VCAT Approves Construction of Luxury Home Overlooking Controversial Mount Martha Beach

Exhibitionist sunbakers and adventurist gays visiting a popular Mount Eliza nude beach might have to contend with the sight and sound of construction workers for a few years.

Millionaire horse trainer Jonathan Munz has successfully lobbied the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for a permit to build a luxury home and tennis court on a waterfront piece of his landmark Pinecliff horse training complex – and near another home which was demolished in 2006.

Pinecliff is on land zoned Green Wedge 3 near the YMCA’s Manyung Recreation Camp, the Morning Star Winery and Mornington Golf Club.

The equine complex is also near Sunnyside Beach North – one of Melbourne’s four “clothing optional” shorelines. The area is a popular anonymous gay meeting spot and has generated public indecency complaints.

One local land owner, prominent businessman Charles “Chas” Jacobsen, recently applied to VCAT to erect a 400 metre fence around his 11.7 hectare Gunyong Valley estate to avoid groups of people creating love nests in the vegetation.

Jacobsen paid $14.5 million in 2006 for the Mt Eliza estate that was once home to the late Sir Reginald Ansett.

Near to Gunyong Valley, billionaire businessman Solomon Lew is embroiled in a planning dispute after it was revealed a swimming pool constructed at the back of his Osprey Avenue home, may have been developed on crown land without an appropriate permit.

Munz last made headlines in Domain in early 2008, when he paid music promoter Andrew McManus $13.5 million for a 0.4 hectare Toorak estate with an established lush garden, tennis court and pool. Coincidentally, McManus has now listed for sale the Myoora Road, Toorak home that he relocated to, for about $14 million.

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Marc Pallisco

A former property analyst and print journalist, Marc is the publisher of realestatesource.com.au.