The developer who dreamed of making the house from The Castle a major drawcard at his new caravan park in Victoria has abandoned the plan.
In contrast to Darryl Kerrigan who famously fought officialdam and bureaucracy to save his weatherboard home in the famous Australian film, George Fendyk has decided that – in real life – taking on Indigo Shire Council is just too tough of a proposition.
Mr Fendyk, told the Border Mail newspaper that the council’s rejection of his dream was a “stupid decision”, and he would not appeal it to planning umpire VCAT.
“I don’t think it’s worthwhile appealing to any bastard really,” Mr Fendyk said.
Earlier this week, councillors voted 5-2 against Mr Fendyk’s plan to create a new caravan in Beechworth, despite staff earlier recommending it to be approved subject to conditions.
The developer bought the house that featured in the iconic 1997 film for $40,000 last year and trucked it several hundred kilometres from Melbourne’s northern suburbs to Beechworth in country Victoria.
He had intended to have the house serve as an office and a caretaker’s residence that visitors could have come into … but not any more.
“I was going to have it as an office for the caravan park, but you can’t pay for someone to open it up to the public … it ain’t going to work,” Mr Fendyk told the Border Mail. “People can drive around the outside of it.”
Objections to the proposal had centred on noise, additional traffic, and a caravan park not being compatible with the land being zoned rural.
However, Mayor Bernard Gaffney believed that the caravan park plan should have gone ahead, and he questioned whether it would really have harmed the area’s ‘vibe’.
He said the conditions for approval were “quite binding and I don’t think they would effect the amenity or the vibe of the area”.
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I thought caravan parks were a permitted activity in a farming zone? With the amount of tourism to this area I would have thought there was a demand for another caravan park= would be interesting to find out if there were connections in council to the other park?