‘Could bring Melbourne to a halt’: Population growth threatening public transport and housing

A leading planning and environment academic is concerned about how Victoria’s lacklustre infrastructure could sink the city within several decades.

Melbourne is undergoing a gradual reconstruction “on steroids” — along the lines of an Asian megacity — that will completely alter life for its residents, a planning expert warns.

The Allan government’s ambitious housing agenda will double the number of homes in Melbourne on the way to a population of nine million.

Michael Buxton, a Professor of Environment and Planning at RMIT, said this housing explosion will chew up a lot of Melbourne’s parks and gardens, and overwhelm our roads and rail lines.

Melbourne is bracing for ‘urban consolidation on steroids’. Picture: Supplied

“It’s urban consolidation on steroids,” Prof Buxton said.

“The government is proposing 2.4 million new houses for Victoria, but roughly two million of those are just for metropolitan Melbourne.

“What that will mean is a doubling of the number of dwellings in Melbourne, and a huge increase in the number of new houses in the middle ring suburbs and the and also the inner areas.

“It’s really a city reconstruction program, which is most unusual for a western city. That’s more typical of mega cities in developing countries.

“It’s going to completely alter the Melbourne we know.”

With a growing population, the state government has proposed doubling the number of dwellings in Melbourne. Picture: Nicki Connolly

Melbourne’s middle-ring suburbs — the suburbs between 5km and 15km outside of the CBD — are likely to suffer under an influx of medium and high rise buildings, and Prof Buxton pointed to East Brunswick as an example.

“They’re going to rebuild the existing residential housing well away from any existing public transport services on a mass scale, and it’s inevitably going to lead a massive road congestion,” he said.

“You can already see what’s going on in East Brunswick and in the north — the congestion now is so bad on weekends and during peak hours, it’s virtually impossible to go anywhere rapidly.

“And that’s area with high quality tram services, and yet we still see that massive congestion that’s been repeated right throughout Boroondara.”

He said the new developments would be “overwhelming” existing infrastructure in many cases.

“These municipalities are going to have increases of up to 100 per cent the number of dwellings they currently have.

“If you consider how it’s happened in Box Hill, it’ll be high rise and very dense development with new precincts built around those stations.”

More high rise and medium rise buildings are coming to Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

Professor Buxton said at the current rate, Melbourne would become a car-centric city like many cities in America.

“The kind of congestion we already deal with on the roads will be just the beginning – this could bring Melbourne to a halt.”

He said to make space for the new housing, the city’s greenery and parklands would have to be “obliterated”, which would concurrently impact the climate.

“It’s all boundary to boundary construction, and when that happens all the trees on the development site get cut down.

“With the trees gone, Melbourne will become a much hotter place, simply because of the type of urban form.

“When you have boundary to boundary buildings, particularly medium and high rise apartments, they’re adding to the heat of the city.

“In a lot of high rise areas, the temperature will increase by as much as five degrees centigrade.”

Melbourne could become much hotter with increased high rise buildings. Picture: Nicki Connolly

A Department of Transport and Planning spokesperson said the government were not delivering projects they could not afford and the goal was to “get Victorians home safer and sooner”.

“The Metro Tunnel represents the biggest change to Melbourne’s rail network in four decades and the Suburban Rail Loop will reshape the city – making it easier for Victorians to get to work, school and home,” they said.

“The best way to make housing more affordable is to build more homes, that’s why we’re creating the conditions for 800,000 of them to get built over the next decade – because every Victorian deserves a roof over their head.”

They also said the Victoria Planning Provisions include strategies to ensure developments provide landscaping and supports cooling and greening of urban areas.

When considering transport for Victoria, the spokesperson said more than 200 bus routes have either been improved or added to our bus network since the launch of Victoria’s Bus Plan in July 2021 — and projects including the SRL, the West Gate Tunnel and North East Link, and Level Crossing Removal Project would all bolster Victoria’s transport networks.