Council backs 52-storey Southbank tower after Team Reece exits over donation conflict

The City of Melbourne has endorsed a 52-storey apartment tower in the Crown Casino precinct – minutes after Lord Mayor Nick Reece and three “Team Reece” councillors left the chamber citing a conflict of interest linked to a 2024 campaign donation. 

At the October 16 Future Melbourne Committee meeting, councillors Reece, Roshena Campbell, Kevin Louey and Mark Scott recused themselves, citing a donation from a company related to the applicant.

Southbank News understands a $2000 contribution to Team Reece from LAS Investments Corporation Pty Ltd prompted the declarations; the proponent before council was LAS Property Management Pty Ltd. The Lord Mayor’s 2024 election campaign vowed not to accept donations from property developers in the City of Melbourne.

With the council’s deputy planning lead Cr Phil Le Liu in the chair, the remaining seven councillors considered a Ministerial referral covering 93–103 Clarendon St, 25–29 Clarke St and 27–59 Whiteman St.
This project, as well as another 25-storey tower at 38 Clarke St also by LAS Group, has since received planning approval from Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny, the Department of Transport and Planning confirmed.

Designed by Fender Katsalidis for LAS, the $160 million Clarendon St project will deliver 510 dwellings atop a brick-and-glass podium, with red-finned tower façades and an emergency egress bridge linking to Crown’s multi-storey car park.

Council officers recommended “no objection” subject to conditions, citing compliance with the planning scheme, strong sustainability measures, and a modest affordable-housing contribution.

The plans included 358 one-bedroom and 152 two-bedroom apartments, 306 bicycle spaces and just 32 car parks – consistent with central-city policy to cap parking and prioritise walking, cycling and public transport. Waste and loading are to occur off Haig Lane. Officers also flagged extensive work with Melbourne Water to manage flood risk via the elevated egress link.

What dominated debate, however, was how the developer calculated the amount of public benefit it needed to provide in exchange for building height – a point that led to an intense exchange between councillors and the applicant’s planning team.

Under the City’s planning rules, developers can build up to a certain height before they are required to contribute extra public benefit, such as affordable housing or open space. This is measured using what’s called a floor area ratio (FAR) – the amount of total floor space divided by the size of the site.

In this case, the developer included part of the neighbouring Crown Casino car park in its site area after purchasing the air rights above it. Crown and its owner Blackstone offloaded several non-core assets in 2023, including the Clarendon St and City Rd/Clarke St sites, to Melbourne-based LAS Group in a deal that also granted the developer ownership of the car park’s airspace.

That transaction meant Crown could no longer build above the car park in future, but it also allowed LAS to enlarge its project footprint and, in turn, propose a taller tower while remaining within the FAR limit.

He told Southbank News that by expanding the “site” to include the car park next door, the developer was essentially “borrowing the neighbour’s backyard” to build higher without paying a greater community return.

As a result, the public benefit – calculated at about $980,000 – will amount to only one or two affordable apartments gifted to a housing provider, despite the tower containing 510 dwellings.

Cr Rowse said he was “disappointed” with the outcome but felt compelled to support the application since it complied with the rules.

“Unfortunately, as far as I can see, it’s completely compliant, and therefore I have no choice but to support it,” he said during the meeting. “But I hope in future those schedules can change so we can increase the public benefit.”

Cr Le Liu said while he shared concerns about the scale of uplift, the project would help revitalise a long-underused stretch of Clarendon St.

“At the end of the day, I would rather have something than nothing,” he said. “This is a $160 million project that means more housing, more jobs and uplift for that entire area. It fits within the rules and ultimately, it’s a great outcome for Southbank.”

Cr Davydd Griffiths echoed that view, thanking officers for their “fine-toothed comb” assessment of the proposal.

“Wherever there’s an opportunity to maximise benefit for the people of Melbourne, we do so,” he said, adding that the project “delivers housing in a well-serviced location” at a time when the city needed it most.

Urban-design outcomes were broadly praised by councillors. The brick podium promises a more tactile, human-scaled edge to a long-dormant stretch of Clarendon St, while the strongly articulated tower aims to add “warmth and energy” to a precinct dominated by parking structures and blank interfaces.

The very low car-parking ratio drew questions from councillors Owen Guest and Gladys Liu about spillover into surrounding streets; officers pointed to long-standing maximum-parking controls in Southbank and the CBD designed to limit traffic generation.

“I’m always supportive of more housing, especially affordable housing,” Cr Liu said, adding she was “pleased to see the inclusion of FOGO and waste management facilities” but “concerned only 32 parking spaces may create pressure for on-street parking”.

While councillors ultimately voted unanimously to support the officer recommendation and refer the application to the Minister for Planning with no objection, the discussion exposed broader unease about the use of air-rights deals in Southbank.

As Cr Rowse noted, the arrangement was “a first” in how Crown’s car-park airspace was used to effectively expand the development footprint. “It’s a legal move,” he said, “but it raises real questions about whether public benefits are keeping up with private gains.” •