Thirteen individual places and two whole precincts joined McKinnon’s Heritage Overlay in August 2026. That change, a flood overlay across roughly a quarter of the suburb and a share of townhouses roughly double the Victorian figure are the three local factors that shape EV charger installation McKinnon jobs. None of them stops a charger going in. Each one changes where it goes and what we check first. The team comes out from our Brighton premises at 99 Bay St, about 4 km away, and the REC number on every McKinnon job is 35838.
What changed on McKinnon’s heritage map in August 2026
Amendment C240glen put the recommendations of the McKinnon Heritage Review into the Glen Eira Planning Scheme. It added 13 individual places and two precincts, and moved some properties out of the older Ormond and Environs Precinct into overlays of their own. Glen Eira’s public notice for Amendment C240glen lists the addresses as exhibited in 2025, when 14 individual places were proposed; 13 made it into the approved amendment.
The two precincts are small and very different:
- McKinnon Hill Residential Precinct (HO274) covers 51 to 63 McKinnon Road, a row of interwar Bungalow and Spanish Mission style houses built between about 1929 and 1939 on the rise of McKinnon Hill. All the front fences are protected, and so are the early brick garages at numbers 53, 55 and 61.
- McKinnon Village Precinct (HO275) takes in the interwar shops on McKinnon Road near the station, mostly two-storey shop and residence buildings, including the Nicholls Buildings of 1928, put up by local builder Leslie Sydney Nicholls.
The individual places are scattered: Ellindale on Glen Orme Avenue, Scheuer House and a block of flats on Clee Street, houses on Lees Street, Wheatley Road and Murray Road, and the baby health centre and kindergarten on McKinnon Road, among others. Part of the suburb also sits in the older Ormond and Environs Precinct (HO75), so a property can be heritage-listed without appearing in the 2026 amendment at all.
For a charger, the rule is the same as anywhere under the Heritage Overlay. A permit is required once the charger is in public view, meaning visible from a park or from any street that isn’t a lane, and the application goes through VicSmart. Hidden inside a garage, it needs no heritage permit at all. The exception worth flagging is the three listed garages on McKinnon Hill: if a cable has to pass through one of those walls, we look for a route that doesn’t alter the outside first, and if there isn’t one, Council hears about it before anyone drills. We’d argue a heritage listing is a smaller hurdle for an EV charger than most owners expect.
Overland flooding and where the charger sits
Going by our own measurements of the state’s planning maps, roughly a quarter of McKinnon is covered by the Special Building Overlay. Its job is to flag urban land that can be inundated when stormwater overflows the drainage system and runs overland, which in plain terms means low points where water collects in a heavy downpour.
On those blocks we treat the garage floor as the place water will reach first. The charger and any new sub-board go well up the wall, the conduit enters from above rather than from floor level, and outdoor units are chosen for exposure to driving rain. If the garage has taken water before, tell us, because it changes where we would put everything. Those are installation choices rather than planning ones. If your project grows into a new carport, a rebuilt garage or a regraded driveway, though, check the overlay with Council before work starts, because the Special Building Overlay controls new buildings and works.
To see which overlays apply to your address, look it up on VicPlan, the state’s online planning map, which produces a planning property report for any property. Glen Eira points owners to the same tool before any building work.
EV charger installation McKinnon for townhouses and semis
At the 2021 Census, 27.6 per cent of McKinnon’s occupied homes were townhouses or semis, a bigger share than in Bentleigh or Bentleigh East, and households averaged 2.8 people. Two registered vehicles per household was the most common arrangement, just ahead of one, and 13.1 per cent of homes had three or more.
Townhouse jobs can be quick on the electrical side. The garage is often part of the building, sometimes only a few metres from the switchboard, and each dwelling usually has its own meter. The questions are different ones:
- Does the cable have to cross a wall shared with the neighbouring dwelling? We route around separating walls between homes rather than through them.
- Is the driveway yours, or common property on the plan of subdivision? If it’s common property, the owners corporation’s approval comes before any trench.
- Will a second EV arrive within a few years? If so, we size the circuit and board space for two chargers now.
Whatever the building, the switchboard gets checked first. If it’s full or lacks a suitable safety switch, a switchboard upgrade for EV charging comes before the charger, ideally in the same visit. For a standard house or townhouse, our home EV charger installation service covers the rest, including chargers supplied by your car dealer.
Single-phase or three-phase for a busy household
With 2.8 people in the average McKinnon household, charging speed is a fair question. The short version: most homes are well served by a single-phase charger of about 7.4 kW, and three-phase only pays off when both the house and the car can use it.
A normal power point gives about 2.3 kW. A single-phase wall charger on a 32 A circuit gives about 7.4 kW. Since Victoria’s rules for network connections frame 20 A single-phase switched loads as guidance rather than a hard cap, we confirm with United Energy before commissioning anything at 32 A. Three-phase units start around 11 kW, with 16 A on each phase, and go up to roughly 22 kW at 32 A per phase; United Energy is clear that the 22 kW kind needs three-phase power.
The car still has the final say. Its onboard charger sets the maximum AC rate it will accept, so an 11 kW car on a 22 kW wall unit still charges at 11 kW. Where a McKinnon house does need more supply, the change is applied for through United Energy, whose page on new and upgraded electricity supplies explains how those requests are assessed, while our three-phase conversion for EV chargers covers the work on the property side.
McKinnon is supplied from United Energy’s Bentleigh zone substation, the same one that serves Bentleigh, so the advice on scheduled charging is the same in both suburbs: keep the charger away from the busiest hours.
For two EVs, the usual answer is load management rather than more supply. A load-managed charger, or a pair of them, watches the house’s total demand and trims charging when the oven, heating and dryer are all running, then speeds up again when they’re not. It’s the simplest way to add a second car without a three-phase upgrade, provided the cars can wait a few extra hours on a busy night.
Around McKinnon Road and the station
The McKinnon Road level crossing is gone, and the area around the station is set for more housing. McKinnon isn’t itself on the state’s Activity Centres Program list, but Ormond and Bentleigh either side of it are Stage 2 centres, and the Housing Choice and Transport Zone that came with them reaches about 30 per cent of McKinnon on our measurements.
Two practical notes for people living in that part of the suburb. Glen Eira doesn’t issue residential parking permits to mixed-use buildings such as a flat above a shop, so a resident of a McKinnon Road shop-top flat without a garage has limited options for now. And if you’re building anywhere in McKinnon, from the streets by the station to those around McKinnon Reserve, ask for an EV conduit to the garage while the frame is open.
Frequently asked questions about McKinnon charger jobs
My house was added to the Heritage Overlay in 2026. What changes for a charger?
Only where it goes. Put it in view of a street or park and it needs a VicSmart permit; tuck it inside the garage and it doesn’t. If your listing includes the garage itself, talk to us before any wall is drilled.
How do I find out if my block is in the Special Building Overlay?
Search your address on VicPlan and open the planning property report. It lists every zone and overlay on the land, including the Special Building Overlay and any Heritage Overlay.
Do we need three-phase power for two EVs?
Not necessarily. Two cars can share one single-phase charger, or two chargers can share the supply through load management. Three-phase makes sense when the house load is already high or both cars accept faster AC charging.
Our townhouse shares a driveway with the neighbours. Who do we ask?
Start with the plan of subdivision. Common property needs the owners corporation’s sign-off before anyone digs, while land inside your own lot boundary is your call.
We back onto a laneway. Does that change the heritage rules?
It helps. Being visible from a lane doesn’t trigger the heritage permit by itself, so if the lane is the only public vantage point, that part of the rule doesn’t bite. We still read the property’s listing for anything extra.
Where can I confirm DUKE EV’s registration?
On Energy Safe Victoria’s public register of licensed electricians and contractors. Search for REC 35838.
Heritage house, flood-prone garage or brand-new townhouse, every McKinnon job starts with a site visit and a straight answer. Bentleigh shares McKinnon’s zone substation; for its station-side heritage streets, see our Bentleigh EV charging page. Ask for a quote through our website’s contact page, or call us on 1300 003 853 between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Saturday.