By Ed Thexton
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INVERLOCH has a new resident and it’s coming to The Glade.  It’s like having an elephant in your lounge room.  Magnificent, it sits where it likes, and everybody must live around it for the extent of its long life.
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Last week Bass Coast Shire councillors followed the recommendations of their planners and approved Lido Place, a three-storey development proposed for 2-4 The Esplanade, the old Inverloch Marine site. Lido Place has 42 apartments and two retail spaces.  It will cover about a quarter of a hectare and share a wall with the Bunurong Environment Centre, home to the South Gippsland Conservation Centre.   

​​Lido Place will be on permanent display from the ground to the crown.  Site coverage is so extensive that landscaping must be on the public land.  From the site boundary there is just three and half metres of grass to the shared pathway and a similar distance to the edge of the slope.  For safe shared pathway travel there is insufficient room for trees or shrubs.  The building is over 10 metres high and the main area of The Glade lies three or four metres below its floor level.   Safe to say Inverloch has seen nothing like it. ​

The Glade is Inverloch’s gathering place, the place where the soundshell has just been built by the Lions Club.  The Glade is an amphitheatre of sorts with the soundshell on the low beach side, a flat of about half a hectare in front of it with steeply rising ground about three or four metres higher on the town side.  ​
 
Carols by candlelight is held there each year and farmers’ markets are held twice monthly.  The stall holders park around the flat land, leaving the central communal gathering ground for the patrons and their myriad dogs.
 
And then there is the playground abutting the south of the building.  Today I measured the shade from existing mature trees adjoining the site at Rainbow or Wyeth-McNamara Park.  It’s a week from the shortest day of the year and at midday the trees cast shade for about 25 metres into the park. The dappled shade of the treetops extended into the woodchipped play area.  
 
The shade of Lido Place will be solid and entire, not broken like tree shade.  Mid-winter Inverloch deep shade is also cold. Grass does not grow well in heavy shade and a grassless playground is not fit for purpose: dusty in summer and muddy in winter. 

The website of the Forte Group, the Lido Place developer, shows an appreciation of its unique position:
Inverloch, located on the shores of Anderson Inlet at the mouth of the River Tarwin, is a traditional seaside township that is fast gaining a reputation for progressive architectural expression.
  Lido Place is idyllically positioned on the foreshore at the southern tip of the town with 270 degree views of the coastline and adjacent parkland.
  The site is in easy walking distance of the town centre while also providing immediate access to the coastline and activities including wind surfing, boating, fishing and swimming.