There has been a lot of action in Bowen Cres in the last 18 months and people have frequently asked me ‘what can we do?’.

I am no expert, but there is a lot of good reading on the City of Port Phillip web site.

This one has details of the overall St Kilda Rd area and some general planning ‘rules’.  This one has information on Bowen Crescent particularly.

So my interpretation is that is someone wants to demolish and build in Bowen Cres, the first check is compliance with these documents.  They specify a maximum height and the setback from the road etc.  I think you would have very little room to argue if the developer meets these ‘rules’.

I’m sure that the Council also has some general rules about building new apartments that ‘look into’ existing apartments.

Each time that someone submits plans to the council, they place a notice out the front of the site.  This has a link to a website that has all the plan details.  You can also go to this site and search, in fact you can simply search on Bowen Crescent and there are numerous submissions (back many years).

When a submission is made public they also advertise the process for lodging complaints/comments.