Homes Victoria has nominated the Building Communities consortium as the preferred proponent to redevelop three housing precincts in metropolitan Melbourne, delivering much-needed new homes and providing immediate stimulus and job opportunities to Victorians.
The Building Communities consortium includes Icon Kajima as the builder, infrastructure finance specialists Tetris Capital, developer Citta Property Group and registered housing agency Community Housing (Victoria) Ltd.
The program will expand the availability of well-designed, affordable, efficient and integrated social, market rental and specialist disability accommodation dwellings that are tailored to tenants’ needs and built to high environmental and accessibility standards.
The project covers the redevelopment of housing sites in Brighton, Flemington and Prahran, with more than 1,100 new homes to be built across the three sites in metropolitan Melbourne.
Under a ground lease model partnership with Homes Victoria, the consortium has responsibility for the financing, design, construction and operation of the precincts, including tenant and asset management.
The first of this scale to be successfully implemented in Australia, the consortium will deliver new social, affordable, Specialist Disability Accommodation and provide homes at each site while Homes Victoria maintains the freehold title.
Under this approach, the ownership remains with the Director of Housing (Homes Victoria), providing benefit to the people of Victoria for future generations.
Icon Chief Executive Officer, Evan Byrne, said modern and sustainable social housing is a priority for the people of Victoria.
“We are excited about transforming some of Melbourne’s oldest public housing precincts into high-quality, sustainable communities with modern and energy-efficient homes,” Mr Byrne said.
“The Building Communities consortium brings together a perfect blend of expertise, experience and capability to produce world-class social housing. Our consortium put a lot of thought into our proposal to ensure we are creating vibrant, integrated communities that retain the natural aspects of the sites where possible. I am confident that Icon’s innovative approach and experience in delivering complex social infrastructure projects will deliver homes and neighbourhoods greatly appreciated by the tenants and wider community.”
