Preston’s former Huttonham Estate land still vacant despite soaring public housing waiting list

THE site of a former public housing estate in Melbourne’s inner north remains vacant several years after tenants were evicted and homes were demolished.

N22pt591 Peter Soper is the representative for a tenants group in Preston and Reservoir. Heritage experts wanted to put a heritage overlay over some public housing in Showers ST Preston and Stokes St. Peter and No4 Stokes st Preston.

THE STATE Government has made no guarantee a prime slice of land in Preston will be used for public housing despite a waiting list of almost 35,000 people.

The Huttonham Estate — bound by Stokes, Penola, Showers and Bell streets — has been untouched since 2011, when the previous State Government started a search for a private sector partner to redevelop the wedge of land.

Tender documents passed on to the Preston Leader in 2012 detailed plans for the construction of more than 86 homes, with just “up to 25” to be used for public housing.

State Housing Minister Martin Foley said the previous State Government “botched a tendering process and then failed to do anything for over three years on the site.”

“Huttonham Estate was demolished by the last government in 2011, when they had no plans to develop the site,” Mr Foley said.

The Community Housing Federation of Victoria (CHFV) — a collection of 73 community housing organisations — confirmed it had applied to redevelop the estate.

CHFV executive officer Lesley Dredge said the group had submitted plans to the State Government to build 63 public houses, 29 community houses and 192 private houses as part of the package.

“There’s huge demand for social housing now, so I think that there would have been a whole line of people to put an application in to do something with that site,” Ms Dredge said.

“This is a model we could roll with straight away if there was interest and appetite in doing it.”

Victoria’s most recent public housing waiting list figures show 34,464 people waiting for housing, with 2734 on the waiting list in the North Eastern Melbourne region (Preston).

Mr Foley said the State Government was considering proposals to increase social housing on the site beyond its original amount, but did not guarantee the site would be used for public housing.

“We hope to make some announcements soon,” he said.

Opposition housing spokesman Tim Bull said the State Government’s Budget showed it planned to reduce social housing.

“Martin Foley has no plans to ‘grow social housing’ — the budget clearly shows he plans to reduce public housing by 84 dwellings this year alone,” Mr Bull said.

The original estate had 84 blocks, including more than 60 owned by the Department of Human Services.