Carnegie’s 1880s Frogmore House tower demolished after being deemed unworthy of heritage protection
- July 25, 2015
The historic Frogmore House tower in Carnegie has been demolished. Picture: Valeriu Campan.
THE tower at Carnegie’s historic Frogmore House has been demolished.
The 1880s feature has been bulldozed six weeks after Glen Eira Council deemed the property unworthy of local heritage protection.
Glen Eira Residents Association president Bette Hatfield said it was “an absolute disgrace”.
The bulldozers were sent in after an unusual, split council vote was won by just three councillors.
Crs Michael Lipshutz, Neil Pilling and Jamie Hyams voted to abandon plans to protect the property.
The site post bulldozing. Picture: Valeriu Campan.
The Frogmore House site when demolition began earlier this month.
Councillors Thomas Sounness, Oscar Lobo and Karina Okotel had wanted other options explored; Mayor Jim Magee was absent and Crs Mary Delahunty and Margaret Esakoff declared conflicts of interest and did not vote.
More than 1000 residents had petitioned the council to save Frogmore House.
New owner Jewish Care will now redevelop the 7,917sq m site into a 120-bed Jewish aged care centre.
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And the current online comments –
The Glen Eira City Council are a disgrace. In our residential street we have an 8 storey apartment block being built in an area where the highest building is two storeys. The crane is up and when the sun pops out you can clearly see the over-shadowing of all the houses across the street. During winter none of these poor people will get any sun. To rub salt into their wounds – the apartment developers applied for and won dispensation from providing the minimum required of car-spaces per apartment – citing that because the building is across the road from the railway station they do not need to provide as many car spaces. So our street will now be over crowded, over shadowed, over developed with an ugly apartment block the Council sat back and allowed to happen. Money talks and politicians always yell “How High?” when developers throw cash at them. This country has become a disgrace. All politicians care about is getting voted in and squeezing as much cash out of us and helping their buddies at the top end of town. When will enough be enough?
How is it we live in a world where 1000 people want this historic 1880 building saved and it is not considered worth saving ? We have so many conflicts of interest and back room deals going on and the end result is another piece of history gets bulldozed
Really poor form by this council who have failed their residents
what no Australians allowed what a disgrace
A disgrace. We have sold our souls in melbourne. Anything can be demolished.
Yes i wish they would demolish councils full stop
Glen Eira Debates 
July 27, 2015 at 3:35 PM
The headline is inaccurate. Frogmore was deemed to be worthy of heritage protection by an independent consultant and by the National Trust. All that Heritage Victoria said was that it was not worthy of state significance but in all likelihood worthy of local protection. Whether or not it should ultimately have been given heritage status was sabotaged by the three named councillors plus, in my view, the highly dubious claims of conflicts of interest by Esakoff and Delahunty. Magee was also very conveniently absent.
I’m not surprised by the voting of Pilling, Lipshutz and Hyams. I also believe that if the applicant was an ordinary developer that the result would have been different. Those three have repeatedly ignored what residents want and have maneouvred to get what they want. They should never, ever again be re elected as councillors. They are far from worthy of being called our “representatives”.
July 27, 2015 at 10:26 PM
The Danby labelled “reactionaries” go to an “independent Panel” when it suits their purposes. This time they realised they were on shaky ground. Better to abort and nip in the bud – don’t want the Seaview result hanging round their necks again. Without the panel the coast is clear for Jewish Care. Bastardry of the highest order including the officers wank of a report.
July 27, 2015 at 5:06 PM
Looks like a bloody desert. On your heads Pilling hyams Lipshutz
July 27, 2015 at 8:42 PM
Pilling will be the happiest man in town with this news, chainsawing trees into match sticks and bulldozing historic buildings into rubble are his favorite pastime. The man is a first class disgrace.
July 27, 2015 at 10:37 PM
Sorry this is not on topic. Thought I’d share some thoughts on tonight’s meeting with Southwick, Davis and Hyams. Scare mongering of the highest order with both Southwick and Davis telling those present that the neighbourhood residential zones are endangered because of the Labor intended review. No answers when the audience asked about Liberal policies to fix up infrastructure, traffic, Vcaat. Made me realise that even people living in the so called “protected” zones are pretty pissed off with council. Hyams was the paid apologist for council and sounded like a broken record on “you could build whatever before and the zones cut this back” and the rush of development is not due to the zones but to those crafty developers getting their applications in before the zones were gazetted. Only an idiot in my view could swallow this garbage.
July 27, 2015 at 10:57 PM
Re this meeting – this was for the state electorate of Caulfield, that area that is supposedly the most protected and supposed a stronghold of liberal supporters.
Let me tell you – there were a lot of swings taken at Council and quite a few questions directed at Davis (he’s Shadow Minister of Planning and Local Government) that highlighted Council’s inadequacies in planning and governance.
Seems like every one is pissed off about the zones and are getting pretty tired of Council’s refusal to do anything about their slipshod imposition of them.
July 27, 2015 at 11:31 PM
There has been an ongoing problem at Council with its handling of planning matters involving the Jewish subcommunity. Indeed if Cr Lipshutz is to be believed, there is an advantage to the Jewish community to have a Jewish councillor, implying different decisions and outcomes depending on the religious background of the applicant. It is embarrassing, and inappropriate, for that to be a factor. It has happened yet again, this time with Frogmore. Proper process was abandoned by a cabal of councillors who didn’t want Frogmore placed on a heritage overlay because of the additional decision criteria that would bring to a subsequent planning application. At a time when a planning application hadn’t even been submitted, a subset of councillors had already decided that nothing should stand in the way of granting a permit, such as protecting our built form heritage. BTW the application has now been submitted, GE/PP-28101/2015 on 17/6/2015.
July 29, 2015 at 8:28 AM
From start to finish Frogmore was an absolute disgrace = Lipshutz, Hyams and Pilling combined with the Administration and Jewish Care have a hell of a lot to answer for.
Firstly, an offensive and un-objective Officers Report (Rocky Camera) in February 2015 arguing that residents should have spoken up in 2003 not now. Incredibly this same Officers Report included the Council commissioned heritage assessment, by an independent heritage expert, which recommended heritage protection by Council. This independent assessment was the result of 1000 signatures on a petition – and Council voted 6 to 3 to protect.
Then we had the planning conference – over 300 letters submitted in support of Frogmore being protected and only 2 not supporting heritage (surprise surprise the two were the vendor and the seller). Jewish Care’s performance at the planning conference was one of “no compromise” as they were absolutely adamant that site was going to be developed to the max. ie Frogmore was going.
Go to Council’s June decision to ignore the current heritage advice, the planning scheme and residents in order to deny the residents access to the due processes. There wasn’t even a pretend substantiation of the sudden claim of net community benefit . Imagine the shennanigans that went on behind the scenes which resulted
. in the Mayor being absent and the Deputy Mayor (Delahunty) and Cr. Esakoff declaring conflicts of interest which were not there in February and
. in Pilling in the Chair with a casting vote.(his comments to residents contacting him on Frogmore, as early as December, 2014, was “I lived in Murrumbeena for 20 years and never heard of it so how important can it be”. Needless to say residents took this comment as being reflective of his knowledge of his electorate and commitment to community representation.)
The only display of integrity through out the Sorry Frogmore Saga came from the residents and Crs.Sounness, Okotel and Lobo, who consistently voted for heritage protection.
August 5, 2015 at 1:08 PM
Total discrace. Wouldn’t imagine this result in any other municipality in the south eastern suburbs.