Australian holiday accommodation advertised for up to A$450 a night after a shipping container conversion draws neighbour complaints over lighting and alleged unauthorised development

Clifftop at Hepburn, a luxury holiday villa near Hepburn Springs in central Victoria, was advertised for up to A$450 a night after the business added a converted shipping container and other structures that the local council says required a planning permit. Neighbours complained about intrusive lighting and signage, and council inspectors recorded in early 2024 potential breaches including extra dwellings built without planning and building approvals. The site lies in a bushfire-prone area. The business insists its operations are lawful and that it never defied the planning scheme, and the dispute has played out across a tribunal and the Supreme Court.African-themed stays with sweeping views, from a shipping container to a converted train carriageAccording to ABC News, the accommodation site overlooking the town of Hepburn Springs offers sweeping views of the central Victorian countryside, with names such as Zulu, Sahara and Serengeti. The business running it features in Qantas’s points program. Known as the Sahara villas, the site has been run by Clifftop at Hepburn since August 2022. Jumanji, understood to be among the new structures, is a converted shipping container with an adjoining pergola advertised for about A$300 a night. Eaglesnest, a one-bedroom villa advertised at the higher price, appears to have been installed in 2023.Neighbours in a sleepy region complained about lighting and signage as new structures appearedIn the months after Clifftop at Hepburn took over the site, neighbours were unhappy as new structures, lights and business signage allegedly began to appear. One complained to the council that an illuminated sign left the property “lit up like Luna Park”. Satellite images from November 2022 and January 2026 show new structures beyond the main residence, garage and three detached cottages first built there.The business’s social media posts also antagonised council figures and occasionally neighbours. One 2023 post, showing apparent works, predicted that nosy neighbours would soon complain and told the council that no permit was required.Council inspectors found extra units, a garage conversion and vegetation removal, documents showDocuments released under Freedom of Information laws show the site is covered by bushfire and environmental overlays, planning tools that can bring stricter rules for development in sensitive areas. When council staff inspected, they identified extensive additional works, two more accommodation units, a garage converted into accommodation, and a bus and a train being converted. An internal email from early 2024 also listed non-compliance with endorsed plans, signage, lighting and vegetation removal.The council took steps to resolve the issues, endorsing the converted garage, known as Safari, and some signage through secondary consent, a streamlined pathway generally used for minor changes.A refused retrospective application led to a tribunal case and a Supreme Court challengeIn a 2025 social media post, the business suggested Eaglesnest went up without council approval. It said it built the villa after concluding the council would never approve one, relying on its right to register the site as a caravan park. In 2025, it also lodged a planning application seeking retrospective endorsement of the new structures and proposing a handful of yurts and glamping domes. It asked for approval through secondary consent, arguing that case law supported this and that the original permit allowed the whole lot to operate as a tourist establishment. A planning barrister engaged by the council advised that a tribunal would probably agree the whole site could be used for tourism, but that planning permission would still be needed for additional buildings and works.The council refused the application in August 2025, saying secondary consent could not be used and that registering the site as a caravan park did not remove the need for a planning permit. David Penman, the business’s co-owner, told ABC News that the registration significantly relaxed the requirements for the structures, which he says are properly described as moveable dwellings.The refusal led the business to bring a case in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal, which was paused so it could ask the Supreme Court to quash the refusal, alleging the decision was biased. Penman told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that the threat of enforcement and legal costs of many tens of thousands of dollars forced construction to stop and three full-time workers to be laid off.Bushfire safety in a very high-risk area, an independent assessment meets neighbours’ concernsNeighbour Linda Hancock, who is seeking to be joined to the tribunal case, told the broadcaster she was evacuated from her property for four days during the 2019 bushfire season, when the whole of Hepburn was threatened. She said the site sits in a bushfire management overlay area, where planning and construction rules exist to protect people staying there.Neighbours point to an earlier glamping application by the business for nearby land. The tribunal eventually granted it on a second appeal, with a more sophisticated bushfire safety plan, but restricted its operation because of the area’s very high bushfire risk.Penman argues the risk at the Sahara Villas site has been properly assessed, first by the Country Fire Authority for the site’s initial permit, then in an independent assessment submitted with the caravan park application, which he says finds the site safe. He declined to give further details of that assessment. In tribunal filings, he said a further Country Fire Authority assessment through a buildings and works process would be an excessive third assessment.Private prosecutions left the council without a quorum, and Victoria plans to change the lawEarlier in 2026, Penman launched private prosecutions against four Hepburn Shire councillors, the mayor and the council’s then chief executive. Because councillors must stand down when charged, the council was left without a quorum to make decisions until the charges were dropped. The Office of Public Prosecutions reviewed a large volume of material from Penman and found no reasonable prospect of conviction, and he was reportedly ordered to pay the defendants’ legal costs.In the same statement, Penman said the prosecutions concerned alleged conduct and evidence in their own right and were not brought as leverage in the planning dispute. The council described the move as a deliberate manipulation of local government laws. Planned changes to Victorian law would require councillors to stand down only when charges are brought by a law enforcement body.A second Supreme Court case, launched in January against the council, its former chief executive, its longest-serving councillor and a planning officer over separate decisions, remained live. The defendants pushed for it to be dismissed, but a barrister appointed by Penman was given the chance to amend it.The council says a planning permit application would let neighbours and public agencies objectIn a statement, the council said it had advised the business how to legalise structures it described as illegally built before an application was lodged under the incorrect secondary consent pathway. It said the structures cannot be treated as minor administrative changes, and that the correct route is a planning permit application. That would trigger a formal referral notifying neighbours, the Country Fire Authority and water authorities, giving them the chance to record concerns or objections. The planning-related Supreme Court case was vacated before a trial was due to begin in late August, and the tribunal case remained before the tribunal at the time of reporting.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.