Shadow boxing: fighting for the right to sunlight

Collingwood's Jenny Port: "The issue has been
 around for so long and … yet nothing happens."

When Jenny Port and her partner spent around $4000 putting solar panels on their Collingwood home a couple of years ago, they thought it highly likely apartments might one day be built behind them.

The land behind their house was, after all, a car park ripe for development.

"We were quite happy to see it go," says Ms Port, an arts worker, who was philosophical when a proposal arrived for a six-storey apartment block on the car park site.

It was when another proposed development, this one for 16 levels to the north-east of her house, threatened to completely obliterate any access to solar power, she wondered whether there were any rules to protect her.

There weren't.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age by Clay Lucas - “Shadow boxing: fighting for the right to sunlight.”