By Tanya Faulkner
Bayswater locals are fighting for their heritage.
Knox City Council recently received a planning application for 6 Highmoor Avenue, Bayswater, at the site of the well-known Highmoor House.
The house has ties to famous opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, and is Bayswater’s oldest building, originally constructed in the 1880s.
Council said the planning application proposes to construct a childcare centre, lop vegetation, and partially demolish and undertake works to the existing building, which will also be used and incorporated into the overall design of the childcare centre.
Ms Noni Harrison, a nearby resident, has started a petition against the plan and said Highmoor Avenue was already ‘dangerously overcrowded’ with parked cars and traffic.
“It can be so bad on both sides of the street.
“The council workers deserve a medal, the way they get the trucks up and down,” she said.
She argued that the proposed childcare centre would make parking and navigating cars down the street much more difficult and congested.
“Parent’s can’t just drop children off, they have to park, take the children in, then go – and it will be the same when they pick them up.
“I can’t see 142 people being able to do that when there’s room for about six cars to be parked,” she said.
Ms Harrison said she wanted to make sure the heritage house was protected.
“We haven’t got any heritage left.
“The buildings they are proposing to put on the site are huge, I can’t understand it,” she said.
She said she was opposed to any further loss of trees on the site, with myrtles and wattles having previously been cut down.
“I know we have to make way for progress, but sometimes progress isn’t a good thing,” she said.
Ms Harrison also questioned the need for another childcare centre in the area, when there were already two within 500 metres of the site.
According to a City of Knox Heritage Study, Highmoor House is one of the oldest surviving houses in Bayswater, with once a spectacular view over the Bayswater Hills.
The home is believed to have been built by Sir Matthew Davies, originally as a hotel or wine hall on the land owned by the Bayswater Freehold Investment and Banking Company of Australia Ltd.
Today the views of the home have been obscured by commercial buildings, and the owners are very conscious of the history held within the property.
A Heritage Overlay applies to the property and the existing building on site.
According to the development proposal, the new proposed building is responsive to the site’s evolving neighbourhood within the residential precinct, respecting the existing house.
The childcare centre will have a combined floor area of 1080 square metres with an outside play area of 1027 square metres.
There will also be 31 new car spaces.
The application is currently on advertising and Council is yet to make a decision on the application.
More information can be found on the Knox City Council website.
