Coburg’s sea of car parks to be replaced by towers up to 18 storeys tall

Six council-owned sites in the centre of Coburg that are mostly expanses of car parking would be redeveloped into more than a dozen housing towers ranging from seven to 18 storeys tall under a renewal plan.

Merri-bek City Council wants to build more than 1000 apartments and townhouses in Coburg’s concrete heart, as well as office spaces, shops, pocket parks, wetlands and a $60 million library and public piazza.

The council’s vision for central Coburg, unveiled on Thursday, seeks to replace the sprawling single-level car parking areas on either side of the Sydney Road shopping strip with 15 buildings that would be home to thousands of residents.

Multi-deck indoor car parks with about 900 spaces would also be built. At up to seven storeys, these would provide about 80 per cent of the current number of council-owned car parks in the area.

The council says it wants 23 to 30 per cent of new homes built to be social and affordable housing, and for 40 per cent to have three to four bedrooms to cater for large and diverse families.

The tallest proposed tower, opposite Coburg station, would be 18 storeys. Most other buildings would be eight to 12 storeys tall.

The plan’s ambitious affordable housing target can only be paid for by building taller apartment buildings to increase the number of homes sold at market rates, the council argues.

In a consultation document on its draft framework for central Coburg, the council says: “At present, the framework is financially feasible, but only by a fine margin. There is little room to move, which means adding more to the wish list will involve trade-offs.”

There is no cost estimate for the urban renewal project, other than stage 1, the $60 million construction of a library and public piazza, by 2029. The full vision could take 10 to 15 years to realise.

The proposed renewal comes almost 15 years after the collapse of the council’s last attempt to partner with developers in central Coburg. The area has had no significant investment or renewal since the council cancelled its partnership with the Grollo family-owned Equiset in 2011 due to financial differences.

Merri-bek Mayor Helen Davidson said that failed initiative – which was much bigger than the latest plan – had been developer-led, whereas this vision was developed by the council.

“This is on a much smaller scale that allows for council control because we own the land, so it allows for a much more consultative approach, where we can really focus on improving the outcomes and the quality of development for residents and businesses,” she said.

Davidson said Coburg was already changing, citing the recent level crossing removal project and looming development of a Coburg Health Hub on the north side of Bell Street.

“So times are changing, and we’re testing this concept with the community now to make sure we’ve got the balance right,” she said.

The proposal also includes six open spaces, a network of new streets and laneways, 8000 square metres of shops and businesses and 2000 square metres of office space.

Power lines will be put underground, and the popular outdoor Victoria Mall will be redeveloped.

Rob McGauran, a principal at MGS Architects, who has advised Merri-bek Council on its plans, said the heart of Coburg needed to be changed into a less car-dependent, greener place.

“We all know things are heating up,” he said. “More than a third of the area of central Coburg is just bitumen at the moment, at-grade bitumen car parks.

“We can’t afford to have just these big expanses of bitumen into our future – on a climate basis, let alone as an efficient leverage of the assets the communities have got in public transport and shops.”

McGauran said an investment in affordable and higher-density housing in the centre of Coburg would provide an antidote to the recent gentrification that had made the area unaffordable for many key workers in fields such as education, retail and health, and for families who had lived in Coburg for generations.

“We’re seeing that with the gentrification of the northern corridor, with places like Coburg and Preston that have been historically very affordable rapidly becoming unaffordable,” he said.

“Council’s not saying that everybody has to live in an apartment in the future. It’s really saying, though, that those choices should be available in Coburg, and that this is the right sort of location for those choices to be, rather than away from activity centre cores, where you’ve got established landscapes and backyards that people value and love.

“Here we’ve got bitumen and a fair bit of mid-20th century architecture that could be replaced without people feeling like they’ve lost something special.”

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