Our beautiful Docklands neighbourhood is again being used as a dumping ground by State Government for development that lacks vision or foresight about the future of the area.

On 15 August 2024, the Minister for Planning quietly gazetted the announcement of a three tower project in Docklands which was unanimously voted down by the City of Melbourne because it lacked nearly all planning requirements.

Docklands needs major investment and a proper development program that links Docklands to the city, and not to be used as Development Victoria’s banal imagination.

The contentious development at 140-160 Harbour Esplanade Docklands, refuses to take into consideration the issues raised by the City of Melbourne.

In May this year, the City of Melbourne recommended to the Minister that the Planning Scheme Amendment C438melb (the Amendment) is rejected with Councillor Jamal Hakim calling it "the most embarrassing application this term" at the time.

The approval did not include any significant changes proposed by Council as key outstanding matters including unresolved strategic documents for Harbour Esplanade, a design consideration through the a design review panel to ensure Design Excellence principles are embedded in the Plan, a provision of public benefit, changes to reduce the ‘wall effect’ and its impacts to the waterfront and the Hoddle grid, and information on how the proposal appropriately manages matters such as overshadowing, wind, flooding impacts, landscaping and wayfinding.

Residents shared key issues with the proposal including the loss of trees, overshadowing, the lack of information, and lack of public benefit with the proposal significantly encroaching on public space.

“In short, this proposal provides no information and promises to deliver the most monstrous overwhelming building in the city” said Jamal, “In ignoring community voices, and the recommendation from Council, the Minister has demonstrated a complete lack of interest in fixing the planning errors in Docklands. To be successful, this development must meet the criteria that every other developer and planning application is required to have in our city, and this cowboy approach is damaging to Melbourne’s standing and reputation.” 

"If this is still happening in Docklands, what's going to happen in Arden and Macauley?"

Sign this petition to ask the State Government to:

1) Reconsider the approval of this planning scheme,

2) Integrate the recommendations made by Council’s Future Melbourne Committee,  

3) Make it clear that Docklanders want high quality development that contributes to community wellbeing and better integrated our water gateway to the Hoddle grid, and

4)  to subscribe to Team Hakim for more updates on this and other announcements from Team Hakim.