One of Melbourne's most controversial major apartment developments has emerged as an election issue in the marginal seat of Prahran, held by the Napthine government, just weeks before the state goes to the polls.
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Planning Minister Matthew Guy last week introduced new six-level height limits on a site in Armadale next to Toorak railway station.
But with developer Lend Lease starting early work in the near future on four 12-level towers on the site, the new rules are likely to have no effect.
Mr Guy released the new planning rules last week, in a bid to help shore up support for Clem Newton-Brown, who won the seat of Prahran from Labor in 2010.
The 2.5 hectares on Orrong Road sit just over the border from Mr Newton-Brown's seat. But plans for the site have been a big issue in the electorate, which he holds by less than 5 per cent.
He won the seat after fighting hard against Labor at the 2010 election over the issue of inappropriate development in the area.
Lend Lease's plans for the site were rejected by Stonnington Council, which received more than 600 objections, but the state planning tribunal overruled its decision in 2012. The council later lost a Supreme Court challenge to the decision.
The Orrong Group, which has fought against the 450-apartment development for more than four years, said Mr Guy had "shut the gate on Orrong Road after [the] developer bolted".
Spokeswoman Margot Carroll said the minister's decision was too late, but was also "an admission" by the government that it should have put mandatory height and density restrictions on the site.
She said the group had "repeatedly petitioned" the government to stop the development.
Mr Newton-Brown said that, under the Coalition government, nearly 60 per cent of Stonnington Council's areas had now been protected under new zoning rules stopping development over two storeys.
He said the permit issued for the Orrong Road site "was totally out of step with community expectations" and the new planning rules would ensure the project did not get higher or denser.
A spokeswoman for Mr Guy said that, had stronger local protection been in place on the site, "there would never have been the scale of the development that was approved".
And she said that the Orrong Group had been asking for the changes made by Mr Guy, even after the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal had approved the project.
"It is quite strange they now criticise this amendment's approval given they have repeatedly called for it, even after the project's approval by VCAT," she said.
Lend Lease is expected to next week begin remediation works on the site before building the towers.
Stonnington councillor Claude Ullin said the changes by Mr Guy "won't change the height limits or number of units or the 1000 people that are going to be there, or the problems that are going to occur with public transport and traffic".
"It's a belated concession to at least recognise that the residents had a strong voice of opposition," Cr Ullin said. "But unfortunately it was all too late."
The buildings on the site were once the headquarters for the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission, but were sold in 1995 by the Kennett government.
