Plans for low-rise housing and tech hub revealed in secret papers
A very different vision for the Docklands was taking shape in the final years of the troubled governments of John Cain and Joan Kirner.
There wouldn’t be a stadium, but there would be a university. There would be very few high-rise apartment buildings and instead the focus would be on medium-density housing.
The government’s vision for the waterfront, a wasteland of empty warehouses, decaying docks and shacks hosting underground entertainment, was planned to include at least 10 percent public housing and a tech hub.
The plan included ideas for an outdoor casino “located in parkland,” a natural wetland at the mouth of Moonee Ponds Creek, and public plazas that form “links in the open space chain.”
But secret state cabinet documents from 1990 to 1992 were published and reviewed for the first time on Thursday. Age – Uncover a project already mired in controversy, long before Docklands became Melbourne’s most maligned suburb.
A senior civil servant has described moves by a weakened Labor government to advance Docklands development legislation amid a massive property crash and economic crisis as “incomprehensible”.
olympic dream
In 1990 the government was planning to introduce legislation that would establish the Docklands Authority to oversee the regeneration of the area.
Melbourne was bidding for the 1996 Olympics and redevelopment was part of the city’s field; The site will host the athletes’ village.
But cabinet documents released in August 1990 (a month before Melbourne lost the bid to Atlanta) show a deep divide within the government.
In a scathing internal briefing on 3 August 1990, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet warned that creating authority was “irresponsible in the current economic environment” and would fuel unrealistic development expectations.
John Hartigan, of the department’s development branch, wrote: “The Government faces competing priorities for capital funding for new initiatives such as infrastructure in the 28 outer suburban growth areas and will clearly struggle to meet announced capital commitments such as a new museum and library.
“How can raising expectations for a massive new property project like Docklands be justified in the midst of arguably the biggest property crash in recent history?”
The documents reveal that many within the ministry saw the law as a “bureaucratic agenda” that used the Olympic bid as a convenient excuse for urgency.
Hartigan also expressed concern about announcing the authority before the International Olympic Committee’s decision, warning that it would “seriously harm” the bid by sparking debate over its “ill-defined and confused” powers.
Ultimately, the government continued to use this authority, but the government was established after the tender was lost to Atlanta.
A new vision
While credit for transforming the derelict industrial site into Docklands is rightly attributed to former Liberal premier Jeff Kennett, documents show planning was already well advanced in the final years of the Labor government.
Cabinet papers from 1991 and 1992 pull back the curtain on a forgotten version of the Melbourne of the future: a high-tech city powered by a state-of-the-art fibre-optic ring and a global “teleportation” satellite hub. The plan is designed to spur world-leading research on everything from new medicines to transport.
The preferred plan, set out in 1992 planning documents, argued that Docklands should be a “low-rise environment” with relatively few buildings above 12 storeys.
In the documents, it was stated that the residences should be of medium density, and in places where pedestrian character is required, two or three-storey buildings should be dominant.
The Docklands Authority also proposed that at least 10 per cent of housing be publicly owned and that at least half of all housing projects be priced below $250,000 (in 1992 dollars).
Under this plan, what is now Marvel Stadium would be a mix of residential and office buildings.
At the heart of the Docklands vision was a 24-hectare education and research precinct. A 1990 proposal proposed a “Docklands campus” shared by Victorian universities between Victoria Dock North and Moonee Ponds Creek, near what is now New Quay Promenade.
By 1992, plans had shifted toward a graduate campus or an international institution.
Planners also struggled to locate the planned Melbourne casino at Docklands, arguing that the site had the “greatest capacity to accommodate the traffic generated by a large open casino” compared to any city center location.
A number of sites have been proposed, including the Spencer Street railway yards, along the Yarra River, at North Pier or Central Pier.
Transport was equally ambitious, with planners proposing a “rapid transit link” to Tullamarine Airport and insisting that all work at Spencer Street Station be amenable to a future “ultra-high-speed rail” terminal. Neither proposal has been implemented more than three decades later.
A $245 million tunnel has also been discussed as an alternative to the Bolte Bridge, which would be built by the Kennett government specifically to allow cruise ships to access the inland docks.
The market has taken over
Victoria’s financial situation – marked by the collapse of the Pyramid Building Society and the forced sale of the State Bank of Victoria – combined with the defeat of the Kirner government in 1992, ensured that these ambitious plans never left the drawing board.
Warnings from the Treasury at the time stated that it would cost taxpayers at least $300 million over six years to establish the basic infrastructure needed to start development. When Kennett took office in late 1992, he brought a different philosophy to the waterfront, envisioning Docklands as a market-driven development requiring no government support.
To make the massive undertaking commercially viable for the private sector, the site was divided into seven large zones and sold to major developers.
Economic restrictions, first set out by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in 1990, would ultimately determine the suburb’s fate. Labour’s vision of low-rise housing, public quotas and education centers remained on paper; It was replaced by high-density towers and private investment-led planning that would define today’s Docklands.
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