Arden Village Group tower cut to 540 homes in North Melbourne

The Victorian government approved Arden Village Group’s two-tower project at 189-203 Arden Street, North Melbourne, at a reduced 540 homes, down from the 619 apartments first proposed, The Urban Developer reported on 31 August 2026. The state used its Development Facilitation Program to determine the application in July, bypassing the City of Melbourne’s normal planning role.

Why it matters

The approval is one of three towers to proceed around Arden Station in recent months, alongside a 24-storey build-to-rent tower on Munster Terrace and a further build-to-rent project on Laurens Street, both by a separate developer, The Urban Developer reported. Together the outlet counted more than 790 homes approved across the three projects, which it described as the first major residential developments to progress in the 45-hectare Arden renewal precinct.

The City of Melbourne had pushed back on the scheme, citing the towers’ scale, the shadow they would cast over open space planned nearby, the level of affordable housing on offer and a $17m exemption from the Arden Development Contributions Plan that the developer had sought, The Urban Developer reported. The Development Facilitation Program let the state decide the application directly, bypassing the City of Melbourne’s normal role in the process, and the state used that same pathway for all three Arden approvals.

Government documents for the 45-hectare precinct point to a population near 15,000 and about 34,000 jobs once it is built out, spanning employment, health, education and housing uses, The Urban Developer reported. Arden sits next to Macaulay, where Metrics Credit Partners lodged a separate 943-home proposal in March, pointing to the same push for greater density across North Melbourne’s renewal precincts. Charter Keck Cramer national executive director Richard Temlett has argued, per the outlet, that denser development near Arden Station can help projects remain viable, pointing to the scale of transport investment underway and current conditions in the apartment market.

The numbers

As approved, the project comprises two towers of 24 and 37 storeys on a 5,400 sqm site, with 2,488 sqm of retail space, The Urban Developer reported. That is down from the original proposal of 619 apartments across 28- and 44-storey towers, including 93 affordable homes.

The Australian Developer checked Melbourne’s open data portal for the matching planning permit, ID-2025-4, covering 189-197 Arden Street. The City’s development-activity-monitor record lists that permit as APPROVED but still carries the pre-reduction figures: 619 dwellings, a maximum 44 storeys above ground and 2,460 sqm of retail floor space. The record has not been updated to reflect the reduced yield the state approved, so this report relies on The Urban Developer’s figures for the scheme as approved rather than the open-data record’s unrevised totals.

What’s next

Arden Village Group has not published a construction timeline for the reduced scheme. The approval adds to a run of taller buildings proceeding around Arden Station that depart from the precinct’s original built-form plan, which envisaged a gradual step-up in height toward the station rather than three towers approved within weeks of each other, The Urban Developer reported.

For other landholders in the precinct, the pattern across all three approvals, each decided by bypassing the City of Melbourne’s normal role, points to the Development Facilitation Program as the likely route to a viable yield while construction costs and flood-mitigation requirements continue to weigh on project economics in Arden.