Fishermans Bend 50-Storey Tower Wins Approval

A $150-million tower standing 164m planned for Melbourne's Fishermans Bend precinct has won approval.

The proposal by Hong Kong-born developer Jimmy Pak Chung Wong’s Claric Ninety-Nine for the tower designed by MGS Architects is planned for a site at 13-33 Hartley Street

The 50-storey mixed-use tower will comprise have 370 apartments, 4330sq m of office space and 280 q m of retail space. 

The project has been approved subject to modifications to the facade, open space and the podium.

Encompassing 480ha, Fishermans Bend is Victoria’s largest urban renewal project.

It is between the Yarra River, Port Melbourne and the bay, and straddles two municipalities, the City of Melbourne and the City of Port Melbourne.

Claric Ninety-Nine’s project went through a raft of planning processes, including against the guidelines for the City of Melbourne’s Schedule 4 Fishermans Bend Urban Renewal Area overlay, the Design and Development Schedule 67 Fishermans Bend Lorimer Precinct Overlay and the Fishermans Bend Urban Renewal Infrastructure Contributions Schedule Overlay.

▲ An artist's impression of the tower approved for the Fishermans Bend site.

Melbourne’s deputy mayor Nicholas Reece said that the rigor and oversight was necessary. 

“There has been a tremendous amount of work that has been done from a planning scheme perspective around Fishermans Bend,” Reece said. 

“I think we at the City of Melbourne and in the Victorian government understand the importance of getting Fishermans Bend right.” 

The planning process around Fishermans Bend has had a chequered history.

The state government doubled the size of the precinct and the allocation of land in April 2015 but new planning restrictions meant developers had to reapply for permits on November 2016. 

The Fishermans Bend Taskforce started consultation in October 2017 when a draft framework was released with the City of Melbourne considering submissions on the framework in December 2017. 

In February 2018, Victorian planning minister Richard Wynne froze 26 live development applications bringing $4.5 billion worth of projects to a halt until they could be referred to an independent advisory committee to assess whether they accounted for the community’s interests.  

Developers expressed their frustration, with Gurner chief executive Tim Gurner posting about it on social media, forecasting a rental crisis and spike in property prices.

“In 18-36 months we will see a rental crisis, with rental vacancy dropping further, rents will increase sharply and this will cause a big spike in property prices as people realise we have been undersupplied for 3-4 years thanks to this government,” Gurner wrote.

The government insisted it was better to be cautious and to ensure the community was accounted for in applications. 

“We make no apology for putting a stop to this development free-for-all,” Wynne said.

“We’ll get the planning right and give Victorian families a community they can be proud of.”

R Corporation, whose project was originally denied, had to appeal to VCAT and then settled on an amended $252-million twin tower apartment and hotel project with 832 apartments instead of the original 824 apartments as the government required a better mix in apartment sizes.

“We need our new neighbourhoods to have a good mix of small and large apartments with affordable housing to suit families of all shapes and sizes,” Wynne said.

The state government finally revealed the final Fishermans Bend Framework in October 2018. More planning controls were announced in 2021. 

Since then, developers have had projects approved including Gurner’s $1-billion trio of towers  and Development Victoria’s $179.4-million transformation of the General Motors Holden site into an Innovation Precinct.