EVOLVE managing director Ashley Williams has asked in his first media interview for "a fair hearing" on the controversial Nelson Place Village proposal.
Mr Williams is a 50per cent shareholder in Evolve Development, the entity proposing to build a multimillion-dollar high-rise development in Williamstown.
His business partner is Fairfax chairman Ron Walker, who has chosen to stay silent on the issue.
Plans for the former Port Phillip Woollen Mill site include residential towers up to 12 storeys high and accommodation ranging from $250,000 studios to three-bedroom apartments, priced about $1million.
Asked if a 12-storey tower was "respectful" of Williamstown's character, Mr Williams said the precedent had already been set.
"There is precedent in this end of Williamstown for height, both in industrial-built form within the [BAE Systems] shipyards of about six or seven levels, and also obviously some of the housing department buildings," he said, referring to the 12-storey Nelson Heights housing commission flats.
"We're not using those as a benchmark, but it's not like there's no buildings of height."
Mr Williams said the required buffer zone between the Mobil tanks and residential development was 300metres. The distance between the closest proposed dwelling and the oil tanks is about 320metres.
The StKilda resident said he sympathised with both sides of the debate that raged in his home suburb over a $300million foreshore development, describing it as "a difficult situation which "didn't deliver a good outcome".
Mr Williams said he wanted to set in train "a fair process" in terms of consulting the community so that residents would consider their views had been fairly heard, even if they didn't agree with the result.
Detractors have called Mr Williams' proposal 'Willy Cove', likening it to one of Australia's largest waterfront developments, Beacon Cove.
It's a comparison he doesn't mind. "Beacon Cove, from our mind, is a good example of where medium-density housing has been constructed in an old industrial area and if you ask the residents of Beacon Cove - they love it."
Mr Williams said protesters were wrong when they said the development would mean the end of Williamstown. "If we were coming into an established part of Williamstown and knocking over a whole lot of houses I think they'd have some basis for that claim, but we're taking what's now a redundant industrial area, that was a wool-scouring plant of all things, and we're giving it new life and we're giving it a new opportunity to take and contribute to Williamstown's community into the future.
"Introducing new dwellings and housing creates new people and that provides stimulus for the shops and the local economy and it basically takes away the eyesore of what's a rundown part of the city."
A spokeswoman for Mr Walker said: "Mr Walker has no direct involvement in this project other than a financial interest, and will make no comment."
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