Southbank residents are being “let down” over City Rd delays
By Jess Carrascalao Heard
The Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) has reiterated its disappointment over City Road Master Plan delays ahead of a community forum later this month.
SRA president Tony Penna said locals felt they had been “let down on numerous fronts” by the City of Melbourne’s failure to commit to a new timeline for the project, which was originally due for completion in 2023.
The master plan’s original timeline outlined works to have started by mid-2017, with five of its six action points either completed or well underway by 2021.
The six key action points on the award-winning Master Plan are:
Street upgrades to City Road West (between Clarendon St and Power St)
Reimagining of Kings Way undercroft
Street upgrades to City Road East (between Power St and St Kilda Rd)
Public/private realm upgrade for the Arts Centre/St Kilda Rd
Connect the gardens, with a new pedestrian crossing at Alexandra Avenue
An expansion of the bicycle network within Southbank
To date, only the Alexandra Avenue pedestrian crossing, and some expansion of Southbank’s bicycle network, have been delivered as part of the project.
Cr Rohan Leppert, who seconded the motion for council to endorse the City Road Master Plan back in 2016, said he understood residents’ frustrations.
“Southbank residents endorsed the City Road Master Plan in 2016 and expect the council to deliver it,” he said.
Funds have also been allocated for an off-leash dog park under Kings Way southern undercroft, with construction expected to begin in the first half of this year.
But plans for crucial street upgrades to City Rd itself are still not available, with detailed planning of the upgrades taking longer than the original two-year allocation in the timeline.
Original projections saw the construction of City Road East and West taking up to three years each to complete, meaning any works beginning on these action points in the future would see the project blow out past the original completion date of 2023.
Mr Penna estimated that the plan was at least two years behind schedule and said residents had been provided “no updates on what a new timeline will look like”.
“They [the City of Melbourne] did all this consultation, they hype it up … they released a timeline and right from the get-go they never started that timeline,” he said.
A City of Melbourne spokesperson said, “Council has communicated at key project milestones, including key planning points, and prior to undertaking works.”
The council’s Participate Melbourne website for the City Road Master Plan does indicate timeframes for some of its action points, but for City Rd East and West, and the Arts Centre/St Kilda Rd upgrade, it states that “these actions will be progressed in the coming years”, with planning and advocacy work “currently underway” for their future delivery.
One part of the City Road East upgrade in the Master Plan – the removal of slip roads at the City Road/Southbank Boulevard intersection – has been finished as part of the transformation of Southbank Boulevard.
The brainchild of the council’s former director of city design Rob Adams, the construction of Southbank Boulevard was prioritised ahead of City Rd despite being planned and endorsed by the council earlier.
While Southbank Boulevard was due to be completed last year, budget blowouts and delays have dogged the project, which only last month completed its third stage – a new civic space outside the ABC building (read more on this page).
By contrast, City Road West, which was supposed to begin construction in 2018 and finish in 2020, has not yet been planned.
The Southbank Boulevard project is indicated in the City Road Master Plan as an “influencing project”.
A City of Melbourne spokesperson said that both projects were large and complex proposals, and though both had progressed since endorsement, they were progressing on different timelines.
Mr Penna said it would be “an absolute nightmare” to run the two projects concurrently.
“They’ve [the council] proven themselves unable to deliver that [Southbank Boulevard] project. If they can’t deliver that project how can they deliver City Road concurrently?” he said.
All upgrades to City Rd also require the cooperation of a number of key stakeholders, including VicRoads, Yarra Trams and the Department of Transport.
Cr Leppert said the onus was on council to broker arrangements across a number of levels of government.
He also said that “financing these projects has always been the central challenge”.
But former Cr Stephen Mayne, who held the position as the council’s chair of finance when the City Road Master Plan was endorsed, said funding capital works should not be a problem for the City of Melbourne.
“They should be spending $130 million a year on capital works … you’d easily be able to accommodate City Rd if you were spending $130 million a year,” he said.
Mr Mayne is confident, however, that the Master Plan will go ahead.
“You don’t bring out a master plan just to put it on the shelf and have it gather dust,” he said.
Cr Leppert said that City Rd’s transformation into a “high amenity, tree-lined, people-friendly street” would be the “single most important intervention into the public realm that any level of government can make for the Southbank community”.
The SRA’s Community Forum later this month (read more on page 1) will focus on the council’s Southbank Structure Plan 2010 and Open Space Strategy 2012, which both point to the City Road Master Plan.
Mr Penna believes the master plan is important for the area, not only for safety, with improvements to roads a key part of the upgrades for City Rd, but also for its amenity.
“City Road West is critical for safety,” he said •

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