by Cam Lucadou-Wells<\/p>\n
Melbourne Racing Club\u2019s plans for keeping Sandown racecourse open for racing are unchanged, despite the sudden departure of chair John Kanga.<\/p>\n
Over several years, MRC had sought to rezone the 112-hectare racecourse, releasing a proposal for a 7500-dwelling, 16,000-resident housing estate.<\/p>\n
However in an election coup last year, Kanga and a group opposed to a Sandown selloff wrested control of the MRC board and upended the plans.<\/p>\n
This month, Kanga announced his immediate resignation after a \u201cseries of public attacks directed at me personally\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile I completely reject the nature and accuracy of those attacks, I do not want them to distract from the Club, its members, or the excitement of the Caulfield Cup Carnival,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
In a statement last week, MRC backed Sandown\u2019s \u201cvital role in Victorian racing\u201d with a \u201chigh-quality\u201d surface and \u201cimportant training and trial facility\u201d.<\/p>\n
The club also intends to potentially develop \u201cexcess land\u201d at the venue.<\/p>\n
Any future development would \u201ccomplement and support the continuation of racing\u201d at Sandown, the MRC stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Club\u2019s broader strategy focuses on bringing Sandown back to life \u2014 improving the racing and racegoer experience, unlocking untapped non-race-day revenue, and engaging with local communities and younger audiences to grow the sport\u2019s appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n
In December, a State-appointed Sandown Racecourse Advisory Committee (SRAC) found the housing-estate plan was \u201cwell founded and strategically justified\u201d \u2013 especially with targets of 51,000 new homes in Greater Dandenong by 2050.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sandown site presents a significant redevelopment opportunity with the potential to make a substantial contribution to required housing supply in the City of Greater Dandenong and the southeast region of Melbourne more generally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SRAC noted many \u201cpassionate\u201d submissions to retain horse and motor racing at the site.<\/p>\n
But the fate of those sports at the venue was a matter for the MRC, it stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Cam Lucadou-Wells Melbourne Racing Club\u2019s plans for keeping Sandown racecourse open for racing are unchanged, despite the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-211838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}