As the Suburban Rail Loop drives up rents, this affordable health clinic could become homeless

A community health care centre that has operated in central Box Hill for 20 years is at risk of being turfed out of its premises by land speculation fuelled by the promised arrival of the Suburban Rail Loop.

Nillumbik Community Health Services, a not-for-profit clinic that provides subsidised dental care, physiotherapy, podiatry and other services to people who can’t afford private treatment, is in a three-storey building about 100 metres from the proposed Box Hill SRL station in Melbourne’s east.

Work in March at the Box Hill site for the proposed Suburban Rail Loop.Credit: Penny Stephens

The building is on the market for an undisclosed sum, with the realtors handling the sale promoting the possibility of future redevelopment of up to 24 storeys.

The community health centre, which trades as healthAbility, holds a lease until June next year and an option for a further two years. Nillumbik Community Health Services chief executive Agata Jarbin said the asking price for her organisation to extend its lease was beyond its capacity to pay and the cost of moving prohibitively expensive.

The clinic has, among other heavy medical equipment, 10 dental chairs that would need to be shifted to new premises. It pays about $337 per metre per annum on its current Carrington Road lease, which equates to rent of about $800,000 a year. The current market rate is above $500 per metre, which would mean a rent hike of nearly 50 per cent.

“We are unable to extend the lease without additional financial support, and we have no certainty about the future of the building after the sale,” Jarbin said.

Selina has been a healthAbility patient for 20 years.Credit: Jason South

“We have spoken to developers, to government and the (Whitehorse) council and looked at a number of avenues. Unfortunately, there is no ready solution that anyone has recommended or offered.”

The clinic met last year with the Suburban Rail Loop Authority to discuss the rental squeeze but, despite the project’s draft structure plan for Box Hill identifying a future “health priority” area for more medical services, the authority did not suggest a more immediate fix.

The Victorian Department of Health has so far not committed to extending the $520,000 annual rental subsidy it provides to healthAbility beyond the expiry of the clinic’s current lease.

In response to questions from The Age, the Allan government declined to assure the clinic’s future in Box Hill beyond next year. “We will continue to work with communities every step of the way including in the delivery of essential services and programs for people in need, and local feedback will be really important in building and shaping these growing neighbourhoods,” a government spokesman said.

The Suburban Rail Loop Authority’s draft structure plan for Box Hill, released last month.

Another major tenant within the building is Eastern Health, the public health network that runs Box Hill Hospital. Eastern Health is planning to shift its services to a new building in central Box Hill still under construction.

Federal Liberal MP Keith Wolahan, whose seat of Menzies covers Box Hill, raised the clinic’s plight in parliament this year. “HealthAbility delivers valued frontline care, but it’s been left behind by a Labor government that’s all spin and no substance,” he told this masthead.

Despite Wolahan’s electorate of Menzies being a marginal seat, neither side of politics has proposed a solution during the election campaign.

Unless an accommodation can be found, state government planning policies intended to provide better public transport and more housing for people in Box Hill could have the perverse consequence of forcing out a clinic that last year received $26.5 million in combined Commonwealth and state government funding to provide health services to the same, fast-growing population.

Box Hill’s population is forecast to double between now and 2041. The Suburban Rail Loop Authority calculates that over the same period, the population within a proposed structure plan area earmarked for high-density development near the train station will swell from 13,300 to 29,100 people.

Box Hill was earmarked for high density development and population growth before the SRL was conceived. In 2007, it was identified in the state government’s population planning as a future urban centre and later designated as a metropolitan activity centre, where planning laws allow for greater density development.

The Allan government last month published its latest draft planning laws covering Box Hill and other proposed SRL stations. The planning scheme is due to be finalised next year.

A survey of 905 patients conducted by healthAbility this month found that 84 per cent of respondents had a healthcare or concession card, and 77 per cent said it would be much harder for them to access the health services they need if the clinic moved away from Box Hill.

“Why move it away?” Regular patient Selina outside the Box Hill clinic.Credit: Jason South

Selina, a patient at the clinic since it opened in Box Hill, is one of three generations of her family who uses its services. Two years ago, she was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes by one of the clinic’s specialist teams. After she struggled to come to terms with the diagnosis, she was referred to one of the clinic’s psychologists.

“We all like to come here,” Selina said. “Traffic is easy. There is a bus terminus at Box Hill Central [shopping centre] and good trains and heaps of car parks. This is a very good, elderly-supportive community centre. Why move it away?”

A retired pianist, Selina volunteers as an English teacher and says the clinic has a strong connection to Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking Chinese communities in Box Hill. The clinic last year served just under 25,000 clients.

Jarbin said the clinic was well-known within Box Hill and moving it away would have a significant impact on people who depended on its services. “The most vulnerable members of the community from Box Hill and surrounding suburbs will lose a really vital service on which they rely for their health and wellbeing,” she said.

Nillumbik Community Health Services was established 50 years ago. Its clinics in Box Hill and Eltham provide services not covered by Medicare.

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