Golden Square hotel plan 'lacks rigour', council told ahead of critical vote

The recommendation from council staff could be a major blow for a group that wants to repurpose a former Golden Square Sunday school as part of a 18-room hotel.

Here's a map of the proposed site:

Bendigo's nine councillors are expected to deliberate on the plan for land at 311-313 High Street on Monday, December 15.

Nineteen members of the public have objected over concerns including potential impacts on neighbourhood amenity.

Council officers have also come out in opposition to the hotel plans.

They told councillors a residential hotel would not align with broader pushes to foster a business precinct for existing residents, not short-term accommodation.

The officers said the hotel designs would not blend well with the Sunday school building and appeared to lack waste collection areas.

A heritage officer had also noted the old Sunday school appeared to have been repainted an "inappropriate black and white", breaching the building's heritage paint controls.

"Please amend this as soon as possible," that officer said.

The hotel's development team said that at a hotel they ran in Bendigo's city centre, guests needed 15 car parks on Fridays, Saturdays and public holidays, but that demand dropped to four spaces on all other nights.

Guests tended to arrive at 6pm and leave at 9am the next day, and 30 per cent of rooms were booked out by people who did not need cars.

But council officers said that was not a "compelling, robust" case for a site in Golden Square, not the city centre.

One member of the public who had objected - and had a hotel in the area - said 95 per cent of their guests arrived by car and often asked for a second parking spot.

Council officers said several rooms were close to a home on Panton Street and some members of the public had raised concerns there would be no reception services, security or staff members on site.

The team behind the hotel plans told them they would have a live-in manager.

Council staff said that was not part of the original proposal and it was unclear whether staff at a hotel over the road would do that work, or how it would work outside the hotel's operating hours.

The group behind the proposal has been contacted for comment.