RD: I was remiss last week in not pointing to The Journal's 150th anniversary special edition. It was fantastic — it provides a really great historical context for both the paper and the city. I highly recommend checking it out.Read more...
The State Government is being called to scrap a developers' levy which is designed to recoup the cost of the Revitalising Central Dandenong project. Read on dandenong.starcommunity.com.au →
RD: Well, about time! (I think I'm justified in saying that after 8 years.) The levy was an interesting and risky idea when the Revitalising project kicked off. Interesting because it showed a lot of faith in the whole project. Risky because you put taxes (levies) on things you want to discourage (you know, things like emitting carbon). And you make people pay it up front when you really want to discourage something. That's the complete opposite of what (you would think) was desired here.
Economics 101 tells you that since the market was already setting the price of development, and development wasn't happening at that price (that was the whole point of revitalisation), adding a tax on top of things was only going to work if people thought the State Government's initiatives were so spectacularly brilliant that they would compensate for the tax and then some. Turns out nobody thought that. Developers did buy in initially, but underlying demand was weak — perhaps because most people who lived here viewed the revitalisation as intangible and unrealistic, and people who didn't live here didn't believe anything of interesting was going on here. All of which turned out to be self-fulfilling!
We learnt this information really early on, so the tax should have disappeared really early on. According to the article, it did disappear — for specific, government-linked clients. For everyone else, it didn't. Who knows how that cost us? Hopefully business manager Paul Kearsley, and hopefully he can communicate that well enough to the State Government to get this clearly perverse disincentive removed.Read more...
DCE - Portlink Dandenong SouthPortlink is an Intermodal Terminal and Logistics/Warehousing Estate in Dandenong South which will be an integral part of Salta Properties' Westgate network of Intermodal Terminals and Distribution Centres serving key areas of Melbourne.
Greater Dandenong City Council - Expression of Interest - Streetscape Works in Thomas St and Walker St DandenongCouncil is seeking Expressions of Interest for the construction of streetscape works in Thomas and Walker Street Dandenong.
Greater Dandenong Economic Profile - City of Greater Dandenong
As the label on the can says, an economic profile of Dandenong (which I've yet to digest).
I just wanted to quickly point out the contrast between newer multi-unit developments (like 9 King Street and 38 King Street) and legacy multi-unit developments in Dandenong.
Number 15
At 15 King Street, just a few doors up from the development proposal at 11 King Street, lives an older proposal for apartments over 4 storeys.
Vansan House
There are quite a few apartment developments that have been proposed and developed either on or around King Street, on the north side of the market.
In keeping with last week's post about Vansan Central, this week I'll give a quick round up of all the potential future (and some past) developments along Scott Street.
Dandenong Logis
Logis Estate
Places Victoria is reporting that they have sold $91 million worth of lots for Dandenong Logis in Stages 4 & 5 (which seems to be the lower half of the estate).
Members of Dandenong's business community will be establishing the Committee for Dandenong (see Committee for Dandenong ready for business), which will lobby government in the interests of supporting Dandenong businesses.
Station and surrounds
Tract Consultants seem to have been involved very early on in Dandenong's revitalisation project, before the project had an official title, and before VicUrban came to be known by its current name.
