Council rejects student tower plan near Royal Exhibition Building

A 32-storey student accommodation tower proposed for Mackenzie St has been rejected by the City of Melbourne, with councillors warning it would breach new World Heritage protections for the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens and deliver poor amenity for future residents.

At its November 11 Future Melbourne Committee meeting, councillors unanimously resolved to advise Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny that they “do not support” the $139 million proposal at 43 Mackenzie St, although the final decision rests with the Minister under the state’s Development Facilitation Program (DFP).

The application by Centurion Australia Investments seeks to demolish the existing four-storey building and construct a 113-metre tower containing 675 student beds in 538 rooms, with a mandatory three per cent cash contribution to the state’s Social Housing Growth Fund. The site sits within the World Heritage Environs Area (WHEA) surrounding the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens, where new mandatory built-form controls now apply.

Those controls, introduced in April, cap building heights on the site at 103 metres. Council officers said the tower’s 112.8-metre height exceeded the limit by nearly 10 metres – effectively three extra storeys – and intruded into protected views to and from the World Heritage-listed complex. Heritage Victoria has lodged a formal objection on the same grounds.

The project has also attracted 152 public objections since being advertised in September.

Deputy Lord Mayor Roshena Campbell said the council was not opposed to new student accommodation, but the development “in its current form” was inconsistent with the Melbourne Planning Scheme and the newly strengthened WHEA protections.

“The proposed height of 113 metres exceeds the mandatory control by almost 10 metres,” Cr Campbell told the meeting. 

She said the tower’s limited setbacks and mid-tower “slab” form created excessive visual bulk, overshadowing and amenity impacts on neighbouring apartments and departed from the mid-rise character sought for the precinct.

Internally, the building would provide 1718 square metres of communal areas – about 2.5 square metres per student – below council’s preferred benchmark of 3.5 square metres.

“This proposal does not meet our planning expectations for student accommodation. It doesn’t provide the liveability and amenity that we know our students deserve,” Cr Campbell added.

Officers also criticised the lack of visitor bicycle parking, shortcomings in daylight modelling and the absence of any commitment to Green Star certification, despite council’s new C376 sustainable building design requirements.

Planning consultant Michael Henderson, speaking on behalf of the developer, told councillors the tower would deliver 675 beds in a location already characterised by high-rise development and argued that its visual impact on the World Heritage skyline would be “marginal” and part of an “already obstructed skyline”.

He said the project had been in pre-application discussions since late 2024, when a draft control foreshadowed a mandatory height of 113 metres on the site, and that the subsequent reduction to 103 metres came as a surprise to the project team.

However, when pressed by Cr Campbell on whether the applicant was willing to reduce the building’s height to comply, Mr Henderson replied, “At this stage, the answer is no, to be frank.” He also confirmed there was “no willingness” to increase tower setbacks to improve daylight and privacy for neighbours, arguing that shifting the tower would “rob Peter to pay Paul” and could worsen impacts on the former Police Headquarters building to the west.

On communal facilities, Mr Henderson said the team was “actively exploring” opportunities to add more shared space but could not commit to meeting council’s preferred ratios, and similarly took Green Star registration “on notice” pending further work with the project’s environmental consultants.

Those responses failed to satisfy councillors and community submitters.

EastEnders residents’ group president Dr Stan Capp told the meeting it was “patently obvious” the application breached the new World Heritage controls and urged councillors to state that strict compliance with the WHEA rules “is immutable and not a matter for negotiation”.

“The appropriate response surely would have been to refer the applicant to the new laws … The application of World Heritage laws and potential adverse effects for the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens should have been advised as matters that were not negotiable,” Dr Capp said.

Heritage advocate and cultural heritage professional B McNicholas similarly questioned why the proposal had progressed so far given Heritage Victoria’s objection and the long-running process to strengthen the WHEA planning framework.

Lord Mayor Nick Reece said council generally sought to facilitate development in the CBD and was “not opposed to a developer’s profit”, but that the Mackenzie St proposal “falls short on too many counts”.

He described the concerns raised – excessive building height, “inappropriate built form”, adverse heritage impacts, insufficient communal space and “inadequate environmental sustainable design” – as “quite a catalogue of concerns”.

“In terms of the response that we heard here this evening … we heard ‘we will have a look at it’, or versions of that response,” Cr Reece said. “Unfortunately, that’s not good enough. Without appropriate responses and, frankly, changes to what’s before us, this is something that can’t be supported by council.”

Cr Phil Le Liu, who described himself as “very pro-development”, said even he could not overlook the proposal’s conflicts with the new UNESCO-linked controls.

“At the end of the day, we do want to see more developments in the city, but not this way,” he said.

The council’s position will now be forwarded to the Minister for Planning, who is expected to determine the Mackenzie St application “imminently”, with the city reiterating that any approval should only occur if the building is substantially redesigned to comply with the World Heritage controls and deliver a higher standard of design and student amenity.