The council failed to notify the Department of Health and Human Services and Melbourne Health, which runs the hospital, about the tower which intruded into the critical chopper flight paths of the hospital’s emergency landing zone.

The case went to Victoria’s planning tribunal which ordered the developer Obiter Investments to knock three storeys off its proposal even though two-thirds of the apartments had already been sold off the plan.

Both the developer and Department of Health applied for costs.

In a recent ruling, the planning tribunal awarded substantial costs against the council because “there was a material mistake in relation to the grant of the permit in terms that relevant policies in the planning scheme to protect 24 hour emergency helicopter access to hospitals and current best practice were not considered in making the decision to grant the permit''.

The Department of Health estimated its costs at $700,221 and the developer’s were $662,658.