Zoe Moffatt
The Gisborne community is one step closer to having a 152 capacity childcare centre on Calthorpe Street, following a submitter hearing on the development.
Macedon Ranges councillors heard from one submitter on March 13, in relation to the planning application and three objections were received by council prior to the meeting.
The application seeks to develop the vacant lot, located at the intersection of Fisher Street and Calthorpe Street, into a childcare centre with capacity of 152 children.
The development will include a ground floor car park with 36 spaces, a bin storage area, an entrance and pram parking bay.
The centre will consist of four outdoor play areas, eight children’s rooms, a kitchen, staff room, laundry, reception and several bathrooms, storage and office spaces in addition to a piazza.
The objections related to increased noise and traffic, insufficient onsite parking and that the plans do not reflect surrounding vegetation.
In a written application, Gisborne resident Nicole said the amount of underground parking will mean vehicles will have to park on the street at drop off and pickup times.
“If parking is allowed on both sides of this narrow street, it becomes a single lane… and traffic flow would be severely impacted and create a dangerous situation,” Nicole said.
A planner from Cogency, which is representing the owners of the proposed childcare centre, spoke at the meeting and said the site is ideal for the development.
“The proposed childcare features a high quality architectural response recognising the site conditions as well as the site context within Gisborne,” the planner said.
“We also recognise that the primary concern from the two objections has been proposed as impact on traffic in car parking in the local area.
“The number of car parking spaces is three more than originally proposed as… we rearranged the carpark to add an additional three spaces… to alleviate the objection objectives concerns.
“Traffic assessment… concluded that the car parking number and arrangement would be sufficient for both staff and visitors to the childcare.
“[It] also found that the increase in traffic associated with the childcare will be moderate and spread across peak periods and dispersed amongst the intersections to the west, north and east.”
