Buckley St, Seddon: Social housing plan for student dorm sparks legal battle with council

Maribyrnong Mayor Michael Clarke says the ‘cohort’ slated to move into a Seddon student dorm needed more ‘supervision’.

A plan to turn an empty student housing block in the leafy western suburb of Seddon into social housing will end up in a potentially costly courtroom battle, Maribyrnong City Council has confirmed.

A council committee earlier this year rejected a controversial proposal by not-for-profit Unison Housing to turn a disused student dorm on Buckley St, Seddon, into low-cost housing.

On Tuesday night, Mayor Michael Clarke told council Unison Housing was taking council to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal over its decision to refuse the proposal.

Mr Clarke did not directly respond to a ratepayer question on how much council was prepared to spend in legal costs to defend the decision but said the “particular cohort” of people who would live in the building needed more “supervision” than Unison Housing was offering.

“Everyone knows this,” Mr Clarke said.

A disused student dorm on Buckley St, Seddon, could be turned into social housing.

Mr Clarke told the meeting he had been “misquoted” in an article in The Age as saying Seddon already had an “unacceptable” amount of social housing.

“I was talking about that particular precinct in Seddon,” he said.

“If you look at the area … and look at the kevel of social housing … it is a remarkably high concentration in a very small space.”

More than 5000 people in Melbourne’s inner west are on waiting lists for social housing, and the Labor-dominated council’s refusal of the proposal has sparked a row within the party and among nearby residents.

In the weeks leading up to the council’s rejection of the proposal, 21 nearby residents wrote in to oppose it, while more than 100 have since signed a petition saying they were “extremely disappointed” in council and feared the decision might lead to more people sleeping rough, or in unsafe private rooming houses.

Residents have used council meetings to accuse the council of making Seddon “bland, unaffordable and unwelcoming”, accusations which council has rejected.

The council’s chief executive, Stephen Wall, told Tuesday night’s meeting the 119 residents who had signed a petition in favour of the social housing development could apply to be heard at an upcoming tribunal hearing.