SRL Authority blames councils, resident groups for slump in support for high-rise plan

The Suburban Rail Loop Authority has blamed a dramatic slump in support for high-rise precincts around two of its proposed stations on resident action groups and councils, secret documents reveal.

There has been backlash to the SRL Authority’s high rise plan.

The Suburban Rail Loop project blamed a dramatic slump in support for high-rise precincts around two of its proposed stations on resident groups and councils, secret documents show.

The SRL Authority, which is overseeing the loop including its $34.5bn first stage between Cheltenham and Box Hill, has been tracking community sentiment towards precinct planning — the rules that will guide development around six new stations.

A snapshot of that sentiment was included in an internal SRL briefing on community engagement last year, and released under Freedom of Information to the state opposition.

It shows between 58 and 82 per cent of local residents in Cheltenham, Clayton, Monash, Glen Waverley, Burwood and Box Hill backed SRL’s “visions” for how land around stations would be developed, when released in 2023.

But when more detail of the plans were released the following year — showing suburban skyscrapers of up to 18 storeys in Cheltenham and 40 storeys in Box Hill — the approval from 3700 residents in those suburbs plummeted to about 23 per cent.

Bayside Council mocked up images of wall-to-wall high rises last year after the Suburban Rail Loop released draft precinct plans that would allow for suburban skyscrapers around a Cheltenham station.

Premier Jacinta Allan released this artist's impression of how Cheltenham could look after the Suburban Rail Loop is built, to counter Bayside Council images released to residents.

In its report, the SRLA says the slump in some areas was driven by community campaigns.

“It should be noted that the activities of a local resident action group in Pennydale, the release by Bayside Council of misleading imagery, and advocacy efforts by Whitehorse Council affected the number of negative responses to the Cheltenham, Burwood and Box Hill proposals,” it says.

The Bayside Council had released a computer-generated image in 2024 of wall-to-wall high rises along local streets, to show an extreme example of how zone changes could impact.

To counter this, the SRLA proposed creating images showing what it thought precincts would look like, with a lower density streetscape outside of the station core.

Late in 2024, Premier Jacinta Allan released one image on social media as a “sneak peak” of how Cheltenham could look in 2050.

An artist’s impression of the Cheltenham SRL precinct. Picture: Supplied

President of the Pennydale Residents Action Group, Derek Screen, said blaming representative bodies for survey results was bizarre because SRL supposedly wanted consultation.

“We will provide detail and let people make up their own mind, it’s not up to us to tell people how to think or what they should write,” he said.

“The more people find out about the detail, the more they get upset.”

Opposition major projects spokesman, Evan Mulholland, said even people supposed to directly benefit from the SRL think “this project stinks”.

“The Labor government is now so desperate it is blaming local councils for highlighting factual information about what the Suburban Rail Loop will mean for their communities.”

A spokeswoman for the SRLA said community feedback had been a factor in changes to draft structure plans for Pennydale and Highett, including a former CSIRO site where heights were scaled back form 18 storeys to a maximum of eight.

“This community engagement is encouraging Victorians to tell us what they want to see in and around their Suburban Rail Loop neighbourhoods,” she said.
“It is not a poll on Suburban Rail Loop and each stage of community engagement is separate — responses cannot and should not be compared with each other.”

The Allan government has faced pressure from the state opposition to cancel or pause the SRL due to funding woes, but it has ignored critics and said the project was crucial to dealing with population growth and providing homes for 70,000 people.

Last week, federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton promised to pull $2.2bn in federal Labor funding for the SRL if he was prime minister after the May 3 federal election.