Estate appeal: Developer backed to replicate Oakdene’s quality

FORMER Geelong Cats footballer Cameron Ling says Oakdene Estate’s developers can replicate the estate’s quality on the west side of Grubb Road, but the Ocean Grove Community Association wants the boundaries in the draft Bellarine Statement of Planning Policy (SPP) to stay where they are.

The SPP – the next stage of the Bellarine Distinctive Area and Landscape program – proposes settlement boundaries for all of the Bellarine Peninsula’s towns.

Ocean Grove has an area labelled for growth to the east of Grubb Road and south of the Bellarine Highway but not to the west of Grubb Road and north of Ocean Grove Nature Reserve, where Morgan & Griffin hope to build the Oakdene West estate.

Mr Ling, who has been an ambassador for Oakdene Estate for five years, said he supports “the right development, good development, and quality development”.

“I think Oakdene personally has shown that on what they’ve done on the existing development – the space, the parkland, the sporting ovals, the way that it’s designed where it’s not just about getting the most amount of houses in and just cramming them all in together – and I’d back them in that that’s what they’d be doing on the other side of the road.”

He said Ocean Grove was a “magnificent part of the world” and he understood its appeal to homebuyers.

“Kids have grown up in Ocean Grove and they’ve loved it, they’ve got great friends there, they’ve surfed there, they’ve rode their bikes; it was this beautiful coastal community.

“Now that they’re parents themselves, they want to bring up their families in the town that they love.

“However, because it’s such a beautiful spot, prices have skyrocketed from when they were kids 25 years ago, so the affordability to allow these now-parents to stay in the town they love and be part of really good quality developments like what Oakdene have done and are planning to do – without these really well-done developments, prices just become prohibitive for so many people.”

Ocean Grove Community Association chair Phil Edwards said the draft SPP reflected exactly what the association’s “Enough is Enough” campaign hoped to achieve, which was “to restrict Ocean Grove boundaries to their current location and prevent further urban sprawl into the surrounding rural countryside”.

“The association is aware that developers and landowners to the north and west of the Ocean Grove Nature Reserve, east of Banks Road and north up to the Bellarine Highway, have put forward proposals for further development despite the City of Greater Geelong’s Settlement Strategy putting these areas clearly outside our town’s settlement boundary,” he said.

“The association continues to strongly oppose the developers’ positions.”

He said the association supported the proposal for the bulk of Ocean Grove’s population growth being in the Kingston Estate, which he said had more than 10 years’ worth of greenfield development land still available.

To read the draft SPP or make a submission, head to the Engage Victoria website.