In 2023 the practice completed a new home on Military Road, Avondale Heights: a two-storey house shaped to catch its outlook without overlooking its neighbours, carried from feasibility through planning to completion in this same council area. You can see it in our selected works. It is the shortest way to say what we do around Moonee Ponds: homes designed, approved and built, not just heritage paperwork.
Opening a dark Victorian plan to the garden, replanning the kitchen and living zones, making the house work as hard as the mortgage does.
The classic local brief: keep the front the street loves, rebuild the back around how the family actually lives.
Where the block is tight, done so the addition reads as designed, not dropped on.
On established streets, where a new house has to earn its place beside older neighbours; the Military Road house above is exactly that kind of project.
Where a block might carry more than one future.
Where the property is protected, covered below.
Every project answers to the planning scheme, protected or not:
Neighbourhood character, setbacks, overlooking and access. And for the right block, the state's newer pathways matter here: small second dwellings under 60m² need no planning permit on most lots over 300m² (zone and overlay permitting), which changes the maths on a granny flat or studio.
For heritage-affected homes, Moonee Valley adds a few specifics worth knowing:
The council offers a free heritage advisory service, and in its own words will “work with you to try and achieve a mutually beneficial solution.” We use it early, before positions harden, so the design that gets lodged has already been tested against the advisor's thinking.
A pre-application meeting is required before you can lodge: Moonee Valley asks applicants to complete a meeting form and sit down with its Statutory Planning team first. Done well, that meeting is an asset; we arrive prepared, with drawings that already address what the planning team will ask about.
Timelines get told honestly. Sixty statutory days is the official period; information requests and referrals pause that clock, so we plan around the realistic timeline from day one.
More space without losing the character you fell for. Light, and a real connection to the garden, in a plan that never had either. A period home tuned to how a family lives now, and the renovate-or-rebuild call made before serious money moves. And where a block can carry more, an honest read on its options.
The fee is fixed and agreed up front, so there are no surprises as the project develops.
The free heritage advisory service and the Heritage Study program.
State planning rules, including small second dwellings and VicSmart.
Check whether a property is heritage listed.