Amendment C150 – 1-5 Term Street Strathmore

Strathmore Children’s Centre - what's happened so far

We are committed to providing local families and children with high quality early years services that strengthen their ability to live, learn, discover and grow. Key to this is investing in the continued improvement of our early years facilities, and where appropriate, moving towards an integrated service model. This is where a range of complementary early years services are made available within the one facility.

In 2011 Strathmore was identified as a prime location for an integrated facility. In December 2012 the new Strathmore Children’s Centre (stage one) was officially opened in Loeman Street, Strathmore. Currently around 160 local families access childcare and integrated kindergarten services at the centre, and around 600 families access Maternal and Child Health Services.

We are pleased to announce that we are now working on stage two of the Strathmore Children’s Centre project. This will expand the integrated services currently available at the centre; adding a new single storey, dual kindergarten with a landscaped children’s play area and a family room that can be used for new mothers’ groups and parent meetings.

Once completed, the centre will allow local families to access high quality childcare, Maternal Child and Health Services, kindergarten and other early years services all under the one roof.

Combined planning permit application and planning scheme amendment process

The new Strathmore Children’s Centre kindergarten is to be built on vacant land at 1-5 Term Street, Strathmore. The site is currently covered by a restrictive covenant, which states that only single residential dwellings can be built on the land.

At the Ordinary Meeting held on 25 November 2014, Council decided to undertake a planning scheme amendment (Amendment C150) to vary the restrictive covenant, combined with a planning permit application for the proposed kindergarten. This combined process will allow residents to consider the variation to the covenant and the planning permit application at the same time.

In September 2015 the State Government approved the combined Planning Scheme Amendment C150 and Planning Permit Application (MV/37/2014).

The planning permit is approved for:

• The use and development of the land at 1-5 Term Street, Strathmore for the purpose of a childcare centre.

The approved amendment makes the following changes to the Planning Scheme:

• Amend Section 1 of the Schedule to Clause 52.02 of the Moonee Valley Planning Scheme in order to vary the restrictive covenant which ‘allows development for uses associated with a childcare centre’.

The amendment was effective from Thursday, 3 September, when notice of this was published in the Victorian Government Gazette, and the planning permit has now been issued by Council.

For further details on this amendment visit the Amendments Online page on the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning website

Next steps

We will keep the community informed about the next steps for the childcare centre. Works are likely to commence in 2016/17 with a January 2018 opening and we will distribute further information in due course.