The Telstra Empire Colonises Notting Hill - Offices for 4000 over the Back Fence

Telstra announced their plans today for their site at 770 Blackburn Rd, the former Telstra Research Labs. This joins onto the Notting Hill housing area.

Quoting from their media release - link

"Telstra will build a large 40,000 square metre office complex in Clayton, Victoria."
The new flagship development, to be completed by late 2009, will accommodate around 4,000 Telstra employees in four low-rise buildings ranging from two to six storeys."
Leading property Developer Salta Constructions will undertake the construction which will also feature an additional 2,000 square metres of retail facilities comprising a mini-market, newsagent and cafes."
"Site work is expected to commence in early 2008 and will involve the demolition of the existing vacant buildings"

In Notty the response is mixed – more people in the area but the traffic; the lack of open space and parking point to failures in planning that are being compounded by school closures.

L wrote:
The South Eastern employees scattered over the suburbs and outer CBD will all be relocated to this site. If we thought the traffic was bad around here now, just wait until this place opens ... and where are all the cars going to park as most of the site will be office/retail buildings? The price of apartments might rise if people want to live and work in the same suburb? Who knows ... all the more reason to press on for some open spaces and greenery, bike paths etc as we're going to bear some of the pressure of all the extra human and vehicular traffic.

D wrote:
If even just 5% of Telstra's 4000+ staff brought their children to a local school that's 200 or more kids. Imagine if there was a good primary school just off the Telstra/University sites [perhaps, the former Monash Primary School :)], which then fed into the Monash Uni Science and Technology Secondary school, or one of the local Sec. schools such as Mt. Waverley or Glen Waverley ... and what about childcare facilites close by?? What is the State Govt/Monash Council going to do about providing all the extra services that will be needed by the influx of Telstra employees?


This is a B3 Zone and for the site (770 Blackburn Rd) there is a 28,000 square meter limit for leasable office space above which a planning permit would be needed
--- thus expect to see a planning application notice .. should be detail available when that happens.

D2 wrote:
Parking ... my reading of 52.06 (can't find anything that overrides it in the B3 zone) required 3.5 cars per 100 square meters of floor for an office. ie 40000/100 * 3.5 = 1400 car parks ... given my past life at that site I'd say there will be a few extra people looking to park cars (Expect 1 person per 10square meters of floor area and nearly 1 car per 2 persons at best) --- ie 4000 people (as stated in the announcement) so 2000+ cars. Not sure where they will go let alone get in and out of the site. When TRL was there at its peak there were only about 600 people.

L2:
the more reason to press on for some open spaces and greenery, bike paths
etc as we're going to bear some of the pressure of all the extra human and
vehicular traffic.

- AND SCHOOLS!!!!! surely some of those people will want easy access to a
primary school, as was the case with the now-closed primary school.