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At the meeting, Docklands resident Sandra Severin called the redevelopment “the Development Victoria Wall of Marvel splitting our suburb”.
City of Melbourne councillor Jamal Hakim.Credit: Justin McManus
Councillor Jamal Hakim echoed that: “Many are calling it the ‘Great Wall of Docklands’, but I think what Sandy said is more precise because it’s more like the ‘Great Wall of Development Victoria’, because no one in Docklands supports this.”
Deputy Mayor Nick Reece said: “Council has been absolutely resolute that we will not repeat the mistakes of the past in Docklands, but that is what will occur if we were to support this proposal in its current form.
“So I do want to really strongly encourage our friends and colleagues at Development Victoria and the AFL to work with us to address the concerns that have come up this evening.
“We are really committed to getting to ‘yes’ and seeing a major project move forward here. But we want it to be a development that Docklands and Melbourne and all of us can be really proud of.”
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Other councillors were more scathing, including Hakim, who called out the fact that no one from the AFL or Development Victoria attended the council meeting to field questions, as is the norm.
“This has to be one of the most embarrassing applications we’ve ever seen. Someone’s clearly dropped the ball on this application,” Hakim said. “Either that will all we’re all missing something really dodgy.”
Greens councillor Rohan Leppert said there was “lack of strategic justification” and that the application’s suggestion this development would connect the city to the waterfront did not stack up.
“How does this project connect the city to the waterfront? This is reverse engineered gobbledygook,” he said.
“[The developers need to explain] how it connects Docklands with other parts of the city, what its relationship with Harbour Esplanade can be, and then we’ll have an idea about whether this is an idea worth pursuing.
“I would love to find a way to get to ‘yes’ but we can’t reverse engineer nonsense strategic justifications.”
The proposal would allow for a “mix of uses across the three buildings including offices, a function centre and retail uses, with options to include accommodation such as dwellings and a residential hotel”, according to the council’s officer report.
The report noted that the proposal “seeks flexibility ‘dependent on market conditions’ and therefore the final land-use mix is unknown at this stage”, and that the plan did not “anticipate the provision of any affordable housing”.
Development Victoria and the AFL have been contacted for comment. The planning minister’s office has also been contacted.
More to come
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