Carnegie is not a garage suburb. The 2021 Census found separate houses made up less than a third of its occupied dwellings, so EV charger installation Carnegie work usually involves a shared car park, a carport behind a block of flats or a narrow driveway beside a Federation weatherboard. Our electricians cover the suburb from our Brighton premises at 99 Bay St, about 5 km away, and we carry out every Carnegie job under REC 35838, our Victorian contractor registration.
What the 2021 Census says about Carnegie parking
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counted 39.7 per cent of Carnegie’s occupied homes as flats or apartments, 28.2 per cent as townhouses or semis and 31.9 per cent as separate houses. More than four in ten households rented. Half had one registered vehicle, and about one in eight had none.
Each of those groups charges differently, so we sort the job by building type before we talk about hardware.
Apartments and blocks of flats
Your car space might be part of your lot, a separate accessory lot or common property. Either way, the cable that reaches it usually crosses common property, which puts the owners corporation in the picture from day one.
Townhouses
Many townhouses have their own meter and switchboard, which makes them closer to a standard home EV charger installation. The catch is distance. In a row of three or four, the garage can sit at the opposite end of the building from the meter box.
Period houses
Two residential heritage precincts protect some of Carnegie’s older streets: the Carnegie Residential Precinct in the north-west corner and the Glen Huntly Park Estate south of Lord Reserve. A side driveway and a detached garage suit a wall charger well. The heritage rules mostly decide where on the property it can go.
EV charger installation Carnegie: getting a yes from the owners corporation
In an apartment building the electrical work is often the easy part. Approvals take longer, so we start there and work forward.
- Check what you own. The plan of subdivision and the owners corporation rules show whether your bay is part of your lot, an accessory lot or common property.
- Measure the spare capacity. We look at the main switchboard, the car park distribution board and the building’s maximum demand before anyone votes on anything.
- Put a written proposal to the committee. It should cover the cable route, metering, who pays for the electricity and what happens when the next owner wants a charger too.
- Get the right resolution. Victoria’s Owners Corporations Act 2006 doesn’t let common property be significantly altered in look or use without a special resolution, and that takes 75 per cent of the vote. Consumer Affairs Victoria sets out how owners corporation ballots and resolutions are counted.
- Install, test and certify. We run the circuit, fit the charger, complete the mandatory safety tests, register it with United Energy and hand you a Certificate of Electrical Safety.
Billing is usually the sticking point. Victoria’s Essential Services Commission gives a general exemption to people who sell electricity to charge an electric vehicle, so an owners corporation can recover the cost of a resident’s charging. Doing that fairly is much easier when it knows who used what. A charger with built-in metering, or a separate sub-meter on each circuit, settles that before it becomes a fight.
Where more than a couple of owners are interested, a shared EV distribution board with load management is tidier than separate runs from each apartment’s meter. Building-wide options, from a single shared board to a charger in every bay, are set out on our EV charging page for apartments and strata buildings.
Renting, or parking in the street
Plenty of Carnegie households can’t simply book an electrician. If you rent, the switchboard and wiring belong to your rental provider, so get their written consent before any work starts. We’re happy to walk them through what’s involved.
If you park on the street, home charging is hard for now. When a resident raised it at Council’s meeting on 1 September 2026, Glen Eira replied that it had no adopted timeframe for kerbside charging permits, with officers still looking at safety, regulation and how such a scheme might be delivered. Please don’t run a lead across the footpath in the meantime. It’s a trip hazard for everyone using the footpath, and we won’t install anything designed to be used that way.
Two other options are worth knowing about. United Energy’s pole-mounted charger trial puts public chargers on existing power poles in streets where off-street parking is scarce, and locals can nominate a spot through its engagement portal. No Glen Eira site was listed when we checked in October 2026. Council also runs public chargers, including at the Carnegie Memorial Swimming Pool on Moira Avenue, but they stopped being free on 1 October 2026: you now pay a charging fee, and staying past the sign-posted limit costs extra.
Heritage streets between Grange Road and Mimosa Road
The Carnegie Residential Precinct (HO178) takes in Federation and interwar houses bounded by McPherson Avenue, Grange Road, Neerim Road and the Cosy Gum, Mile End and Mimosa roads, including Holywood Grove and Munster Avenue. Its Federation houses are typically weatherboard with gambrel roofs; the interwar ones are timber or brick with tiled roofs. The Glen Huntly Park Estate (HO28) is an interwar garden-suburb estate whose low masonry fences, iron gates and paired crossovers are listed as part of its significance.
The overlay cares about what the public can see. A charger in sight of a park or any street needs planning approval, though a rear lane is ignored for this purpose. Tuck it inside the garage, or on a wall nobody can see from the street or a park, and there’s nothing to apply for. When visibility can’t be avoided, the application goes in as VicSmart, and Glen Eira’s target for those is 10 business days from a complete application.
Our habit in these streets is to keep the charger and its conduit behind the front building line, leave original fences and crossovers alone, and photograph the proposed spot from the footpath before we quote. That last step sounds fussy. It saves a lot of back and forth later.
New apartments near the station
Carnegie was in the first stage of the state government’s Activity Centres Program, together with Murrumbeena and Hughesdale, and the Carnegie Structure Plan 2022 was written into the planning scheme in 2026. We measured the state’s zoning maps for this page: the new Housing Choice and Transport Zone takes in roughly half of Carnegie’s land area. Expect more apartment buildings close to the Koornang Road shops and the redeveloped station.
Two rules make the car space in a new building matter more. Glen Eira does not issue residential parking permits to homes on sites of three or more dwellings built on or after 17 March 2020, so the basement bay is the only parking many new residents will have. The National Construction Code, meanwhile, now expects new apartment car parks to be built with switchboards set aside for EV charging, ready for 7 kW chargers to be fitted later.
Buying off the plan? Ask the developer how the EV board is metered and whether load management is included. Retrofitting either after handover is possible, just slower, because it goes back through the owners corporation. The same pattern is playing out next door, as our Murrumbeena EV charger page explains.
What United Energy sees when you add a charger
Carnegie is on United Energy’s network, and the distributor’s 2023 planning report lists Carnegie among the suburbs supplied from its East Malvern zone substation. For a home or apartment charger that means a few practical things.
Every wall charger on United Energy’s network must go in through a registered electrical contractor, who then lodges it in the network’s myEnergy system; we handle that step. Before commissioning a charger at the full 32 A on a single-phase supply, we also confirm the network will accept it, because the state’s service and installation rules offer advice on large single-phase loads rather than a fixed limit. If your supply needs upgrading, we apply first and wait for the network’s answer before ordering equipment.
Older blocks can add a further issue: switchboards that predate modern safety switches. A charger needs RCD protection suited to EV leakage currents, and Type AC devices have been barred from new installations since May 2023, so some Carnegie jobs begin with a switchboard upgrade for the charger.
For most flats and townhouses, a single-phase unit of around 7 kW, set to a timer, does the job. Honestly, we think 22 kW units in shared car parks cause more committee arguments than they save in charging time.
Frequently asked questions from Carnegie renters and owners
What if the owners corporation says no to my charger?
Unapproved works on common property can be refused, and a significant alteration needs a special resolution. Your best chance is a clear proposal with load figures, a metering plan and a fair split of costs, and we can prepare the technical half for the committee.
I rent in Carnegie. Who needs to agree to a charger?
Your rental provider, in writing, because the work changes their electrical installation. In an apartment building the owners corporation’s approval is needed as well.
Will Glen Eira let me charge from the kerb outside my flat?
Not yet. At its 1 September 2026 meeting Council said it had no timeframe for a kerbside permit scheme and was still investigating. Public chargers and United Energy’s pole trial are the alternatives for now.
My house is on Holywood Grove. Can the charger go near the street?
Holywood Grove is in the Carnegie Residential Precinct, so a charger that people can see from the street needs VicSmart approval. Inside the garage, or anywhere hidden from the street and parks, it can go in without one.
Are the council chargers at the pool still free?
No. Glen Eira started charging for its public chargers on 1 October 2026 and added a fee for staying beyond the posted limit. Sessions run through the Chargefox app.
One bay in an older block of flats or a garage behind a Munster Avenue weatherboard, it all begins with the switchboard and the cable route. Tell us about your building on our contact page, or ring 1300 003 853 (7am to 7pm, Monday to Saturday) to book an inspection.