By Cara Waters and Sophie Aubrey
Outgoing Lord Mayor Sally Capp’s passion project, the landmark Greenline trail, is among a dozen major projects lacking funding in the City of Melbourne’s latest budget.
The $781 million draft 2024-25 budget unveiled on Tuesday squeaks into a surplus (of $101,000) for the first time in five years as significant costs are cut, spending on major events falls $1.8 million and revenue from general fines is forecast to rise by nearly 60 per cent.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp announcing her final City of Melbourne budget at the Town Hall on Tuesday. Credit: Jason South
But 15 of the council’s major projects allocated initial-stage funding have not received any funding for delivery over the next four years, including construction of the $316 million Greenline project beyond the Birrarung Marr precinct, improvement of the CBD’s “Little” streets, Elizabeth Street and Southbank Promenade, new offices and redevelopment of Melbourne City Baths.
Money has dried up from the state government’s post-COVID-19 Melbourne City Revitalisation Fund, from which the council received $8.15 million this year and will receive nothing next year.
This means event spending will be reduced by $1.8 million, with funding for Moomba slashed from $5.2 million to $4.3 million, Melbourne Fashion Week cut from $3.3 million to $3 million, and the Now or Never festival from $3.5 million to $2.6 million.
Capp defended the “rephasing” of funding for major projects including Greenline, a four-kilometre linear park along the Yarra’s north bank, which was a key plank of her campaign in the 2018 council byelection and 2020 election.
“These are difficult decisions and you can imagine how difficult it is for me certainly to consider a rephasing of some of those projects,” she said. “The rephasing of the Greenline project doesn’t impact the time of delivery, it just changes when the spend will happen.”
The council will spend $10 million on Greenline in the next financial year, followed by $6 million in 2026, $9 million in 2027 and $10 million in 2028. It will also spend $12.5 million from the $20 million already pledged by the federal government, but there is no external funding commitment beyond that.
Despite this, Capp said construction was under way on two parts of the linear park.
“One part is Seafarers Park down in Docklands, which has been delivered together with the developer of the Riverlee project,” she said. “And the second project currently under way is at Birrarung Marr, which has hoardings up, fencing up and early works under way.”
Revenue from general fines, which includes infringements for smoking in banned areas, littering and animal registration is forecast to increase by 59.8 per cent, from $2.3 million to $3.7 million.
The increase is largely expected to be driven by fines collected from people failing to vote in the council elections in October, a revenue stream expected to bring in $848,000.
Rates are set to increase by the maximum allowable amount of 2.75 per cent under the rate cap, with an average rate rise for property owners of $37.
Revenue from parking fees is tipped to rise by more than 10 per cent to $54 million, with the rollout of more hours of paid street parking in areas outside the CBD.
Revenue from childcare and children’s programs is set to increase by 18.3 per cent, mainly due to an increase in rebates from opening two new childcare rooms, with childcare fees up from $142.50 a day to $149.
An artist’s impression of how Greenline might look near Flinders Street Station.
Restaurant owners will cop another increase in fees to keep their outdoor dining areas, with annual permits to cost an extra 5 per cent in the CBD, totalling $114 per square metre.
This is the last budget for Capp before she leaves the lord mayor role. Capp said she was proud to announce a surplus in what was a modest budget.
“Deficit budgets are unsustainable and this is a time when Melbourne is experiencing positive economic traction, so it is the right time to return to surplus,” she said. “The difficult decisions really have been focused around cutting spending – we’ve cut $69 million in spending in comparison from this year’s budget to our forecast budget for next year.”
Capp said the council was no longer putting forecasts for projects into forward budgets where there was no committed funding. This, she said, was “a more transparent and prudent way of managing our budgets going forward”.
The council will also sell off a car park in Little Collins Street to help balance the books and is forecasting $38 million from asset sales this financial year and $54 million next year.
Almost $3 million will be spent on graffiti removal, with response times being cut down from two hours to one for scrubbing offensive graffiti.
Residents will pay less on average for waste collection thanks to a jump in the municipality’s population. Home owners with properties valued above $515,000 will pay $53 less each year, while those with homes valued under this will get a $15 reduction.
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