Last November, Summer Enterprises Pty Ltd began to demolish a heritage chimney stack and boiler house at 61 Westminster Street after Monash Council mistakenly told it a permit was not required.

Shortly after, council enforcement officers halted demolition and told the owner to lodge the appropriate planning application with the council.

At a meeting last month, the council refused to grant the permit on the basis it would adversely affect the heritage structure and visual amenity of the area.

On April 15, Summer Enterprises asked VCAT to review the decision.

The developer will present two witnesses at an appeal and attempt to argue the chimney is of no significance.

In a letter to VCAT, Barry Goold, of Urban Planning & Development, a consultant for the owner, said the chimney stack and boiler house were "not favoured with intrinsic conservation merits to distinguish them as having state, regional or local significance".

However, historian and author of Taking its Place: A history of Oakleigh, Helen Gobbi, said the chimney had local heritage significance because it was linked with a former plasterboard industry and was a "valued remnant of Oakleigh's industrial past".

Ms Gobbi said brick, tile and pottery manufacture took place in Oakleigh for about 100 years and the towering stacks of Oakleigh Brick Company, Evans Bros Tile Works, Gambles Bricks and others were once a feature of the suburb.

"You could say stacks were virtually synonymous with Oakleigh. The plaster works stack and boiler house are now unique in this district and increasingly rare in Victoria as evidence of early industrial processes."

In her 2004 book, Ms Gobbi said the chimney was the only remaining stack in Oakleigh.

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