‘Gobsmacking’ final win over council eviction for Williamstown residents

For the first Christmas in three years, the residents at Techno Park Drive don’t have the threat of eviction looming over them.

In a final victory against Hobsons Bay City Council, the tight-knit Williamstown community at the storied estate have won the permanent legal right to remain in their homes.

The council confirmed the final approvals for “existing use rights” for two remaining residential blocks on Monday, officially ending a harrowing 2½-year mass eviction battle first publicised by The Age.

Up to 100 people – including working families, refugees and elderly residents – faced displacement after the council abruptly enforced a 37-year-old industrial zoning rule in May 2023. The estate, which includes several apartment blocks built after World War II, sits adjacent to an ExxonMobil fuel storage site.

Resident organiser Lara Week described the final approval as gobsmacking and a huge relief.

“It’s taken an enormous toll on people’s lives,” Week said. “But actually working together in this way … has been such a gift. We have these incredible, deep, trusting relationships between people ... I couldn’t imagine anywhere better to live now.”

After a major “Save Techno Park” community campaign, the Allan government quietly introduced a new state planning law in February 2024 that explicitly provided existing use rights to properties that had functioned as homes for a continuous 15-year period – undermining the council’s plans.

But residents from each unit still had to provide evidence of continuous use to be finally granted the certificate of compliance – a process that reached completion on Monday.

Freedom-of-information documents revealed the council had devised a secretive enforcement campaign dubbed “Operation Pegasus” – after Mobil’s logo – and sought to “effectively extinguish” the residents’ legal claims, knowing the action would displace at least 50 people, including children.

“The council said that they were obliged to evict everyone, and we found out quickly that that wasn’t true,” Week said.

Asked about the cost and political decision to proceed with enforcement, a council spokesperson said it was acting on “planning requirements as they existed at the time” and that its administrative duty is “accommodated for within its annual budget”.

Week noted that the fuel tanks originally cited by the council as the primary safety risk were all but empty when the eviction campaign began. “Right now, they’ve been demolishing them … and have said that they’re never using that land for fuel storage again,” she said.

Mobil issued a brief statement saying it would “work with the relevant regulators to update our safety case and management processes” to reflect the actual usage of the land.

Councillor Daria Kellander, a long-time supporter of the residents, celebrated the news, posting on social media: “After being made to feel like a criminal just for standing up for these guys … this moment means the world to me. I’m proud of the residents, proud of the fight, and so grateful we finally got here.”

Techno Park residents will now hold a celebration and dedicate efforts to supporting residents of two nearby public housing towers in Williamstown due for demolition.

Week said the lesson from the ordeal was “what is possible when people stand up for one another ... and say, ‘No, we won’t accept decisions from our governments that harm people.’”

She credited the success to community support, noting that apart from Kellander, “all these elected people we approached said there was nothing that they could do”.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said she welcomed the certainty now provided to residents at Techno Park Drive.

“Existing use rights have long been part of Victoria’s planning system and last year we made statewide changes to make them fairer.”

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