality of life index?” Alan Ross from the Maribyrnong Residents Association asked.

Legal counsel for the AAHA, Stuart Morris, said the association was trying to provide housing for people who were too well off to be eligible for public housing, but who could not afford to buy into the private property market.