Many of you have contacted the campaign when the “blade” was being erected on site. The “blade” is the structure that will support the illuminated M that will advertise this monstrosity to the community that will no doubt give the store a wide berth. Most who contacted us were familiar with the submitted plans and renderings to VCAT that showed the “blade” somewhat smaller. It just did not look right.
The great thing about this campaign and the community that support it, is we have some very clever and talented people. Some of that local “talent” visited the site one Saturday morning and using a device called a clinometer were able to measure the blade without actually going on site. What a shock when we got the report to find that McDonald’s had clearly breached one of the most contentious issues of the VCAT hearing the height of the blade. VCAT ruled that the sign could be no higher than 6 metres and no more than 50cm over the roofline. The clinometer measurement showed that the erected blade was in fact 7.5 metres high making it a MAJOR breach of a VCAT conditions.
This information was provided to the Yarra Ranges Council who agreed to conduct a “compliance visit” as soon as possible.
Well today there was a lot of action on site with workers giving the blade somewhat of a “haircut” resulting in the blade now being at an approved height.
We have no idea if the council actually made a visit, or whether they simply called McDonald’s…..the fact is they were BUSTED by a community that watched their every move.
Now the question remains, how many other VCAT conditions have been ignored? We do know that McDonald’s ignored the Australian standard for tree protection and an arborist’s report is in the hands of council regarding the liquid amber that received little or no protection during the build.
McDonald’s when pressured by the media about the community reaction to this store always claim “we have done everything legally”….well this shows that they have not. They showed amazing arrogance in ignoring community concerns when 1170 objected to council. Then they turned the arrogance up to 11 when they went to VCAT to have a democratically elected council decision overturned. And now having got a favourable VCAT result (with conditions) they chose to ignore VCAT’s ruling…..the arrogance is breathtaking.
In coming days when the media get hold of this McDonald’s will attempt to spin their way out of trouble, they will claim an honest mistake which they quickly rectified or they will blame the builder. But on the surface it appears they’ve been busted putting greed ahead of community and again proving why this corporation has no place in our community.
