The above image featured in today’s Age. It concerns the ongoing saga around the Woolworths’ development in Selwyn Street, Elsternwick and the continuing council limbo around May Street. According to senior legal advice May Street is, and always has been a ROAD and thus lies smack in the middle of the Woolworths’ planning permit for high rise towers and a supermarket.

So what is council doing about this? It would appear that they are content to do nothing and to cede this land worth an estimated $5M to the developer ‘free of charge’. The folks at Stop the Towers, have for ages advocated that this land be turned into open space and failing this, that council (and hence ratepayers) be reimbursed for its value. Instead, everything is in limbo, with council sitting on its hands and hoping that the issue fades away. In a suburb with the least amount of public open space in the municipality, $5M could certainly buy quite a decent sized piece of land.