This project is located on the Yarra River near Chirnside Park. It is to comprise two eighteen hole golf courses. The first, The St. John Course was designed by Jack Nicklaus and the second, The Henley Course, by Tony Cashmore.

The first course is on the southern side of the river and is contained within the Shire of Yarra Ranges. The northern course is to be constructed as part of Stage 2 works, on the northern side of the Yarra River and that land is contained within the Shire of Nillumbik.

All of the infrastructure and built form for urban development is to be contained on the southern side of the river, adjacent to the St John Course. The Henley Course will only have relatively minor infrastructure associated with maintenance and irrigation of that course.

All of the golf course land is contained within the Yarra Valley and it is very picturesque, undulating land. Much of both golf courses is however subjected to frequent flooding by the Yarra River and the St John course also carries the passage of stormwater from the Chirnside Main Drain, a Melbourne Water open channel, causing additional flooding in the lower reaches of the St John course from time to time. It brings with it relatively contaminated urban water discharged from the upstream, Chirnside Park residential areas.

There are to be approximately 400 residential sites on the higher ground overlooking the St John course and the river. These are to comprise a mixture of densities ranging from detached housing on allotments varying from 300m2 to 800m2 in area, to medium density development, apartment living, hotels, conference facilities and club house.

PGA Pty Ltd were engaged as the Engineers and Surveyors at the commencement of this project, from the early concept stage through rezoning to its present status of construction of infrastructure. It has been a project of significant challenge, not only technically from an engineering view point, but politicly, as the land is contained in a very sensitive fauna and flora environment and in two Local Government areas that are very conscious of maintaining such environments.

Jack Nicklaus took the commission to undertake the design of The St John Course on the proviso that it would become a world class golf courses, worthy of his signature and eligibility to the Golden Bear Exchange Visitation Programme throughout the world. To ensure these parameters were achieved it was firstly necessary to ensure that flooding of the Yarra Valley was controlled through the greens, tees and fairways and that they were not to be inundated every year when the Yarra breaks its banks.

This would have been a relatively simple engineering exercise if fill could have been introduced to the site, but by so doing the characteristics of the flood plain would have been significantly altered, to the detriment of the upstream land owners. Significant work was undertaken with Melbourne Water and by including them as part of the “partnering” approach to the project at the very early stages, even before and during the rezoning process, a very workable and attractive solution has been found.

This solution has necessitated the creation of a series of major lakes fed by the Chirnside Main Drain during normal rainfall events and incorporating a nutrient stripping pond in the upper reaches of the project to improve the quality of the water being received from it.

Other lakes within the system are used for irrigation storage purposes including one that will store treated effluent from on site sewage treatment. There are to be a number of other wetland lakes at the lower reaches of the lake system which will further enhance the quality of water prior to its entry into the Yarra River.

The whole system has been designed such that there is significant enhancement of water quality over that which was previously deposited into the Yarra, at the same time providing the project with a very valuable resource for the irrigation of the courses.

The nearest sewer for discharge of raw sewage is located approximately seven kilometres to the south and whilst it is technically feasible to pump raw sewage over that distance, it would require sizeable pumping capacity and incorporation of an oxygen injection system en route. This option was seriously considered but the financial models dictated that treatment on site was preferred.

This solution was not only technically feasible, but offered the added advantage of providing treated effluent for irrigation. This method was adopted and has necessitated the construction of gravity reticulation sewers around the residential and club precincts to a raw sewage pumping station from where it is pumped to high ground in the south western section of the site. This high ground incorporates the treatment plant from where the treated effluent is gravity fed to one of the lakes within the lower reaches of the St John Golf Course.

PGA has undertaken all of the design and documentation of the lakes system, the sewerage system, road and drainage facilities, water supply and electricity reticulation. It has also undertaken all the survey work on the site which includes detailed mapping of the whole project by both ground means, and photogrammetric means, setting out of the whole golf course and coordination of principal elements of same, re-establishment of title boundaries, preparation of Plans of Subdivision and pegging of individual allotments.

The plans of subdivision are complex since they all include a number of Bodies Corporate that are often inter related with various restrictions and responsibilities to properly represent the interests and liabilities of various categories of owners and/or members.

For more information on this project go to: www.heritagegolf.com.au