Evolving Port

Port Melbourne and Fishermans Bend change. Houses are changed or demolished and new forms of housing take their place. Port Houses records some of these changes.

07 August 2011

Garden City Bank Houses

Beacon Rd, Garden City

The Garden City bank houses are covered by a heritage overlay in the Port Phillip Planning Scheme. This means that a planning permit is required to make changes - to fences and windows as well as more substantial renovations. 

Guidelines prepared in 1997 were updated in 2010 to assist people wanting to make changes to their Garden City homes. The guidelines are accessible via the link in the right hand menu.

06 August 2011

51 Bridge St, Port Melbourne

March 2019

An article on this Heritage cottage, Port Melbourne  by Alexandra Buchanan architects was featured in The Local Project on 7 March.







History of 51 Bridge Street

This house is built on Allotment 15 of Section 50, shown on a Township plan of Sandridge dated 5 November 1860. At this stage it was the only land in Port Melbourne east of the lagoon which had been surveyed into allotments. Access was limited to a bridge at Graham Street or alternatively travelling around the end of the lagoon, in the vicinity of Raglan Street and Ingles Street. 

Allotment 15 was purchased from the crown by William V Buckhurst, an agent from Emerald Hill. During 1874 he erected the present brick house at 51 Bridge Street.

The building is a good example of a small single fronted house in Port Melbourne. It is constructed of dark brown and black bricks with delicate wooden barge boards and a turned wooden finial. The house has cast iron brackets and frieze; probably added at a later date.

(source: Port Melbourne Conservation Study, prepared by Jacobs, Lewis, Vines Architects and Conservation Planners July 1979, p167)

Heritage policy

City of Port Phillip policy on upper level additions to heritage buildings: The photographs demonstrate the City of Port Phillip Heritage Policy which is that:

'an upper storey addition is sited and massed behind the principal facade so that it preferably is not visible, particularly in intact or consistent streetscapes.' (Local Planning Policies - Clause 22.04 p2 of 7)

01 August 2011

86 to 88 Dow St, Port Melbourne

September 2023

Cladding is being replaced on the development. 

July 2011
84 - 88 Dow St, July 2011

Work has begun on 86 to 88 Dow St, Port Melbourne. The site has been vacant for about two years. The application, refused by Council, was supported at VCAT. The decision is one of several by VCAT for the area south of Graham St, where the Tribunal has preferred the growth direction of the City of Port Phillip's planning scheme above the sensitivity to the heritage buildings to the east. The development will be over 5 levels and contain 23 dwellings with basement carpark. 

The site was sold by private treaty in 2006 for $2,525m.

The site was formerly a marine engineering works.