Logistics News

Melbourne port has encroachment shield

Rezoning limited to ports at Hastings, Portland and Geelong.

 

Any fears that the Port of Melbourne in its present boundaries may be open to encroachment have been discounted in a legal analysis of recent official zonal changes.

Encroachment on transport and logistics spaces and corridors, particularly by ill-advised residential development, has been a cause for great industry and government anxiety in Victoria and nationally.

The present Victorian Government has pledged to open up formerly industrial property on the south bank opposite Swanson Dock, which will curtail growth, and has left the city’s port out of the “port zone” planning scheme amendment that affects Hastings, Geelong and Portland.

Allens’ staff managing associate Meg Lee and lawyer Emily Johnstone note the new port zone applies to land and waters in three major Victorian ports at Geelong, Hastings and Portland.

At Hastings, land and loading dock areas have been rezoned.

Land and water next to the Port of Geelong and Point Henry Pier, as well as some public park and recreation zones, have been rezoned.

At Portland, the changes rezone land next to Canal Court.

In an advisory, the lawyers write that rezoning will allow the ports to expand their operations into new areas.

“Interestingly, despite earlier announcements that a new zone would be applied to the Port of Melbourne, the zone has not been applied to that land at this stage, although little explanation has been given as to why not,” the advisory states.

“Obviously the fact that the State Government is currently going through a tender process to lease the Port of Melbourne for the medium term and then to redevelop the land is the reason the Port has not been treated in the same way as the other ports.”

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