Kensington is growing fast, but where’s the green space?

Walk along Macaulay Rd in Kensington today and the scale of change is hard to miss. Thousands of new apartments have gone up in recent years, with more on the way.

The Macaulay area is forecast to house more than 10,000 residents in the next couple of decades, and developments like Local's 477-apartment village at 348 Macaulay Rd and Greystar's 441-apartment project next door are already filling up. Kensington is growing, but growth must be matched with infrastructure and open space if we want to retain our liveability.

Right now, many Kensington residents are missing out on much-needed open space.

Along Moonee Ponds Creek, land sits locked behind chain-link fences, filled with industrial rubbish and inaccessible to the public.

The City of Melbourne has a clear plan to transform this corridor into a public park, with space to relax, walking the dog, cycling connections, and flood mitigation infrastructure. Millions of dollars have already been collected from developer contributions to fund it. And yet, the park remains unbuilt.

The reason? State government inaction.

A land dispute with VicTrack, the state-owned entity that controls the site, has created a bureaucratic deadlock that is preventing the City of Melbourne from moving forward. The community was promised this parkland. The funding is there. The plans are there. What's missing is the state Labor government doing its job.

This was predictable and entirely avoidable. Dense development was waved through in Kensington without the state government ensuring the infrastructure to match was locked in. Families and children moving into these new apartments deserve access to green space, just like everyone else in this city.

There is an urgent decision point right now. I'm calling on the Minister for Planning to finalise and protect the Development Contribution Scheme, support the Public Acquisition Overlay to reserve this land for public use, and work with VicTrack to enable a timely transfer of the land to the City of Melbourne.

Kensington residents should not be denied access to green space because of government inaction. Our community deserves better.

Sign my open letter calling on the minister to act and feel free to reach out to my office on open space in Kensington at: [email protected]