After considering community feedback at its meeting on 27 August, Council voted to proceed with a proposal to lease Council land at 325-341 Victoria Street, West Melbourne, for affordable housing.

We will now begin a selective public process to identify a community housing provider to build and manage affordable housing at the site.

Council also agreed to defer further consideration of the lease of 44-60 Curzon Street, North Melbourne for affordable housing, until the impact of this is understood.

Why we're doing this

The city has a shortfall of at least 6000 affordable rental homes and if we do nothing, this will almost quadruple, reaching 23,000 by 2036. For this reason, we are committed to working with the State and Federal governments to increase the number of affordable homes, as well as using our own land for this purpose.

Projects like Victoria Street will help support people on low incomes by providing housing below the market rate – enhancing liveability in our city, the diversity of our community and the productivity of our economy.

This is a complex topic and we are grateful to everyone who gave us feedback on this proposal.