MOONEE Valley Racing Club has received a green light to proceed with its redevelopment of its racecourse, reports Racing Network. The Advisory Committee, appointed by the State Minister for Planning Matthew Guy, today released a favorable outcome for the club in a 188-page comprehensive document on plans to redevelop the existing Moonee Valley racecourse site.

Club CEO Michael Browell said the club committee was ecstatic about the news which would pave the way for the club to host the 2020 Cox Plate at its redesigned track.

Browell said he hoped the first stage of the redevelopment could begin as early as the second half of 2014 with the sale of townhouses in the 9.5 hectares of land that the club has available for redevelopment beginning in 2015.

“It’s about 90 per cent of what we set out to achieve,” Browell said.

“Everyone at the club thinks it is a terrific result given the process that we participated in.

“We are rapt that the advisory committee has endorsed our plan for the redevelopment of the racecourse, including the relocation of the grandstand to the northern boundary.

“They have accepted that was the best result, we have not had to compromise in the design. We can move into 2014 confident there will be a redevelopment of the Moonee Valley racecourse.”

Headlining its track redevelopment is realigning the racetrack to provide for a bigger home straight with starting points for an increased raft of races.

One of the key components will be a new home straight – 315 metres compared to the current 173 metres – with a grandstand along the northern boundary with state of the art horse racing facilities.

The advisory committee noted that the MVRC’s plan is a “significant opportunity to redevelop the racecourse site in a manner that incorporates best practice design and development.

It added the Club plan would use “environmentally sustainable and water sensitive urban design principles that result in excellence in built form where historic legacy of the former racecourse site is restored and celebrated for future generations.”

The advisory committee’s recommendation resulted in reduction of about 20 percent to the density and population of the residential area flagged in the club’s master plan.

As a result the capped population of the precinct will fall from 6,000 to 4,500 with the number of dwellings falling from 3,000 to 2,500.