My suburb is a wonky Tetris piece where the boundaries make no sense

Extending to the north and south of the eponymously named station and improbably sliced and diced by North, Wheatley, Grange and Tucker Roads, the suburb of Ormond illogically bleeds beyond clear arterial boundaries. Are you in Ormond or the adjacent micro-suburbs of McKinnon or Glen Huntly? Carnegie perhaps? It’s never quite clear.

Divided up as if it were the spoils of a suburban turf war, its bigger neighbours of Bentleigh, Carnegie and Caulfield South have claimed their lion’s share of the land, and the end result is Ormond – a collection of nooks and crannies, each different from the other, each closer in similarity to its neighbours than each other as a whole.

The Frankston train line, which slices through the suburb, creates a further longitudinal division. But at least the level crossing has finally been removed, mercifully reducing noise and congestion.

Residents are still waiting for the planned development atop the station, which is caught in a bureaucratic limbo. Like the endless iterations of the CBD’s City Square, the opportunity to create a landmark in Ormond’s geographic centre has thus far been squandered, despite decades of promises, ever-changing proposals and countless community discussions about what said landmark should be used for and what it might look like.

Long-abandoned squash courts and the local gym are slowly being engulfed by the creep of ever-expanding bitumen, surrounded by hundreds of metres of station car parking where a cavalcade of the latest European vehicles line up in the morning.

A hapless young woman on her P-plates grinds into an adjacent Audi, having forgotten to look at her side mirror. She gets out to inspect the damage, not knowing what to do. Men in crumpled business-casual attire rush to catch trains, laptops replacing the newspapers of the past inside soft-shell shoulder cases.

Indeed, if Ormond is really anything of a suburb, it’s a commuter belt waypoint. North Road, one of the main arteries, provides access to the outer-eastern suburbs and roars with a constant and relentless busyness. It’s a sign of nearing the office on the way in, and a multilane gateway for the homeward-bound in the afternoons.

Due to a speed limit change from 60km/h to 40km/h, the traffic used to be noticeably faster – one factor making the somewhat-desolate Ormond strip less welcoming, compared with its more-intimate Centre Road cousin – but even with the change it’s still the same stream of peak-hour commuters.

The patchwork of illogical boundaries marks socioeconomic divides as well, creating a valuation heat map of the red-hot and the not-so-cool. Proximity to McKinnon Secondary College commands a hefty premium from ambitious parents homing in on ground zero to the south-east of the North Road Macca’s.

Heading towards Brighton East, tranquil and leafy McKinnon Hill is another coveted locality for more readily understandable reasons. The north side of North Road used to be cheaper, but like so many suburbs in Melbourne these days, even the less desirable pockets are beginning to fetch a premium. Buyers suffer another noticeable jump if they jump over Booran Road, where they’re faced with the prestigious avenues (and price tags) of Caulfield South.

Increasingly, whichever way you go in Ormond, gentrification continues apace, with the highest prices claimed by the most improbably perfect period showpieces, usually California bungalows built a century ago. Their uniform white-on-white facades, formal landscaping and sprawling designer-greige extensions all strive to nail the lucrative heritage-chic formula, promising a style of aspirational but laidback living that Australians long for.

Elsewhere, the “dog box” cream brick apartment blocks from the 1960s are now increasingly home to younger residents who want a slice of suburban life but find themselves increasingly priced out of the ever-spiralling market.

For me, home is a cosy pocket to the north-west of the station, where a protective overlay has largely maintained an original streetscape of unpretentious homes on big blocks, largely free of the mismatched styles and rapacious redevelopment of nearby areas. There’s not a dual-occupancy, multi-unit or medium-density development in sight, with broad, tree-lined streets that homeowners in outer suburbs can only dream of.

Life is as it should be, with most amenities within walking or cycling distance, including public transport. That’s where Ormond is.

Marish Mackowiak is a freelance writer based in Melbourne.

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