By Gabriella Payne
The iconic restaurant and sprawling gardens of Berwick’s Clover Cottage seem set to become a thing of the past, as 18.4 hectares of former farming land, including that of Clover Cottage, has been rezoned for residential purposes.
The Minister for Planning, Richard Wynne MP recently approved Amendment C231 to the Casey Planning Scheme, which will allow parts of the land between 42-80 Manuka Road, Berwick to be transformed into residential dwellings.
The Amendment means that the vast amount of land, which has a very rich local history, has been changed from a “farming zone” to a “neighbourhood residential zone” along with a number of other updates, including changes to the heritage overlay on the site.
This decision was put into effect on Thursday 20 May 2021, when it was published in the Victoria Government Gazette and comes after years of debate and planning panel hearings over the land.
Having shut its doors for good in 2016, the old Clover Cottage site has sat vacant for years, but it seems this recent decision will now see the historic site turn over a new page in its story.
Back in 2016, when the fine-dining restaurant was getting ready to close its doors, the existing owner of Clover Cottage, John Chipperfield told the Gazette that the eight-acre Manuka Road property had been sold to an investment company.
“There have been a lot of rumours going around, but the current zoning wouldn’t allow the land to be subdivided,” Mr Chipperfield said in 2016.
At the time, Mr Chipperfield admitted he had submitted an application to the City of Casey requesting that the land be rezoned – something that the then CEO of the Casey Council, Mike Tyler, said that they were considering, alongside three other neighbouring properties.
Those considerations may have taken almost five years to come to fruition, but now that the amendment has been approved, locals can expect to see a change at some point in the near future.
Mr Chipperfield, who moved to Gippsland with his wife Engelina after closing the business in 2016, told the Gazette that the property had been merely a paddock when they, in partnership with Trevor Burr, had bought the land from tea merchant Fred Tuckfield’s estate in 1974.
“There was a farm across the road and the land between Berwick and Dandenong was all dairy farms,” Mr Chipperfield said at the time.
When the couple arrived in 1974, the site was home to some extensive gardens and a few other historic features, but the cottage itself was designed and built by the Chipperfields.
While they were building the cottage over the span of two years, the Chipperfelds operated their restaurant out of a shop on Berwick’s Main Street and it wasn’t until 1979 that Clover Cottage officially opened for business at its Manuka Road site.
The block of land has an even more extensive history, with the grand entrance gates dating back to the year 1840, when they were built for Oliver Gilpin, the founder of Melbourne’s first cash and carry grocery.
There’s no doubt that the land has seen a lot of changes over its lifetime, and it seems there’s no slowing down now!
The Minister approved planning scheme amendment documents are available to the public and can be viewed online at the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning website.
