Victoria Street Affordable Housing Project

The City of Melbourne (Council) recognises affordable housing as essential infrastructure that helps Melbourne continue to be a liveable and inclusive city. In 2024, Council sought community feedback on two proposed council-owned sites to lease for affordable housing:

• 44-60 Curzon Street, North Melbourne
• 325-341 Victoria Street, West Melbourne.

In August 2024, Council decided to proceed with the site at 325-341 Victoria Street, West Melbourne. The next step in this process involved Council selecting a community housing provider to build and manage affordable housing at the site.

Council engaged Capire to support the community engagement to ensure the selection process aligned with local values and priorities.

Actions/Outputs
A Project Reference Group (PRG) was established to bring the community’s voice into Council decision-making regarding the lease of 325-341 Victoria Street to a community housing provider. This provided an opportunity for residents, businesses, traders, and people with lived experience of affordable housing to share their values, priorities, local insights, concerns and preferred design outcomes.

Capire worked with Council to plan, facilitate and report on four PRG sessions, including three deliberative workshops. The engagement comprised two key activities for the PRG:

1. Develop a set of ‘Community Assessment Principles’ (CAPs) for community housing providers to address as part of their response to the Request for Proposal.
2. Assess the community housing providers’ responses to the final CAPs using a scale from 1, ‘unacceptable proposal’, to 5, ‘superior proposal’.

PRG members individually assessed each community housing provider’s response against their 12 CAPs. The average scores produced by the PRG members contributed to the overall evaluation score – these were included in the evaluation panel’s recommendations to Council.

Outcomes
This is the first time Council has allocated a percentage of the decision-making process for a competitive land lease to a consultative group. This has given the community an unprecedented level of influence in decision-making.

At the end of this project, PRG members had greater confidence engaging in council decision-making processes and a stronger connection to the North and West Melbourne community.