In Greensborough, a quiet, family-oriented suburb in Melbourne’s northeast, the Labor government has approved a 17-storey “affordable housing” tower without local consultation.
This move is emblematic of a top-down approach to city planning that threatens our suburbs not just in Greensborough, but all over the nation.
On May 13 Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny used the state’s relatively new Clause 53.23 of the Victoria Planning Provisions within the Development Facilitation Program (DFP) to override local council objections and fast-track a 211-unit social housing development in Greensborough.
The tower will contain only one- and two-bedroom units, far more than the local council wanted, and just 100 car-parking spaces for over 200 households. The council also warned there were no three- or four-bedroom units, meaning no homes for larger families. None of these issues swayed the state, and Mayor Elizbeth Nealy only said that the Victorian Government must work more closely with councils and the community on projects of this scale.
Neighbours and locals are extremely concerned, and a change.org petition now has over 1,600 signatures, warning that this “towering structure” will change Greensborough’s character and strain local schools and services. The community backlash highlights the breakdown and removal of local control over its own neighbourhood planning.
Local families should have the right to have a say in their neighbourhoods., but the Greensborough case illustrates a clash between Victoria’s state planners and residents. At the local government level, Banyule Council objected to the 17-storey height (which is well above the 10-storey local limit) and the very limited parking, but their reasonable concerns were ignored. Under the DFP, Kilkenny simply waved the tower through.
Thousands of Australians have seen similar projects green-lit behind closed doors, leaving residents feeling powerless as distant bureaucrats push high-density towers into our backyards. According the State Government’s own statistics, around 10,000 social and affordable homes are under construction or being completed as part of the Big Housing Build.
A full map of these developments reveals the scale of disruption planned for suburbs just like Greensborough:
The DFP is supposedly intended to speed up “priority” projects, but in practice it has severely weakened community input (because there is no input). This pattern reflects a central government top-down lack of care, local voices are entirely ignored and sidelined; what’s worse is that this is being repeated in many suburbs.
In Greensborough and elsewhere, residents feel lawfully registered councils and community groups have become second-class players under the DFP. In fact, decisions under this program cannot be appealed at VCAT, removing even the usual checks and balances – leading one to question what is the point of having a council.
It can be seen that this as part of a broader trend: state planners forcing high-density projects into suburban areas without democratic consent. Let’s be clear: This isn’t about nimbyism; it’s about self-reliance and local input. We must advocate against these developments and restore a local voice in planning.
Greensborough is a predominantly European-Australian suburb, with residents of largely British and other White ancestries. According to the 2021 Census, the five most common ancestries here were English (33.4%), Australian (33.4%), Irish (12.7%), Italian (10.5%) and Scottish (9.7%). Three-quarters of people were born in Australia, and 80.4% of households speak only English at home. The median house price in Greensborough is now just over $1 million. In short, this is a family suburb with a strong European heritage and an English-speaking, established community.
Social housing projects can be vital in very limited circumstances, but the Greensborough tower will likely bring a very different mix of residents into our midst. We do not have very specific Australian data on the ethnicity of public housing tenants here – the state does not publish that beyond aboriginal housing dwellings in some areas – but overseas trends are a gauge. In the UK, for example, only 16% of White British households live in social housing, whereas 44% of black British households do. (In other words, minorities are far more overrepresented in UK public/affordable housing.) While we can’t assume the exact same breakdown in Australia, it suggests a mostly European suburb like Greensborough may see a significant shift in its ethnic and racial character when hundreds of new social-housing residents are crammed into these small apartments.
For many Greensborough families, they fear losing the place they have called home for over three decades. The homes that earlier generations built here. Every Australian deserves a safe, affordable home, but community and culture matter too. Greensborough residents treasure their local schools, amenities and the sense of belonging. Grassroots opposition is fierce. With over 1,600 local residents (already about 10% of Greensborough’s adult population) having signed the petition titled Prevent Construction of High-Rise Social Housing in Greensborough, although it had been just over a month since the planning approval was rammed through in just 81 days (it usually takes 12 or so months for planning approvals, especially for buildings of this size – especially considering it goes against all planning standards within the local area).
Those who have signed call on the council to stand firm and on the community to “make your voice heard”. Liberal MP Richard Welch has also put a public feedback page on his website.
One resident commented within the online change.org petition that “This development is totally unsuitable for the area”, a sentiment shared widely in other comments:
Despite this clear lack of support and protest of this deeply unwanted development, the planning decision is final. The elected MPs in Greensborough – state MP Colin Brooks and federal MP Kate Thwaites, both Labor – are obviously oblivious to their constituents concerns, unwilling to speak out, or in lock-step with the government’s housing agenda. With local council objections overruled by the DFP, the only recourse would be off the back of loud mass dissent and opposition.
We encourage readers to join the conversation: sign the existing petition, speak to the councillors to take much stronger words and harsher pushback; make it clear that the local government councils were created by the Victorian Constitution Act 1975 & the Local Government Act 2020 acts. Remind them that community-focused solutions are needed, not top-down demolition of a once peaceful, safe suburb.
The company behind the tower is the Angelo Property Group. Angelo’s portfolio is typically high-end urban projects: for example, their HAUS development in Collingwood (80 apartments) and VICTORIA in Fitzroy (16 levels). In 2019 they paid $11 million for Greensborough’s large retail site (Greensborough Central, 7,326 m²) and announced a $100 million+ mixed-use plan.
Angelo’s involvement highlights another tension: private developers building taxpayer-funded social housing under the guise of “affordability”.
This is a function of the incorrect incentives provided by our government which form the problem. Even with big backers, two hundred new households will add traffic to Para Road, and won’t bring the any economic uplift. Greensborough Plaza’s upper floor food court already has vacant and struggling shops, and most locals doubt this mad tower will magically revive their small-business fortunes.
It is obvious why governments push affordable housing and mass over development of our suburbs: Australia’s housing crisis (read: immigration crisis) is real.
Home prices have exploded far faster than wages. In 2023 the average Australian home cost 16.4 times the average annual household income – up from 9.1 times in the 1990s. That figure alone shows how far out of reach home ownership has become for ordinary families. This is squeezing ordinary families: around 1 million low-income Aussie households now spend up to 50% (yes, fifty) of their income on rent or mortgage. Government advisers and traditional media outlets gaslight the public into ignoring the most obvious factor: massive population growth driven by insane amounts of third world migration. It’s not complicated. More people competing for the same housing pushes up prices. More workers competing for the same jobs pushes down wages. Yet the establishment pretends this supply and demand equation is a mystery.
Rather than fix the root cause by reducing intake or freeing up existing supply through strong deportation policies (starting with university students), the government continues to pour fuel on the fire. They want the economy to grow in size, but not in quality of life. They call this “quantitative peopling”. It is a controlled demolition of our young people’s future, as well as our women’s and old people’s safety. Building 17-storey high rise towers in suburbs that are starting to resemble Box Hill is not the answer. Importing consumers to artificially inflate GDP, (which is mostly propped up by government spending anyway) only shrinks the individual’s share of the national pie. The outcome is clearly diminished future, safety, and national character.
We need mass deportations, not rushing to build soulless dogbox apartments that do not increase the charm, liveability or cultural fabric of our suburbs. If we left it to out-of-touch planners, developers and government officials, sprawling high-rise “solutions” will be the outcome, even though cramming a downtown-style tower into a leafy suburb is not solving the root cause of the crisis for our people. We as those who are being overlooked by the government should attack the cause and create noise, we should be promoting grassroots alternatives that preserve the family and cultural fabric of our suburbs.
One of my colleagues went to Greensborough to ask questions about this new project to parents, business owners and residents, and their responses reflected concern and frustration, and gave a strong sense that their voices are being ignored.
- One older (70s) man noted that: “Even though it might increase foot traffic to local cafes and businesses, it’s not worth deteriorating the cultural fabric of our neighbourhood.”
- A young (24) female responded while walking home from the renovated Greensborough train station: “I know from my own experience of working in the inner city that this will come to no good. It doesn’t make me feel safe at all.”
- By contrast, one of the early morning local café shop owners acknowledged that the tower might increase foot traffic and improve short-term business. At the same time, he did not consider that he was trading the liveability of his suburb for the 20 pieces of silver that those living in affordable housing would provide if at all.
For many of us with European heritage, suburbs like Greensborough are the fruit of generations of hard work. They’re places where traditions and families thrive. Values that cannot be measured in apartments per hectare, high-rises and projects like Greensborough’s 17-storey tower threaten to overwrite the very character of the suburb. Instead, we call for the build to cease immediately, given the rotten way in which these developments are being approved at the expense of families in the area.
Everyday Australians who see the writing on the wall need to start getting active and involved in constructive and useful ways. Join a nationalist group, contact the planning department, sign the petition on change.org, call the developer, speak with your neighbours. We need to support our own communities because the government has clearly paid no attention to any of our concerns, not just in Greensborough, but Australia-wide.
The Greensborough tower is one of many flashpoints that point to a much larger issue. This is not only about overdevelopment. It is about the steady erosion of community control and local character. We cannot trust distant politicians to protect the things that make our towns liveable. Now is the time to stand up – for your community, your people, your heritage, and your family. We must ensure that our suburbs reflect the values we hold dear.
In the foreseeable future, when nationalists eventually get into power, our children may do well and learn how to operate a wrecking ball, dynamite or excavator, because that is an industry that is going to boom (literally and figuratively) if these towers successfully sprout up all over Victoria and we eventually gain legislative power to demolish them one-by-one.
Harold Ringdal is a member of the Nationalist Service Foundation (NSF).
Header image: An artist’s impression of the Greensborough project (The State of Victoria Department of Transport and Planning).
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