Victoria eyes big-box car parks as next housing redevelopment target

realestate.com.au, syndicated from the Herald Sun, reported on 4 November that large-format retail car parks across Melbourne are being examined as sites for housing as the state’s activity centre program advances. The outlet listed Victoria’s first 10 activity centre plans, among them Chadstone, Ringwood, Preston, Frankston and Epping, alongside Broadmeadows, Moorabbin, Camberwell Junction, North Essendon and Niddrie, and said a former Bunnings retail area in Preston has been listed for assessment under the government’s Unlocking Strategic Sites pathway.

Why it matters

The outlet reported that some large-format retail sites carry more car park than building, and framed parking as a direct trade-off against housing on that land. Dr Liz Taylor, senior lecturer in urban planning and design at Monash University, told the outlet: “Every couple of parking spaces you put in, required or otherwise, that literally translates as one less house.” The outlet reported a single parking bay takes roughly 20 to 25 sqm, and cited Dr Taylor’s 2014 paper finding carparking was a significant issue in 52% of 325 Victorian planning appeals, with nine in 10 of those parking-related appeals involving third-party objectors.

The numbers

realestate.com.au pointed to Sky Garden at The Glen in Glen Waverley, apartments built above an operating shopping centre, as housing more than 500 apartments and about 1,500 residents. It described the Doncaster Bunnings store, now sitting beneath a Mercure hotel beside Westfield, as a two-level, roughly 11,000 sqm footprint. Other sites the outlet named as former big-box retail now under other uses include 372-394 Whitehorse Road, Nunawading (former Bunnings, now Amart) and the Oakleigh South Bunnings (a former Masters site). The outlet reported the state’s activity centre program targets 60,000 new homes near transport, jobs and services, without tying that figure specifically to car park conversions.

What’s next

Hamish McKnight, retail sector lead at Urbis, told the outlet the idea that car parks hide housing potential is somewhat simplistic, and said sites shift to development only once land values clear a threshold, with high construction, labour and borrowing costs the state’s main constraint rather than available land. He said apartments built above an operating centre, as at The Glen, are among the most expensive ways to deliver housing and succeeded there under different market conditions, with stronger opportunities more likely at shopping centre edges or on surplus land. The outlet reported Highpoint Shopping Centre in Maribyrnong is being examined for longer-term intensification, and that planners have identified surplus land at Sunshine Marketplace that could accommodate housing. Separately, Balmain Group has lodged plans for 462 apartments on Doncaster Road, near the Doncaster Bunnings site and the proposed Suburban Rail Loop corridor. Alex Groh, of Vanta Advisory and ALBA Commercial, told the outlet that sophisticated buyers already assess large-format retail sites for redevelopment potential as well as rental income.