Council moves to rezone contested Kensington building

The council proposed to sell the property at 30-38 Gatehouse Drive in 2022, but a community petition saved tenant Midwives and Mothers Australia (MAMA) from eviction.

At a Future Melbourne Committee (FMC) meeting on August 13, councillors unanimously passed a motion to request permission from the Minister of Planning to begin to prepare a planning scheme amendment.

The site is currently classified as a local government zone, meaning it must be rezoned before the council divests from the property.

The proposed amendment would rezone the site to become a mixed use zone.

Now that the council has granted permission to request an amendment, it must be authorised by the Minister for Planning.

Following that, the amendment documentation will be prepared for public exhibition and a community consultation process will take place.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said the proposed mixed use zone would offer “flexibility” on the site.

“Introducing a variety of dwelling types, for example, contributing to the area’s housing diversity – something that would be welcome,” Cr Reece said. 

“It also means that it would be suitable for non-residential uses such as a cafe or medical centre. Or, importantly, it could continue to be used for its current purposes,” he said. 

“Although the site has been identified as surplus to council’s needs, any decision to sell the property will require a separate statutory process, and so that will then require further community engagement to ensure all voices are heard and considered.”

He said the council was aware of the “strong opinions” about the future of the building.

“This is one step in the process. There are still several others to go and there will be plenty of opportunity for further community input along the way,” he said.

The council’s proposal to sell the property in 2022 was met with strong opposition from the community, including a Change.org petition with more than 2000 signatures.

As a result, in November 2022, the council agreed to extend MAMA’s lease for two years while it considered rezoning.

At the time, MAMA co-founder Kelly Langford told North West City News that the council’s reasoning for wanting to sell the property was that there was a free maternal and child health centre nearby. But Ms Langford said MAMA’s role in the community was very different to government-run services.

MAMA has been operating at 30-38 Gatehouse Drive since 2011 and was Victoria’s first private midwifery clinic.

Last year, the practice assisted with almost 200 home and hospital births, including 87 first-time parents.

Its services include counselling, chiropractic care, baby massage, breastfeeding support, physiotherapy and more.

During the FMC meeting in which MAMA’s lease was extended, Ms Langford said, “You may ask why it’s important that we stay in this building. Because, for over a decade, we’ve made significant investments both personal, financial and emotional into this building and this community.”

The council delivered a report at that meeting which stated that, “Although valuable to the community,” MAMA’s services, “are not run by the City of Melbourne and do not align with existing service provision … MAMA is a privately run, for-profit business that services the community inside the City of Melbourne as well as surrounding suburbs.”

MAMA co-founder Jan Ireland also spoke at the November 2022 meeting, saying, “To simply characterise MAMA as a privately run for-profit business … we find that really hard to take, because we have spent our whole life without taking a wage until the last two years when we got established.”

“When the council announced that the building might be sold, our bookings for birth went down 50 per cent,” Ms Ireland added.

Community consultation back in 2022 showed that 92 per cent of respondents did not support the sale of 30-38 Gatehouse St.•