Future of greyhound hotel to be decided
St Kilda’s historic Greyhound hotel, one of the area’s best-known watering holes has been saved from demolition – for now.
Back in June, a private building surveyor had issued a demolition permit for the pub and popular gay bar in Brighton Road.
Port Phillip Council will be considering an application to build an eight-storey apartment block on the site in February.
The issue galvanised the community which put up a change.org petition to save the hotel from being wrecked.
The organisers collected more than 2500 signatures in just three weeks.
As expected, that was enough to capture council’s attention.
At its council meeting last week, the decision was made to seek approval from Planning Minister Richard Wynne and get an interim heritage order slapped on the 163-year-old Greyhound Hotel, preventing it from demolition,
A cultural heritage values assessment would be carried out.
Petition organiser Caroline Thurling said the Greyhound, built in 1893, had historic value and was the “gateway to St Kilda”, sitting as it does on the top end of the street on the intersection between the beach and St Kilda Road leading into Melbourne’s CBD.
“The future prosperity of our area depends on sustaining St Kilda as the icon, the top destination of Melbourne,” she told the meeting.
“We’ve lost too much character already and anecdotally, I’ve heard visitors to St Kilda say it’s not what they thought it would be,’’
Mr Thurling said the council need to be more proactive preventing the area’s significant landmarks falling under the wrecker’s ball.
“This has made us more concerned about broader St Kilda and the broader municipality; what other character that doesn’t have heritage overlay is at threat,” she said.
“We are under threat of development and losing our identity.”
Seven months ago, the council fast-tracked a heritage assessment of the London Hotel in Port Melbourne upon discovering it did not have protection.
by Leon Gettler, December 16th 2016
