A Fishermans Bend high-rise project proposed by local developer R.Corporation has been given the green light after the developer took planning minister Richard Wynne to the tribunal.
The 37 and 40 storey twin-tower apartment and hotel project was approved this week after a negotiated settlement with the state government.
R.Corporation took on Wynne at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal after his department failed to determine the project with the statutory required number of days.
Wynne said the negotiated outcome had improved the initial proposal by making sure 30 per cent of the project's apartments were three-bedroom dwellings and minimising overshadowing of the nearby Fennell Reserve.
"We need our new neighbourhoods to have a good mix of small and large apartments with affordable housing to suit families of all shapes and sizes," Wynne said.
R.Corporation purchased the large 7661-square metre site at 253-257 Normanby Road, used by Oxford University Press, for more than $30 million in 2016.
The boutique developer applied for two towers with an end value of $252 million that would include 824 apartments, a 153-room hotel and 2000 sq m of retail space.
It ended up with slightly more apartments: 832 dwellings of which 31 per cent were one-bedders, 57 percent two-bedders and 12 per cent had three bedrooms, although that could be boosted to 30 per cent by amalgamating smaller apartments.
Designed by Plus Architecture, the project was lodged with Wynne in April.
The troubled Fishermans Bend urban renewal precinct was established by former planning minister and now Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, who re-zoned large swathes of industrial land to mixed use in 2012 in a move critics suggested would create future planning chaos.
Guy then gave a series of approvals to high towers. Wynne has also issued approvals for towers in the precinct.
The re-zoning prompted a rapid and large windfall rise in land values for property owners.
Nearby in Southbank, Malaysian developer OSK Property's huge Melbourne Square project has sold more than $341 million worth or apartments after launching its first stage last month.
CBRE's Andrew Leoncelli said the project had seen a strong trend of luxury buying.
"The first weekend of sales saw a high volume of purchases and luxury buyers which resulted in a number of sales of penthouses and apartments in the upper levels. Of the $46 million in deals, 12 were above $1 million and three above $3 million," he said.
