More than a quarter of Sandringham’s homes are flats or apartments: 26.8% at the 2021 Census, against 12.1% across Victoria. Many of those car spaces sit in shared car parks under owners corporation rules, which makes EV charger installation Sandringham residents ask about as much a governance job as an electrical one. The rest of the suburb brings its own puzzles, from heritage-listed houses on Beach Road to homes a short walk from the water.
DUKE EV carries Victorian electrical contractor registration REC 35838 and sits within DUKE Electrical Group. Our Sandringham work is handled from DUKE’s Beaumaris premises at 125 Charman Rd, about 4 km to the south-east, and Sandringham itself is home to Bayside City Council’s offices on Royal Avenue. Besides supplying and fitting chargers, we install units that came with a new car and carry out the electrical upgrades that sometimes have to come first.
EV charger installation Sandringham for apartment owners
In an apartment block the electrical design is rarely the hard part. The hard part is that the car park, the cable trays and usually the main switchboard are common property, so the owners corporation decides what happens to them. The Owners Corporations Act 2006 sets the rules, and four parts of it come up again and again in EV discussions:
- Significant changes need a special resolution. An owners corporation must not make a significant alteration to the use or appearance of common property without one, unless the work is in its maintenance plan or otherwise permitted.
- What counts as a special resolution. 75% of total lot entitlements on a ballot or poll, or 75% of total votes otherwise. Consumer Affairs Victoria sets out the voting and ballot rules for owners corporations in plain English.
- The interim route. If at least 50% of the total votes are in favour and no more than 25% are against, an interim special resolution takes effect 29 days later unless owners holding more than 25% of the votes petition against it.
- Charging for a service. By special resolution an owners corporation can provide a service to lot owners and recover its cost from those who use it, and it can lease or license part of the common property to a lot owner, which is one way to set up a dedicated charging bay.
One common misunderstanding: the Act’s protection for “sustainability items” names things like solar panels and solar hot water, not EV chargers. Do not assume it forces a block to accept one.
In our view, the vote is usually slower than the wiring. That is why we put the technical case together first, so the committee walks into the meeting with numbers instead of opinions.
From committee briefing to the first charger
For a typical Sandringham block of about twelve apartments, the path looks like this:
- Committee briefing. We walk the car park, the main switchboard and the meter room with a committee member.
- Capacity study. We measure or calculate the building’s maximum demand to find out how much spare capacity exists for charging.
- Proposal and motion. A written proposal: shared backbone or individual circuits, load management, metering, and who pays for what.
- General meeting or ballot. The owners vote. If it passes as an interim special resolution, the 29-day window runs before it takes effect.
- Installation. The backbone first, then chargers as owners want them, each on its own meter so usage can be billed.
Billing is simpler than it sounds. Selling electricity to residents for EV charging is covered by the Essential Services Commission’s General Exemption Order 2022, so the owners corporation does not need a retail licence, although it must report to the commission each year. The design, paperwork and installation are all part of our apartment and strata EV charging service.
Period homes on Beach Road, Abbott Street and Fernhill Road
Sandringham’s heritage is mostly individual houses rather than whole precincts. The Bayside Planning Scheme lists more than 80 heritage places with Sandringham addresses, more than Hampton, Highett or Black Rock, and the biggest clusters are along Beach Road, Abbott Street and Fernhill Road, with more in Bamfield Street and Bay Road. Two post-war houses, in Harold Street and Gladstone Street, joined the list in October 2025.
If your home is one of them, the Heritage Overlay covers the house and its land. A charger that can be seen from a street (a laneway does not count) or from a public park needs a planning permit, assessed through the faster VicSmart stream and exempt from public notice. A charger nobody can see from those places falls outside that requirement. Bayside’s heritage policy wants services such as air-conditioning plant concealed from the street, and we apply the same thinking to wall boxes: inside the garage, on a side wall behind the front of the house, or in a rear carport.
In an older house the parking is often a later addition, sometimes a carport some distance from a meter box near the front door, so plan for a longer cable run. If your house sits outside the overlay, the job is more straightforward, and the home EV charger installation guide covers charger sizes, cable runs and switchboard checks.
Foreshore overlays, salt air and outdoor chargers
Sandringham’s coastal slopes sit in the Erosion Management Overlay. Bayside’s schedule to that overlay says the unstable coastal slopes are more susceptible to major slope instability if disturbed by earthworks for buildings, service lines and the like. You can read the overlay itself in Clause 44.01 of the Bayside Planning Scheme. In Sandringham it covers the foreshore on the bay side of Beach Road rather than house lots, so it rarely touches a home charger, but any electrical work proposed on the foreshore itself starts with that overlay.
The same strip carries a Vegetation Protection Overlay for coastal areas, which requires a permit to remove, destroy or lop native vegetation. Like the erosion overlay, it covers that foreshore land rather than private gardens.
Salt air is the other factor. The National Construction Code’s corrosion table for structural steel rates land within 50 m of a sheltered bay as high exposure, and land from there to about 1 km back as medium. That table is about building steel, not chargers, but it is a fair guide to how hard the air works on outdoor metalwork. Near the water we favour a garage or carport position, use corrosion-resistant fixings and follow the charger maker’s outdoor installation instructions to the letter. Outdoor units near the bay also benefit from a periodic check, and that is part of what our EV charger repairs and servicing work covers.
Sandringham Village, the station and public charging
Sandringham station is the end of the line, and the village around it is earmarked for change. Under the state’s Train and Tram Zone Activity Centres Program, Amendment GC270 (gazetted on 31 March 2026) brought in new built form controls for the village core. Bayside’s village policy encourages redevelopment of the station car park in Harston Street and the adjacent bus depot for housing, and of the Melrose Street sites that currently have 90-degree parking out the front. New buildings there will come with EV-ready car parks under the National Construction Code, ready for chargers when owners want them.
Council’s public charging plans, set out on Bayside City Council’s EV charger project page, listed the Chalmers Street car park at Sandringham Library as a planned site, while a proposed site at 320 Bluff Road was not supported and will not proceed. That page is now archived. Of the sites it reported as finished, the closest to Sandringham are the fast chargers at Highett Station (March 2025) and in the Black Rock car park on Balcombe Road (November 2024).
Residents without off-street parking have one more option to watch. United Energy is trialling chargers fixed to its own power poles, aimed at built-up areas with high EV uptake and limited off-street parking. When we checked its trial page in October 2026 it listed one location, Ashburton, and it invites suggestions for new locations through its engagement portal.
Frequently asked questions from Sandringham homes and blocks
Can our owners corporation refuse a charger in my car space?
It depends on what the work touches. If the circuit runs from your own lot to a car space that is part of your lot, the owners corporation’s role may be small. If it uses common property, such as the car park walls, cable trays or the main switchboard, the owners corporation must approve it, and a significant change needs a special resolution.
How should an outdoor charger near the beach be fitted?
Under cover where possible, with corrosion-resistant fixings and an enclosure suited to outdoor use, installed exactly to the manufacturer’s instructions. On a site close to the water, a garage or carport wall is our first choice.
My house is heritage-listed. Can I still have a charger?
Yes. Where the wall box would be in view of the street or a public park, a VicSmart permit comes first; out of view, for example in a garage or facing only a laneway, that permit trigger does not apply.
Can the owners corporation bill us for the electricity our cars use?
Yes. With a meter on each charger, usage can be recovered from each owner. The Essential Services Commission’s General Exemption Order covers selling electricity for EV charging, so no retail licence is needed.
Which network will my charger be registered with?
United Energy supplies Sandringham. Its EV charging guidance makes registration on the myEnergy portal compulsory for wall and fast chargers, with the work done by a REC, so we file that for you.
Whether it is a single wall box in a Fernhill Road garage or a backbone for a whole block near the village, we start with a site visit and a written quote. Our phones are answered from 7am to 7pm, Monday to Saturday, on 1300 003 853, or you can reach us through our contact page. Our Beaumaris EV charger installation page covers the premises our team works from, and the next suburb along Beach Road is covered on our EV charger installation in Black Rock page.