Future Melbourne turns to Arden-Macaulay with Rohan Leppert

The latest episode of Future Melbourne turns its attention to Arden and Macaulay, two of Melbourne’s most important and most contested urban renewal precincts.

Hosted by Hyperlocal News publisher and editor Sean Car, the new episode features former City of Melbourne councillor, long-time Kensington resident and urban planner Rohan Leppert in a detailed discussion about the future of the fast-changing inner-north neighbourhoods.

The conversation explores what is at stake in two areas that sit at the centre of some of Melbourne’s biggest planning debates. From the promise of Arden’s new Metro Tunnel station to the long-running uncertainty around Macaulay’s planning controls, the episode examines how growth, infrastructure and community expectations are colliding in real time.

Arden and Macaulay have long been identified as major renewal areas, with thousands of homes and jobs planned across former industrial and underused land straddling North Melbourne and Kensington. But as the episode makes clear, the challenge is not simply one of development, but of how to get the balance right between density, transport, open space, flood management, affordability and liveability.

Leppert joins the podcast with deep local and policy knowledge, offering listeners both a history of the precincts and a plain-English explanation of the planning battles now playing out.

The discussion covers the original promise of Arden as a city-shaping project linked to a major new station, as well as the sense that the precinct still feels incomplete and under-realised despite enormous public investment. It also unpacks Macaulay’s more tangled story, where years of work on permanent planning controls have been disrupted by a dramatic reset led by the Victorian Government.

Other topics include the role of Moonee Ponds Creek, the politics of affordable housing, the importance of schools and parks in new neighbourhoods, the rise of build-to-rent, and the broader question of who gets to shape the future of growing cities.

The episode is the latest in Hyperlocal News’ Future Melbourne series, which continues to build as a platform for deeper conversations about the big issues shaping the city.

Previous episodes have focused on Queen Victoria Market with CEO Matt Elliott, the future of Melbourne’s CBD and economy with Stephen Mayne, housing in the City of Melbourne with Housing All Australians founder Rob Pradolin, and Docklands with former City of Melbourne councillor Jamal Hakim.

Together, the series is developing into an accessible forum for unpacking the planning, economic, civic and cultural decisions that will define Melbourne in the years ahead.

For listeners interested in how cities are made and remade, the Arden-Macaulay episode promises to be one of the more substantive instalments so far.

The latest episode of Future Melbourne is available online now, with new episodes continuing weekly.