At the 2021 Census, 17.3% of occupied homes in Camberwell were flats or apartments and another 21.7% were townhouses or semi-detached houses, sharing the suburb with late Victorian villas, Federation houses and interwar bungalows. One in four homes (25.4%) was rented. That spread is why no two EV charger installation Camberwell jobs look quite the same. A villa in the Prospect Hill Road precinct, a unit near Camberwell Junction and a rental with no driveway each need a different answer. Our A-grade electricians are based about 7 km away at our South Yarra premises, 128 Toorak Rd, and this page sets out how we approach each kind of property.
EV charger installation Camberwell, property by property
Here’s how the common set-ups compare before anyone chooses a charger.
| Property | Parking options | What decides the job |
|---|---|---|
| Late Victorian or Federation house | Side driveway, rear garage, or street only | Heritage visibility, crossover rules, cable length |
| Interwar house, Golf Links Estate | Driveway to a garage behind the house | Switchboard capacity and the run to the garage |
| Townhouse or unit | Own garage or a space in a shared car park | Which meter and board can feed the charger; owners corporation consent |
| Apartment | Basement or shared car park | Building capacity, load management, a committee vote |
| Rented home | Varies | The owner’s written go-ahead |
The sections below take each one in turn. Every job finishes the same way, though: a dedicated circuit, the mandatory electrical tests and a Certificate of Electrical Safety in your hands.
Federation villas in the Prospect Hill Road precinct
The Prospect Hill Road Precinct is Camberwell’s largest Heritage Overlay by area. Its heritage citation calls it the foremost precinct of combined late Victorian and Federation building stock in the former Camberwell municipality, with a particularly fine run of Queen Anne villas in Royal Crescent and Craig Avenue. The same citation points to the uniform basalt kerbs and pitching, asphalt footpaths and driveway widths along its streets, and to Read Gardens, a small mature park at its centre.
Those details matter for a charger. Under the planning scheme’s Clause 43.01-1, which you can read on the state’s planning scheme portal, a charging station needs a planning permit if it is in view of a street (other than a lane) or a public park. Read Gardens is a public park, so a charger on a wall facing the gardens can need a permit even where the street can’t see it. Clause 43.01-4 spares these applications from notice to neighbours.
If the house has no off-street parking, the driveway becomes the bigger question. Council’s Vehicle Crossing Permit page says a new or changed crossover needs that permit, plus a planning permit where an overlay such as the Heritage Overlay applies, and that a crossover can be refused if it is too close to a tree or would remove two or more parking spaces. Council’s local heritage policy also aims to minimise new crossovers where heritage frontages are narrow. We lay that out early, before anyone buys a charger they can’t park beside.
Golf Links Estate and Camberwell’s interwar streets
The Golf Links Estate sits on the former Riversdale Golf Club. It was subdivided in 1927, the first houses went up in 1928, and most lots were built on and occupied by 1938, in Mediterranean, Old English and Californian Bungalow styles with a strong run of Art Deco and Moderne houses. Its heritage citation describes the estate, which takes in streets such as Lansell Crescent and Marlborough Avenue, as a largely intact interwar landscape of concrete roads, landscaped medians and mature street trees, “conspicuously predicated on a commuter-based city workforce”, with a tram route on one side and a railway on the other.
There’s an interwar pocket inside the Prospect Hill Road precinct too. The former Hollies Estate along Cookson Street holds a run of designs from 1919 to 1940, including the Christian Science Church that won the Victorian Architecture Medal in 1938.
For charging, the usual question in these streets is the run from the meter box to a garage behind the house. We calculate the home’s maximum demand with the charger included, the way the Wiring Rules set out. If the existing board can’t take another circuit with the right protection, a switchboard upgrade ahead of the charger comes first. Main switchboard replacement counts as prescribed work in Victoria, so an independent Licensed Electrical Inspector signs it off before the power goes back on.
Tucked inside a garage at the rear of the lot, a charger is normally out of sight of the street, which keeps it clear of the Heritage Overlay’s permit trigger.
Units, apartments and renters
Camberwell’s flats and apartments raise a different set of questions. Charging there depends less on the car and more on the building.
- A charger on common property needs the owners corporation on board. Under the Owners Corporations Act 2006, changing how common property looks or is used in a significant way generally takes a special resolution.
- The power has to come from somewhere sensible: your own meter and board where the car space allows, or a shared supply with load management where it doesn’t.
- If you rent, we need the owner’s written approval before anything is fixed to the building.
Our apartment and strata EV charging service covers capacity reports for committees and staged installs. Council has recognised the same gap: its climate action plan included an action to develop an EV charging plan aimed at residents without off-street parking and people living in multi-unit developments. For now, the council-run chargers in Camberwell are the two Chargefox units at the Burwood Village car park, 238A Warrigal Road.
If the committee wants to recover the electricity cost from the people who use the chargers, there’s a licensing question too. The Essential Services Commission’s General Exemption Order 2022 exempts anyone selling or supplying electricity to charge an electric vehicle from having to obtain a licence. It’s a deemed exemption, so there’s nothing to apply for, but sellers do report to the Commission each year.
Why we won’t run a cable across the footpath
With street parking only, it’s tempting to run a lead from the house to the kerb. We found no Boroondara rule written specifically for EV cables. The council’s Amenity Local Law 2019 does say an owner or occupier must not allow “any other object” to “extend over Council-controlled land or a road at a height less than 2.4 metres”. It also requires a permit to “cause any change to Council-controlled land or a road”.
We read that as ruling out a lead lying across the footpath, and cutting a channel for a cable would be a change that needs a permit. So we don’t install chargers that would have to be used that way. It’s a firm line, and we would rather draw it when we quote than after a charger is on the wall. The workable alternatives are a crossover if council will approve one, charging at work, or the public chargers at Burwood Village.
CitiPower or United Energy, and who lodges what
CitiPower’s postcode locator lists two distributors for Camberwell (3124): CitiPower and United Energy. Which one supplies your property decides where the paperwork goes. United Energy’s EV page asks for wall and fast chargers to go in through a REC, with each one registered on its myEnergy portal. CitiPower lists EV chargers among the reasons to modify an existing supply, and the alteration application has to come from a registered electrical contractor.
Either way, we handle the lodgement as REC 35838. If your existing charger has started tripping the safety switch or stopped talking to its app, that’s a job for our EV charger repairs and servicing team rather than a new install.
Matching the charger to how far you drive
United Energy, one of Camberwell’s two networks, frames the choice by weekly distance. By its reckoning, trickle charging from an ordinary power point covers up to about 200 km of driving a week, although a flat battery can take days to fill. From 200 to 500 km a week it points to a dedicated charging unit, which by its figures fills a modern EV in eight to 12 hours; beyond 500 km, a higher-output charging point. A typical 22 kW fast charger needs three-phase power.
For most Camberwell commuters we’d land on a 7 kW wall charger on its own circuit, set to run overnight. For a renter, though, the slower option has one real advantage: it needs little or no fixed work, so there’s less to negotiate with the owner.
Frequently asked questions for Camberwell households
Will a charger on my Prospect Hill Road house need a planning permit?
Only if it is in view of a street (lanes aside) or a public park such as Read Gardens. Out of view, inside a garage or tucked behind the house, the overlay doesn’t require one. If it is visible, it’s a VicSmart application with no notice to neighbours.
My house has no driveway. Can I still charge at home?
Only if a car can get onto the property. That means a new crossover, which needs council’s Vehicle Crossing Permit and, in a Heritage Overlay, a planning permit as well. We won’t install a charger that would be used across the footpath.
Is Camberwell on the CitiPower or United Energy network?
Both appear for 3124 in CitiPower’s postcode locator, which works by postcode rather than street. We find out which one supplies your property before anything is lodged, because United Energy asks for wall chargers to be registered on myEnergy.
Can you install chargers in our apartment car park?
Yes, once the owners corporation has agreed. We can report on the building’s spare electrical capacity first, which gives the committee something concrete to vote on.
Where can I charge in public in Camberwell?
Council lists two Chargefox chargers at the Burwood Village car park, 238A Warrigal Road, Camberwell. Time limits apply, and council’s parking inspectors check that cars in the bays are EVs that appear to be charging.
Tell us which of these set-ups matches your Camberwell property and what you drive, and we’ll come back with a plan and a quote. Book through the DUKE EV contact page, or phone 1300 003 853; we take calls Monday to Saturday, 7am to 7pm. A bigger share of Canterbury sits under a Heritage Overlay, and our Canterbury EV charger installation page covers those questions in detail; our base is described on the South Yarra EV charger page.