Flemington public housing tenants on notice for eviction

The Victorian Government is pressing on with demolishing two more towers at the Flemington estate.

Two were previously demolished under the Ground Lease Model (GLM) program, with the vacant land being handed over to a “special purpose vehicle” called “Building Communities (Vic) Ltd” set up by state government-registered housing provider Community Housing (Vic) Ltd (CHVL). Building Communities (Vic) Ltd has been a separately registered not-for-profit, community housing provider since 2021.

The GLM1 project – and now its expansion – has a majority of “affordable” and market rent housing over community housing. The CHVL is managing all three tenures.

There has been zero provision of public information on the costs to government and what justified the adding on of the two additional towers to the existing contract.

RMIT housing researchers have assessed the two GLM projects awarded to this same consortium. Using Homes Victoria’s own published contract detail, they calculated the cost to the current and future state governments as being: $901,667,000 for GLM1 and GLM2, $1. 108 Billion. Go to this link.

GLM1 includes two other estates: Bangs St, Prahran, which had stood vacant for more than a decade after a proposed National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) project of the Rudd/Gillard federal government fell over; and New St, Brighton. GLM2 includes demolished estates at Barak Beacon, Port Melbourne; Horrace Petty Prahran low rise; Essex St, Prahran; and Bluff Rd, Hampton East.

What is Building Communities (Vic) Ltd?

The state government’s register for community housing providers provides no detail on who exactly is involved in its management, beyond nominating CHVL's CEO. The GLM1 contract document does, though, name the following organisations: Icon Kajima Construction, Citta Property Group, Tetris Capital and CHVL as the contracted consortium. Tetris spruik the Prahran and Brighton estates on their.

Special purpose vehicles

The final report of the Social Housing Regulation Review (SHRR) recommended, at Section 5.1, that new regulations for consortia like this include: public, continuous disclosure requirements, salaries and executives’ remuneration; and full visibility of relationships and the transactions between the parties involved.

The SHHR also recommended the regulation of "affordable" housing in Section 5.2.

The following is the government’s response to these two recommendations:

• 5.1 – enable effective regulation in an environment that is increasing in complexity: support in principle

• 5.2 – regulation of affordable housing: not support

The Victorian Government is pressing ahead with a program of demolitions. Not just towers but walk-up estates as well, with no transparent regulation of parties ending up with new dwellings.

Repair, retain and reinvest

The decision by Heritage Victoria’s executive director to exclude the towers on Elgin and Nicholson streets in Carlton from heritage protection advised that when all 47 towers were built five decades ago, they had an accommodation capacity of 24,000-plus adults and children (Report RX1011, 5/9/24, pages 13 and 14).

Discounting the three already demolished there is, therefore, a potential to have accommodation for more than 22,000 adults and children: twice as many as 11,000 the government advised would result from demolitions and building community housing.

This can be done at a fraction of the cost to the state government of demolition and redevelopment.

Prepared with the assistance of the Save Public Housing Collective •