A 10-year David vs Goliath battle over a proposed shopping centre development in the small Macedon Ranges town of Riddells Creek is closer to an end.
Macedon Ranges Shire councillors on Wednesday night knocked back a request by the developer for two more years to build a shopping centre in the town on Melbourne's urban fringe.
The proposal for the supermarket, 16 shops, cafe and car park was first brought before Macedon Ranges Shire Council in 2010, and approved by councillors in February 2013.
But community group Getting Riddell Right has continued lobbying against the development.
Neighbourhood warriors
The group's president, Jenny Grounds, said the group didn't oppose the development, just the design of it.
"It's still the same concerns we had when we first objected to it many years ago," she said.
"We think it's time to go back to the drawing board. It wasn't good in the first place and there is more of an imperative now to have good urban design."
Essendon-based construction company Bill Jacobs Pty Ltd is acting for the owner and on Tuesday its senior architect, Angelo Paolini, said the company could not speak for them.
The council's director of Planning Environment Angela Hughes said the applicant told a meeting a fortnight ago that there were plans to sell the site.
A Foodworks supermarket sits opposite the proposed site.
Time's running out
The owner was granted a planning permit in December 2014 by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) after Getting Riddell Right fought Macedon Ranges Shire Council's decision at the planning umpire and lost.
Bill Jacobs Pty Ltd told the council a lack of finances was the reason construction had been delayed.
Dr Julie Rudner, an academic on community development and planning at La Trobe University, said good design was essential when balancing population growth and the existing characteristics of smaller towns.
"The 'idyll' is often a romantic or static notion of place. Instead, it is more productive to identify values and produce design responses that uphold these values," she said.
She said residents of small towns realised that change would will happen regardless, so it was better for everyone to focus on the quality of the development.
'They've had plenty of time'
The Victorian Government this year finalised its 50-year strategy, which aimed to protect the Macedon Ranges from inappropriate development, while the council had added new localised planning controls laws since 2014.
Former mayor and Woodend-based councillor Jennifer Anderson said the refusal was not a burden on the applicant as they had had enough time.
"Ten years is a long time and the planning controls and Riddells Creek have moved on," she said.
The developer can appeal the refusal at VCAT.
