Everyone seems to want to leave Essendon these days.

A few weeks ago, Zach Merrett wanted out of the football club. Now, an entire neighbourhood in Essendon West wants to leave the suburb and join Aberfeldie.

A petition signed by 140 people was tabled at a Moonee Valley City Council meeting last Tuesday night and calls for a realignment of suburb boundaries in Melbourne’s north-west.

Lincoln Merlo, the petition organiser, tells other Essendon West residents it isn’t personal. He just believes his neighbourhood around Clydebank Road is isolated from the rest of the suburb and is better connected to Aberfeldie. Plus, property values are better, too.

“It’s obviously very selfish,” Merlo admits. “But it’s a strange title alignment that doesn’t really have much historical basis.”

Clydebank Road is bordered by the major thoroughfare of Buckley Street to the north and a small creek to the west.

Merlo says these barriers push Clydebank Road residents towards Aberfeldie when they leave home.

“I think [Buckley Street] is a bit of a divider. I don’t really know anyone that side of the street,” he says. “We’re more Aberfeldie than we are Essendon.”

For instance, Merlo says, few Clydebank Road residents go into Essendon West to shop at a strip on Hoffmans Road. “You’ve got the same thing less distance to us in Aberfeldie, so we all kind of gravitate that way.”

The suburban boundary runs south from Hoffmans Road into Beatrice Avenue, where it jags west and becomes centred on the back fences of properties on Clydebank Road.

When it reaches the end of Clydebank Road, the boundary slices between No. 30 and No. 32 on Afton Street, meaning the latter is in Essendon West while the former is in Aberfeldie despite their shared fence.

The Aberfeldie-Essendon West border then continues down Afton Street until it hits the Maribyrnong River.

Evan Webster, president of the Institution of Surveyors Victoria, says main roads and natural features like rivers were typically used to draw suburb boundaries that reflect cohesive communities.

Webster says it was not unprecedented for neighbouring homes to be divided by a suburban border, but called the Essendon West-Aberfeldie divide unusual given the nearby creek offered an obvious possible boundary.

“That’s a bizarre one,” he says.

Merlo and his wife, Ashlee Richardson, moved into this pocket of Essendon West about seven years ago. During the pandemic, they started talking more with neighbours like Jai and Caitlin Hickey, and soon realised they all thought the suburban boundary was slightly odd.

“What is Essendon West?” Merlo recounts wondering. “It’s a bit of a nothing name and a nothing suburb.”

As more neighbours agreed, momentum grew and a petition for a boundary realignment was launched.

The whole affected neighbourhood of 84 properties has been letterboxed about it, and Merlo says feedback is “overwhelmingly positive” for a change.

“I also just want to see if we can do it,” he says.

Some residents were worried about disruptions to postal services, but Merlo pointed out Aberfeldie has the same postcode as Essendon West, reducing problems.

Others were concerned about paying higher council rates, but Merlo argued the property value increase from moving to Aberfeldie would more than offset this.

The Domain House Price Report for June revealed Aberfeldie’s median house price had jumped from $1,600,329 to $1,946,000 – an increase of $345,000 in 12 months.

Essendon West, meanwhile, is smaller and did not have a median house price listed in that report, but the larger neighbouring suburb of Essendon had a median of $1,560,000 – significantly below that of Aberfeldie.

“The guys around here laugh and call us the Toorak of the north,” Merlo says.

The petitioners may have historic evidence to support their case for a boundary realignment, too: a 1920 subdivision plan shows the neighbourhood west of Afton Street, south of Buckley Street, and east of a small creek, was created as a single community.

Webster, the surveyor, says the passage of time and patchy record-keeping meant it might be difficult to find a document today that explained why the Essendon West border was drawn as it is.

“[I] can’t figure out any logical reason for the boundary being where it is,” he says.

Moonee Valley City Council will ultimately decide whether to change the Essendon West-Aberfeldie border, and if it does, would register the change with Geographic Names Victoria, a state government agency.

“Council often receives requests for name changes. We have to consider a range of factors, and would consult extensively with the community, before making a decision,” Mayor Rose Iser said in a statement.

Despite wanting to break up, Merlo is open to reconciliation with Essendon West if the push to leave fails. “If it doesn’t get through, there’s no love lost!”

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