East Melbourne residents fight to save 137-year-old town house

A townhouse built in 1883 is set to be converted into a high-rise apartment building if a planning application submitted to the City of Melbourne is successful.

Developers plan to partially knock down part of the historic East Melbourne home Eblana located on Jolimont Rd to make way for four “high-end apartments”.

East Melbourne Group heritage and planning convener Greg Bisinella said that although the application was yet to be formally considered the plans were “completely unacceptable”.

“From our perspective they’re taking a heritage-listed property, knocking the back off it, and dominating it with a modern building,” Mr Bisinella said.

“It’s classic façadism.”

If successful, the $10 million development would turn part of the C-graded heritage building into a nine-storey apartment building with views of the city and the MCG.

The application states that although there would be minor demolition of the property, the apartments would provide “a high-quality adaptation of the existing heritage building on-site that will cater to people seeing high-end apartments at premium locations.’’

But Mr Bisinella said that the entire plan flouted mandatory height limits in the suburb and council should consider the application carefully.

“If the application goes through it will be taller than any other building in the street and will set a nasty precedent in Jolimont,” Mr Bisinella said.

“The height restriction is supposed to be 12–13 metres and they’ve got 30.”

Eblana was built by Thomas Joshua Jackson and Henry Young—owners of the famous Young and Jackson Hotel opposite Flinders Street Station.

The property was home to Jackson’s wife until her passing in 1924 when it was sold to the Commonwealth and used as the postmaster-general head office.

In July 2020 Eblana was bought for $6.45 million after Colliers International promoted the development prospects of the 510 sqm site.

Mr Bisinella said that the way heritage-listed properties were advertised was part of the problem.

“The property was sold as a development opportunity so it’s not surprising that they’re now trying to develop as much of the land as they can,” Mr Bisinella said.

“This is a constant battle in East Melbourne.”