Dingley Village divided over plans to redevelop Kingswood Golf Club

PROPERTY fund giant ISPT are in discussions with Kingston Council about a planning scheme amendment to rezone the Kingswood Golf Club site in the hope of turning it into a huge residential estate.

The company bought the 53.4ha site last year for $125 million and last week’s High Court dismissal of a legal challenge by golf club member Bill Falkingham, that sought to unwind a 2013 merger of the Kingswood and Peninsula Country golf clubs, has taken ISPT a step closer to its development goal.

ISPT’s Kingswood Project team spokesman Hugh Jones told the Leader the company was “talking to all community groups” about the controversial build.

“We’re talking to all community groups with a view to understanding the needs of the surrounding community,” Mr Jones said.

“And we want the development to be as environmentally sensitive as possible and an asset for the local community.”

The Save Kingswood group has been opposing the land sale and development since 2013 and in recent weeks a new group, Kingswood Community Group, has emerged urging talks with the developer to maximise the benefit to the community.

Michael Boss, spokesman for the Kingswood Community Group, said the conversation needed to shift from stopping the development to seeing what’s best for Dingley.

“If the community is constantly negative then the developer is just going to do what they want and cut the community out of the decision making,” Mr Boss said.

He said he hoped to get local labour involved in the building process as well as converting the old golf club house into a community centre.

But his stance hadn’t been popular and he said on top of being banned from some community Facebook pages, he had been threatened with legal action.

Save Kingswood secretary Kevin Poulter said, while a dialogue was needed, the majority of people in Dingley still opposed the development.

“It’s important to note that merely purchasing a special zone land does not give the buyer a right to bulldoze,” Mr Poulter said.

He said the huge jump in population numbers for the small suburb would overload services.

In the earlier September judgment, the court ruled the board of the Kingswood Golf Club had acted beyond its powers by admitting 1000 new members from the Peninsula Club at $1 each, who could then vote in favour of the merger, and that its conduct had been “oppressive”.

However, the court refused Mr Falkingham’s leave to appeal based on the ruling of “laches”, essentially, that he had taken too long to bring his action to court.