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proudly serving Sunbury and Macedon Ranges
26 MAY, 2026
Celebrating all things Italian The Calabria Club is celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Italian Republic with a fun community day in Bulla. Club president Sam Sposato said it will be a day of celebrations with stalls, food vendors and fun activities, including a spaghetti and chilli eating competition. “We’ve got mass in the morning, and then we’ve got entertainment for the rest of the afternoon,” he said. Other activities planned for the day include live entertainment on the main stage, the Fiat Club Car Show, an animal farm, jumping castles and kids entertainment. Mr Sposato said the celebration will help mark an important day for the community and welcomed everyone to come along to this free event. “You can have a dance, listen to music, it’ll be a nice day,” he said. The community celebration will be held from 10am for mass with activities starting at 12.30pm at The Calabria Club, Bulla, on Sunday 31 May. Details: facebook.com/ calabriaclubbulla Calabria Club president Sam Sposato. (Damjan Janevski) 553107_01
Development limbo Macedon Ranges council has reignited calls to remove a development plan overlay that has halted residential development in Lancefield. Mayor Kate Kendall has written to the planning minister to seek the removal of the development plan overlay (DPO) from the Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme, saying the “grossly unfair” overlay has resulted in no new development. The DPO, gazetted in 2020, covers approximately 150 acres of land bordering High Street, Park Street, Showlers Land and Mcmasters Lane in Lancefield, and was
meant to create a coordinated approach to development for the 22 landowners who reside there. Cr Kendall said the overlay was effectively preventing landowners from progressing even modest development outcomes, as it required a coordinated development plan across multiple properties before any development can occur. “Those DPOs work well when there’s a coordinated approach to growth, but the challenge with this is not one new house has been built because the people who live in that area aren’t all on the same page, they’re very different people,” she said. “These people are trapped in their homes.
They can’t sell, they can’t build, they can’t subdivide, and we want to see it gone.” Th is is not the fi rst time council has called for the DPO to be removed from the planning scheme, with a 2023 request rejected by the minister. Council has met with affected landowners and Star Weekly understands the majority are in favour of removing the DPO. Terry Foster brought his land in 2009 with the ultimate goal to subdivide it, but the DPO means he needs approval from other landowners before he can proceed. He said he spent about $70,000 to secure a development plan in conjunction with
two other landowners. “Th is was supposed to open up land in town, but not one block’s been opened up, not one block has been titled, not one house has been built,” he said. “Six years it’s been going on for nothing, it’s just caused a lot of heartache, a lot of angst, a lot of cost, a lot of health issues, it’s just been terrible to deal with.” Cr Kendall has requested to meet with the planning minister to identify a practical pathway to support the removal of the DPO. The state government confi rmed the mayor’s request is currently under consideration.
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By Georgia Tacey