After Brighton bust-up, Footscray residents wary of high-rise haste

They didn’t hit the streets in a flash protest like Brighton locals, but on Monday, residents of Melbourne’s inner west were still wary.

After the state government announced plans on Sunday to speed up apartment development in Footscray and West Footscray, the suburbs’ locals said they felt cautious after seeing the disaster of the high-rise Joseph Road precinct.

Premier Jacinta Allan said 50 new activity centres near transport hubs would be zoned for fast-tracked apartments, with the neighbourhoods surrounding Middle Footscray, West Footscray and Tottenham train stations among the first 25 to be named.

The reaction in the inner west is of a vastly different temperature to what was seen in Brighton, where about 100 people joined a protest led by local state member, Liberal James Newbury, and heckled the premier.

In Footscray, a Labor heartland, there is some acceptance of the need for more housing, but locals want to see details.

Most residents don’t want buildings to be taller than about six storeys. But 10 activity centres that were announced in August mostly have height limits of up to 12 storeys.

Every inner-west resident spoken to by The Age on Monday mentioned the Joseph Road precinct, where high-rises of up to 30 storeys were built on a riverside brownfield site in Footscray without supporting infrastructure.

“Nobody wants that,” said Cameron Tait, who lives in a house opposite West Footscray station in a modern residential development, Banbury Village.

Tait said he left Brunswick in 2018 to get away from over-development and is eager to understand where new apartments would be built in West Footscray.

“If you’re building high-rises next to the train lines, well, people are living there. So the devil is in the detail, and there’s zero detail, so it’s a bit hard.”

Tait agreed more housing was needed but wanted to avoid a scenario where the state government was dictating decisions about local matters.

“I think generally the population here is more open to development [than Brighton] … but there’s a very strong community here. As soon as there’s any kind of maps or zoning or detail, there will be a well-coordinated community response, if not opposition,” he said.

“We don’t want planning minister signatures overriding the character of the area.”

BikeWest president John Symons called on the government to embed a thorough active transport network into its plans to help reduce car reliance as the population gets denser. There are about 1.5 cars for every dwelling in metropolitan Melbourne, according to federal data.

“Not everyone is going to be using the train because they don’t need to necessarily go where the train goes,” Symons said.

“The only way you can reduce road congestion is to provide viable, safe, efficient alternatives, otherwise you will make livability worse and worse.”

Symons added that while the inner-west was usually quite progressive and accepting of development, resistance to change was growing as the area gentrified.

Footscray resident and affordable housing advocate Kate Breen said she understood that more people needed to be able to live close to the city, and she wanted a significant proportion of new higher-density housing to be set aside for low-income Victorians.

Breen also called on the government to invest in infrastructure and services, such as childcare and street upgrades for cyclists and pedestrians.

“There’s a need for the government to engage with the community on the next level of detail and dive deeper into what the potential heights, controls and benefits might be,” she said.

Carole Giarrusso, 76, has lived in West Footscray all her life and is appalled by the development that has occurred in the past decade. “It looks like rubbish,” Giarrusso said.

She is particularly critical of high-rises and is baffled as to where apartment buildings would squeeze into her neighbourhood, believing there should be more focus on building homes and infrastructure in outer suburbs.

There has been immense criticism of the government’s community engagement for the 10 activity centres unveiled in August. Here, apartment buildings will vary between three and 20 storeys, with high-rises immediately around the transport hub “core” and then low-rise and townhouse developments within 800 metres of train stations.

It is not yet known what the height limits will be for the new tranche of centres but the government has insisted that these would be decided following consultation.

Middle Footscray and Toorak Village will be classified as smaller “neighbourhood activity centres”, with more modest growth compared to other zones.

Councils are in caretaker mode due to local government elections, limiting their ability to object to the government’s plan to seize planning controls.

In the city’s east, Boroondara City Council will have three further activity centres surrounding Hawthorn, Glenferrie and Auburn stations, on top of the previously announced Camberwell centre.

Felicity Sinfield, incumbent deputy mayor and council candidate, said the council was “frustrated and astonished that they would make such sweeping generational changes intentionally during caretaker mode”.

Sinfield, a Liberal Party member, said she was worried about tall buildings ruining low-rise residential streets.

Glen Eira City Council will take in activity centres around Murrumbeena and Carnegie stations.

Glen Eira chief executive Rebecca McKenzie released a stinging statement on Thursday saying she was concerned that the plans would significantly change neighbourhoods.

“This is the latest in a series of announcements with inadequate or rushed consultation that together stand to disempower local councils and devalue the interests of local communities,” she said.

“Announcing a major planning decision with long-term local impacts during the election caretaker period — and less than a week until election day — raises questions about transparency and due process.”

On Sunday, Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny said the government would undertake in-depth consultation to determine the building heights and other planning controls of each activity centre.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.