Residents challenge plans to demolish Melbourne public housing towers

Knocking down all 44 public housing towers in Australia’s biggest city could tear communities apart, residents say.

Melbourne, Australia – The residents of dozens of public housing towers in the southern Australian city of Melbourne heard the state government was planning to demolish their homes on the news.

“Everyone found out from the TV, from the news, with the rest of Victoria,” Sara*, a resident of the first group of towers to be knocked down, told Al Jazeera.

Sara’s home, among a cluster of 14-storey towers in the inner-city suburbs of Flemington, North Melbourne and Carlton, will be one of the first to go after the Victorian government last year announced its plan to demolish all 44 of the state’s remaining public housing towers.

Built under public housing schemes in the 1960s, the blocks are located in parts of the city closely eyed by property developers as Melbourne’s house prices continue to soar.

The Victorian government has described the plan, announced as part of a wider Housing Statement in September 2023, as “Australia’s biggest ever urban renewal project”.