This week, residents submitted the first of five joint applications to Hobsons Bay City Council demonstrating our existing use rights for our homes at Techno Park. This first application includes over 100 pieces of evidence relating to over sixty residents in one block of units since 1997. It is the result of a year of dedicated work by neighbours who have written statutory declarations with the details of their lives, shared old bills, rental statements, photos and letters, scoured printed copies of historical electoral rolls for Techno Park addresses, and driven across town to interview old neighbours in nursing homes.

Existing use rights make it legal to live at Techno Park regardless of zoning, due to the long-term use of our purpose-built apartment buildings as homes. Internal Council documents released under FOI show that Council knew that Techno Park homes were entitled to existing use rights, and acted deliberately to attempt to “extinguish” those rights and force a mass eviction. 

A change to the planning scheme by the State Government last year means that Council is now obliged to consider applications to recognise where 15 years residential use has accrued and cannot extinguish those rights. There have been big changes in our Council too — five brand new councillors were elected to represent our community last year, and three members of the senior leadership have been replaced following a Worksafe investigation into bullying of Council staff, and the leaked Local Government Inspectorate report into (now ex) CEO Aaron van Egmond’s harmful conduct in his previous job. 

We are working towards finalising our applications for the remaining blocks, and hope to be able to submit them shortly too.

If you'd like to, you can make a contribution to our fighting fund at Chuffed.org, and find us on Facebook and Instagram.

On behalf of all of us at Techno Park, thank you so much for your ongoing support—your solidarity means the world.