Salta: Minister Refused Meetings Before Protecting Preston Market

The developer behind plans centred on a popular Melbourne market says it only learnt planning controls for the area had changed via a government press release.

The Victorian government has introduced planning controls that it says will guide how the Preston Market Precinct in Melbourne’s north be developed.

The controls, including a heritage overlay, have been introduced into the Darebin Planning Scheme, ensuring that developers with project under way in the region must submit a new set of plans for approval by Victorian planning minister Sonya Kilkenny.

Salta Properties, in a joint venture with the Medich Corporation, previously proposed a plan that called for much of the existing market building to be demolished to make way for the residential project.

Sections of the community opposed the plans, arguing that the market should be heritage listed.

“We’ve spoken to thousands of people across Preston and Reservoir, and we know the market holds a special place in their lives,”  Member for Preston Nathan Lambert said. 

Preston Market is the only privately owned market in Victoria.

An independent advisory committee determined that more work was necessary to protect the market’s heritage significance.

▲ Inside Melbourne's Preston Market, which is at the centre of a redevelopment and planning controversy.

If development does occur on the site, the new planning controls dictate that a substantial part of the existing market will need to be retained, however, the need for the precinct to deliver more than 1000 new homes is also included. 

“We said we would protect Preston Market’s heritage while increasing housing choice and that’s exactly what we’re doing by introducing these new planning controls,” Kilkenny said.

Salta Properties told The Urban Developer that they were made aware of the new planning controls only through the planning minister’s media release.

“Despite multiple requests for a meeting with the minister and the department to brief them on the structural issues and trading continuity challenges of the existing market, the requests were denied,” a Salta spokesperson said.

“We have now requested a briefing from [the department] on the new controls so we can update the traders on what this means for their ongoing certainty.”

The Preston Market Precinct was earmarked as a key site for infill development particularly in the rush to ensure that there was more housing available closer to the CBD and in the city-fringe suburbs.

It sits between the new Preston train station and a shopping thoroughfare on High Street. 

The controls in the approved planning scheme amendment included a Development Plan Overlay for the precinct, a Heritage Overlay, an Activity Centre Zone, a Development Contributions Plan Overlay, an Environmental Audit Overlay and a Parking Overlay. 

Kilkenny as Victorian planning minister will be the determining authority for all planning permits in the precinct.