For the past 6 years over 200 creative businesses and individuals have called Coburg our creative home in Schoolhouse Studios.

As dedicated members of the artistic community here in Coburg, we've worked alongside hundreds of creatives in a shared studio building, nurtured and encouraged by the vibrant atmosphere that Merri-bek City Council has helped to initiate in the area. Our creative businesses, made up of sole traders, independent artists, makers, educators, architects, designers, and small businesses, reside in Schoolhouse Studios which have helped to revitalise the area with community events, exhibitions, workshops, residencies and so much more. However, the current Schoolhouse Studios building and community environment is now under threat due to Merri-bek City Council's redevelopment plans for their Central Coburg project that erases the very creative community it worked together to establish.

Studies have shown that creative industries not only enrich the cultural landscape but also enhance economic vitality. Here in Victoria in 2023-2024 the arts sector contributed $41.1 billion. And according to the Australia Council for the Arts, the creative industry contributes over $112 billion to the Australian economy every year. Despite this, according to the Creative Australia’s ongoing Making Art Work series which tracks the economic reality of individual creators, the average income visual artists make directly from their creative practice sits well below the national minimum wage. Artists are heavily reliant on secondary "embedded" creative roles (such as arts education, curating, or teaching) to supplement their income.

Our precinct in Coburg is brimming with creativity and should continue to be a part of this significant contribution, and leaving creatives without options for workplaces, makes it harder to continue working and only further pushes artists and makers out of the arts sector. Without appropriate measures by the Merri-bek City Council, the community risk losing an essential hub of artistic innovation as well as economic gain.

We have three questions for Merri-bek City Council:

1. Why are we being asked to leave in mid 2027? Our lease cut early by 12 months, when Stage 1 construction doesn't break ground until mid-2028 — nearly 2 years away — and our building isn't scheduled for redevelopment until Stage 5, likely years beyond that?
2. Why hasn't Council worked with us to find a new home? Given the relationship and support they themselves established with Schoolhouse over the past six years.
3. Why haven't we, as practising creatives and the acknowledged experts in what a working studio and community space actually requires, been consulted on the design of the "mixed use community spaces" in their own redevelopment plans?

We've established Coburg Artists and Makers Alliance (CAMA) — creative businesses, artists and makers working from Schoolhouse Studios in Coburg – to find out, and to advocate for us and for future creatives in Coburg. Support our cause.

We're asking Merri-bek City Council to acknowledge its duty of care to the creative community it has long supported, and to engage meaningfully with us — the local, expert, practising creatives —  and surrounding small business traders on a transitional path that doesn't dismantle what we've built together.

Sign the petition today to make sure our voices are heard and Coburg’s creative future secured.

Learn all how massive, imposing, intervening and displacing the Merri-bek City Council's Central Coburg redevelopment plan actually is for our creative businesses and surrounding traders, here.