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UPDATED 5.30pm: Diocese of Sandhurst business manager Cameron Fraser said stage one of the Aspinall Street subdivision would begin later this year.
Mr Fraser said the Diocese was grateful for the fair hearing it received at VCAT and believed it struck a good balance between respecting the environment and releasing capital to help meet community needs.
City of Greater Bendigo’s Planning and Development Director Prue Mansfield said VCAT's changes made the design even more in keeping with the natural environment.
"What's been finally approved is even better, retains more of the large trees and the design is better," she said.
Spokesperson for the Aspinall Action Group, Greg Williams, said the group was meeting tonight in the wake of the VCAT ruling and would release a statement tomorrow.
EARLIER: THE Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal has ruled a proposed subdivision of Diocese of Sandhurst-owned land in Aspinall Street, Golden Square, will go ahead.
Bendigo Council approved an 84-lot residential development and establishment of a nature reserve at 134-166 Aspinall Street last year.
Development on the site was opposed by the Aspinall Action Group on the grounds the site contains native vegetation of significance and high conservation value.
A four-day VCAT hearing was held Bendigo in April this year about a second application for a subdivision on the land.
In their June 5 ruling, Tribunal members John Bennett and George Rundell ordered a permit be issued to subdivide the land, subject to conditions including the staged subdivision of the land into "not more than 82 lots".
They said the application differed from the previous subdivision application, which was considered a poor response to the site, and had responded well to issues to do with meeting the criteria for a General Residential Zone.
One aspect of the proposed development the tribunal members said they were not satisfied with was the inclusion of "very small lots closest to the council reserve".
"The small size of some of these lots, when combined with the necessary 30-metre setback from the reserve, will result in very constrained and intensive development on these lots," the order states.
But they said the proposal had struck an "acceptable balance" between the need for providing additional housing within Bendigo's urban growth boundary and protecting and managing vegetation of high conservation significance on the site.
"We recognise that the Aspinall Action Group would like to see a much larger proportion of the site quarantined from residential subdivision and the vegetation retained," the decision reads.
"However, we consider that this latest proposal, with the conditional changes we have recommended, strikes an acceptable balance."
The members were also satisfied that the western end of the reserve was "the best location to provide a bio link to vegetated land to the west".
"We consider that the subdivision for approximately half the site into residential lots and the transfer of the balance of the land into public ownership is major win for the community," the decision reads.
"It is a much improved outcome to the one rejected by the Tribunal in 2011."
The previous application refused by the Tribunal in 2011 sought to subdivide the site into a 75 lot residential estate, with two large balance lots in the south east and north west sections of the site.
The order also made the point of saying the vegetation of high conservation significance on the site could not "continue to remain unprotected while yet another proposal is formulated for this land".
"Four years have passed since the last proposal was assessed by the Tribunal and we are concerned that the absence of active management practices may eventually lead to decline in the acknowledged environmental attributes of the site," it said.
