Bellarine Community Health has dramatically scaled down redevelopment plans for its Point Lonsdale facility, shelving for now a proposal for 66 townhouses, underground carpark and swimming pool.
The new vision will instead focus solely on the renovation, rather than demolition, of the existing medical and community health centre.
The Eric Tolliday aged care units will also be excluded from any new works for the time being.
Chief executive officer John Fendyk said the yet-to-be finalised, less ambitious proposal followed extensive community consultation.
“We’ve looked at the feedback we’ve received from the community and re-evaluated the financial commitment that the organisation wanted to make and this sits pretty comfortably in addressing the needs of that facility at this point in time,” Mr Fendyk said.
“The priority is with the board’s decision to upgrade the existing community health centre. We haven’t lost sight of the masterplanning for the remainder of the site but we need to understand what spatial capacity we have and re-look at the modelling.
“So some of the concepts we put up in the original masterplan are still on the agenda, but obviously not a community health centre.”
The original design, released to the public in September incorporated 66 two-level townhouses, a café, indoor swimming pool, 200 underground car parks and an entirely new medical and community health centre.
The Eric Tolliday units were to have been demolished to make way for the new facility, fronting Lawrence Road.
It was likely to cost in excess of $7m - $3m of which has been committed by the Federal Government.
However the vision was attacked by some within the community as being excessive and an improper use of money derived from the sale of the Coorabin and Ann Nichol aged care bed licences.
Mr Fendyk said his organisation was now focused on finalising a planning application for the revised project.
“We’ve had an estimation of the time for that and if all goes well that can be done by about March of 2018 and that’s exciting because that building is well overdue for an upgrade.”
The new vision will instead focus solely on the renovation, rather than demolition, of the existing medical and community health centre.
The Eric Tolliday aged care units will also be excluded from any new works for the time being.
Chief executive officer John Fendyk said the yet-to-be finalised, less ambitious proposal followed extensive community consultation.
“We’ve looked at the feedback we’ve received from the community and re-evaluated the financial commitment that the organisation wanted to make and this sits pretty comfortably in addressing the needs of that facility at this point in time,” Mr Fendyk said.
“The priority is with the board’s decision to upgrade the existing community health centre. We haven’t lost sight of the masterplanning for the remainder of the site but we need to understand what spatial capacity we have and re-look at the modelling.
“So some of the concepts we put up in the original masterplan are still on the agenda, but obviously not a community health centre.”
The original design, released to the public in September incorporated 66 two-level townhouses, a café, indoor swimming pool, 200 underground car parks and an entirely new medical and community health centre.
The Eric Tolliday units were to have been demolished to make way for the new facility, fronting Lawrence Road.
It was likely to cost in excess of $7m - $3m of which has been committed by the Federal Government.
However the vision was attacked by some within the community as being excessive and an improper use of money derived from the sale of the Coorabin and Ann Nichol aged care bed licences.
Mr Fendyk said his organisation was now focused on finalising a planning application for the revised project.
“We’ve had an estimation of the time for that and if all goes well that can be done by about March of 2018 and that’s exciting because that building is well overdue for an upgrade.”
