Rise And Shine, Doncaster
The Sunday Age
Sunday November 18, 2001
On Saturdays 30 years ago, hundreds of people would line up at an Inge Brothers display centre in Manningham Road, Templestowe. The area, about 12 kilometres east of the city, was a mecca of display homes where young couples would wait up to an hour for their turn to walk through a dream.
The ice-cream van jangled its way hourly around the area providing sweet comfort for the patient home seekers.
Twenty years earlier, a little village of 15 or 16 streets had sprung up by the Yarra, occupied by people wanting to live a ``green" lifestyle and prepared to accept restrictions on the use of their land to preserve it. This was the original Templestowe.
Single-dwelling caveats still prevent subdivision in some of these streets.
The area known as Lower Templestowe, off Thompsons Road, had been settled at war's end with roads still unmade and the clank of the nightcart punctuating residents' sleep.
The one-acre blocks along Serpells Road and Foote Street that epitomised Templestowe in the minds of Melburnians were first developed in the 1960s and have continued to attract a mix of European and Asian residents ever since.
There's a changing of the guard taking place in the suburb where the young couples stood and yearned over the Inge Brothers display homes.
Many empty-nesters have left their original Templestowe homes for townhouses, some as far afield as Beacon Cove, Port Melbourne. Others have stayed in the area and moved into high-rise developments such as the two existing apartment towers facing Doncaster Shoppingtown.
The Doncaster Hill landscape, once almost entirely orchards outlined with tall windbreak pines, will soon sprout more high-rise developments to meet the needs of an ageing, empty-nester population.
It is a process supported by the local council, the City of Manningham.
Smaller townhouse developments are sprinkled through the area, some as infill on former school properties and some where blocks have been able to be subdivided.
The former Templestowe hill climb track has become a 48-lot subdivision of 1100 to 2000 square-metre blocks.
There are 60 blocks in a proposed development of land that was a campus of Kingswood College in Deep Creek Road, Doncaster East.
The council's director of statutory planning, Paul Molan, said household sizes were shrinking.
"We need to provide residential units just to keep the population static," he said.
There are plans for 3500 apartments over the next 20 years, including one 11-storey building already approved for 632 Doncaster Road. Multi-unit redevelopments are also planned in the area south of Doncaster Road.
Manningham's manager of economic and environmental planning, Roger Collins, said the development of high-rise accommodation in the Doncaster Hill area was approved in principle by the Planning Minister, John Thwaites.
"It is in line with council's corporate objectives and social objectives for future housing needs. Council is aiming to have state-of-the-art buildings that meet environmentally sustainable criteria."
Manningham's population, like other easter suburban municipalities, is ageing faster than the metropolitan population generally, creating the need for medium-density development. Another emerging market sector is young people leaving home for the first time.
"These young people cannot afford to live in Carlton or the inner suburbs," Mr Collins said.
Prices in Doncaster and Templestowe have risen steadily in line with the rest of Melbourne, with top prices being paid for two-storey houses ``with everything" in the one-acre (.4 of a hectare) belt.
Agent Barry Plant says the top price paid for one of these was $3.5million for 122 Serpells Road, later sold for $2.417 million. Since then, a brother and sister have built two houses that Mr Plant says ``have everything" and are valued at about $5 million and $7 million respectively.
Much of the area remains affordable, however. A ``reasonable" home in Lower Templestowe, built in the 1960s, with three bedrooms and a family room, has just sold for $255,000, which Mr Plant described as entry level.
One-acre properties with a house start at $600,000 and vacant one-acre blocks start at $400,000. ``That's pretty good for such a prestigious suburb," Mr Plant said.
The area is well served with primary and secondary schools.
Younger people moving in tend to be affluent and many of their children, after a period at one of the many good state primary schools, are gathered up by school buses and whisked off to Carey, Scotch and Xavier.
Agent Philip Webb attributes recent strong growth in the area to the opening of the Eastern Freeway.
Before the freeway was opened, giving speedy access for commuters to the city, homes in Doncaster-Templestowe sold for about 40 per cent less than their near neighbors in Kew.
"There has been a bit of catch-up and the gap has been closing," Mr Webb said.
Now buyers are likely to be business owners or middle and upper management executives with families.
They are attracted to the ``one-acre belt" of Templestowe by the space for a swimming pool, tennis court and indoor and outdoor entertaining.
They want en suite bathrooms, family rooms and ducted heating. They can pay for homes ranging from 50 to 150 squares, many of them priced over $1 million.
The earlier catalyst for the suburb was the development 30 years ago of Doncaster Westfield Shoppingtown astride the Doncaster Hill.
Later came cosmopolitan restaurants in the surrounding area. Residents no longer needed to travel to Carlton to dine or have a coffee.
They now claim you get Melbourne's best yum cha in Doncaster and Templestowe.
Courtesy of the council which bought a corner service station site and issued the permit for a cafe, cafe latte has arrived at the Templestowe village shopping centre, in James Street.
The centre's mixed fortunes have improved with the emergence of Indian, Chinese and Italian dining.
© 2001 The Sunday Age