We had some time over Christmas to come up with a plan. How are we going to tackle this?
We have a lease that still has more than 12 months to run. We've spent so much time, energy and money on this already, and we aren't ready to back down just yet.
In early January, we decided to lodge a "Failure to Determine" appeal with VCAT (Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal).
While we knew that council planning's recommendation was to refuse our application, we couldn't actually lodge an appeal against the refusal because the refusal wasn't official yet.
However, as council hadn't given us an official response either way, we were able to lodge a Failure to Determine appeal. Council only had 60 days to respond, and at the time we lodged, it had been around 100 days.
What this means is that VCAT will take over the decision-making process from council, and VCAT will decide.
We did this as a fallback position more than anything. The councillors who form the Town Planning Committee could overturn the recommendation to refuse, but if they don't, we already have our hearing date set.
VCAT hearing dates are currently backlogged due to COVID, and unfortunately, the date we ended up with is the end of August 2022, which seems like a lifetime away.
We hope we don't have to go this far. As you can imagine, the cost of paying rent on an empty factory adds up fast. Add to that consultants' and solicitors' fees.
Waiting on Council
Our application was originally due to go to the Town Planning Committee for review at the February meeting. It was withdrawn and has now been scheduled for the April meeting.
We've reached out to all the councillors, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor on multiple occasions now.
I've had some productive conversations with some councillors and am happy to say that some love our plan and have offered to support it. Others are leaving it until they've read the full report.
Failing approval at the April meeting, VCAT will be our last option in August.
So, When Will We Open?
Some people have asked, when will we be opening?
Well, pending the above, should we get approval in April, we'd likely be open for summer (hopefully before Christmas) 2022.
If we need to go to the VCAT hearing and get approval there, then it would more likely be an opening around Easter 2023.
If we get to VCAT and don't get approved, we'll bow out, move on, and continue to dream about what could have been…