City of Melbourne fails to deliver developments to hit own targets

The City of Melbourne spruiked its plan to help ease the housing crisis, but three years on has failed to deliver a single project that hits its own affordable housing target.

Renders for City of Melbourne’s Boyd Village project in Southbank, which only includes 15 per cent affordable homes, well below the council’s target. Picture: Supplied,

The City of Melbourne has failed to deliver a single development which has provided 25 per cent affordable housing, despite this being key policy to help ease the housing crisis.

Three years ago, the City of Melbourne endorsed its Affordable Housing Strategy 2020 — 2030 to boost the number of homes available to people on low and medium incomes.

Its key commitment was “ensuring up to 25 per cent of all future residential development on land owned by the City of Melbourne is dedicated to affordable housing”.

But Melbourne Council has not delivered a single project which has achieved that aim.

The $1.7bn Southern Precinct development, at the Queen Victorian Market, was announced earlier this year with just 15 per cent affordable housing – or 84 units.

It comes after two other developments on council land in recent years – Boyd and Munro – only included 15 per cent affordable homes – 40 and 54 apartments respectively.

The Muno development on council land delivered just 54 apartments deemed affordable housing.

Housing affordability and tenants’ rights advocate Jordie van den Berg – who runs the Purple Pingers social media accounts – said the City of Melbourne needed to deliver on its promise to the community.

“They can say all they want but they are not delivering on the things that they promised to do,” he said.

“Unfortunately (Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp) is just another politician big-noting themselves on a very important issue.”

Mr van den Berg said all levels of government had an important role in addressing the housing crisis.

“If a local council is saying it will deliver more affordable housing it should be held to account to do it, instead of busying themselves by heritage listing carparks,” he said.

“Councils more broadly have a role in ensuring planning is done quickly and state and federal governments have a critical role in funding and delivering more public, affordable and social housing.

“The definition of affordable housing needs to make sure that people who are receive assistance payments or work part-time can be able to rent a home for a reasonable rate compared with their financial situation.”

A City of Melbourne spokesman said the Affordable Housing strategy was delivering more than 130 affordable homes as part of its homeless accommodation project – Make Room – and the $1.7 billion redevelopment of land at Queen Victoria Market.

“The City of Melbourne is currently investigating other Council-owned sites for the delivery of affordable housing, which would deliver more than 25 per cent affordable housing,” he said.

The Make Room project has suffered a major blowout in costs, with almost $5 million added to the price tag of redeveloping a council-owned building on Little Bourke St and converting it into up to 50 studio apartments to accommodate people sleeping rough.

The project was originally estimated to cost $20 million but has now jumped to $24.9 million.