Gurrowa Place Development at the Queen Victoria Market Awaiting Decision
July 2025
In June 2023 the City of Melbourne announced that it would be partnering with Lendlease to develop Gurrowa Place, the site bounded by Franklin, Queen and Peel Streets plus the historic Franklin Street stores and existing car park. Heritage Victoria approved the project, the plan was unanimously endorsed by the City of Melbourne and approved by the Victorian government. However, there has been considerable opposition to the development as the massive wall of tightly packed towers would significantly reduce the QVM’s visual connection with the CBD, and further erode the QVM’s heritage character. Heritage and community organisations, including the RHSV, have condemned the plan. The development was also considered to be a ‘controlled action’ under the federal EPBC Act, requiring review by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. No decision has yet been announced.
Major planning scheme amendments introduced
July 2025
The Victorian Government has recently introduced a series of amendments to the planning controls that determines what can be built where. It aims to address the current housing crisis and increase the availability of affordable accommodation by streamlining the process for obtaining building permits. The RHSV recognises the need for and supports increasing housing availability, to provide for Victoria’s growing population. But it does not believe that these reforms will unlock the supply of housing. It is also concerned that these reforms will have a dramatically negative effect on local neighborhoods and the heritage values that make Melbourne such an attractive city to live in.
Former cable tram engine house, Brunswick
Update: June 2025
In Brunswick Road, Brunswick there is a building dating from the era of cable trams in Melbourne that is under threat from an inappropriate development. It used to house the large engine that powered the cables that drew the cable trams along. The proposed development involves the construction of an overpoweringly large and bulky apartment block on top of the existing building. The RHSV believes that, in order to retain some sense of the original building, the proposed development needs to be redesigned and the tower moved back from the façade of the existing building.
Threats to World Heritage Area: Gertrude Street, Fitzroy – A Worthwhile Improvement
January 2025
Despite being successful in a lengthy approval process, developer Daniel Besen put the site at 1-9 Gertrude Street, Fitzroy up for sale in September 2023. The RHSV Heritage Committee had opposed the Besen development of the site due to its adverse impact on the Royal Exhibition Building (REB) and the Carlton Gardens buffer zone by blocking views of the REB and significantly changing the streetscape. As the site includes the development approval, any new owner may continue with construction of the original unsympathetic building, or seek approval for a different project. The new owner of the site applied to change the permit from a mix of shops, an art gallery and an apartment to 14 apartments. The new application was heard by VCAT and on 9 January 2025 VCAT determined that, before it could be approved, significant changes had to be made to the proposed new building.
Changes required by VCAT include setbacks at the northern and southern boundaries, changes to reduce the building’s impact on views from the REB Dome Promenade, and deletion of the roofed pergola structure above the roof terrace. In short, not perfect from a heritage point of view, but a significant improvement to the latest iteration of the proposed development of 1-9 Gertrude Street.
Another Challenge to the World Heritage Listed Royal Exhibition Building
In another challenge to the integrity of the World and National Heritage Listed Royal Exhibition Building (REB) site, a proposal is with Yarra City Council to redevelop 1-9 Gertrude Street Fitzroy, near the corner of Gertrude and Nicholson Streets. Taken as a whole, the importance of this site, incorporating the REB, the Carlton Gardens and their surrounds, cannot be overstated. In the words of the eminent UK historian Professor David Cannadine ‘The expositional ensemble . . . is a unique, magnificent and outstanding survivor from this great age of great exhibitions. There is nothing like it anywhere else in the world today’. [1] This significance was recognised in its nomination as a World Heritage site.
28th June 2022: Statement on Queen Victoria Market “Renewal”
The CEO of the Queen Victoria Market, Stan Liacos, has been on a propaganda offensive, presenting a warm fuzzy on change at the Queen Victoria Market. As CEO, Stan has driven the process of change currently engulfing the market, change based on the proposals Robert Doyle made nine years ago, since overwhelmingly rejected by the people of Melbourne. The issue is not whether the market ‘should stay just as it is’. The issue is whether change will be driven by family business stall-holders responding to their customers in the canopy provided by the historic sheds and buildings, or by bureaucrats seeking high end stalls offering ‘value add’ products from hygienic, uniform fixed stalls, ‘a brighter, lighter, cleaner, greener more contemporary’ market.
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