Urban Renewal in Coburg

Mr CARLI (Brunswick) -- I wish to congratulate Mark O'Brien, the mayor of Moreland and the team at Moreland City Council on the recent launch calling for expressions of interest in the redevelopment of the activity centre in central Coburg. I was at the launch last week, and there were an enormous number of developers from around the country who came to look at the possibility of being involved in a really exciting urban revitalisation program. This is a project that will involve probably a $1 billion transformation of central Coburg, utilising the fact that it is close to the city, has good public transport and has a lot of land available for redevelopment, particularly council-owned land.

The expression of interest is looking at the possibility of increasing the amount of commercial space by 65 000 square metres, increasing the number of dwellings around the Coburg activity centre, improving its sustainability and achieving higher densities, better connections to public transport and better utilisation of the land.

It is a very exciting project that the council has really led. The structural plan has already been released, and now it is up to developers to come up with some really great ideas.