Hamton Files Six-Block Hawthorn Precinct with State

Hamton Property Group has moved ahead with its plans for a six-building precinct on a former university campus at Hawthown.

Plans have now been filed with the Victorian planning department for the site, once a University of Melbourne campus.

An amendment to the Boroondara Planning Scheme to rezone the site for residential use and approve specific limitations within a Development Plan was approved by the Victorian planning minister Sonya Kilkenny in January.

The project is part of a 2.6ha precinct at 442 Auburn Road, 10km east of the Melbourne CBD.

A Big Housing Build project under which Homes Victoria will provide 206 social housing and affordable housing apartments is currently being built on a part of the site.

Architects Hayball have designed that project and the State Government has added $99.8 million in funding.

The remaining 1.62ha of the site was rezoned.

Hamton has now filed detailed plans for its residential project comprising 365 apartments—10 per cent will be affordable housing. 

The precint’s six buildings would vary from three to six storeys under the Woods Bagot plans.

There project would be completed over two stages with 543 car parking spaces in total across ground level car parks and a basement level in each of those stage. 

Documents submitted to the department list the estimated cost of the development at $222 million. 

▲ Victorian premier Jacinta Allan, Hamton founder Paul Hameister and Victorian planning minister Sonya Kilkenny at the site after the rezoning was approved.

Hamton chairman Paul Hameister said in January that the developer was keen to plant add 100 trees to the site as well as retain most of the trees on the site.

“There are around 100 existing trees onsite, of which only four are assessed as significant—meaning only those four would ordinarily be required to be retained under the planning scheme,” Hameister said. 

The project will also target a 5 Star Green Star rating, a 7 NatHERS rating and a Climate Active net zero certification.

Hamton bought the site from the University of Melbourne for $50 million in March, 2022. It settled two years later.

The University of Melbourne had bought the site from the Hawthorn Institute of Education in 2004 for $12.8 million.

The university at the time said it would use the sale proceeds to fund the new Australian Institute for Infectious Disease at Parkville. 

Rezoning was approved for the site in November 2023 with the Development Plan then submitted through the Development Facilitation Program.

With approval for the planning framework in place, Hamton confirmed with The Urban Developer it is now applying for planning permission.

Construction is scheduled to begin mid-2025 while the project will be launched to market in the third quarter of 2024. 

Hameister said in January that the Hawthorn area had an undersupply of housing, making the site ideal for such a project.

“This approval from the minister for planning enables the delivery of meaningful new housing supply in the popular inner east of Melbourne, where development opportunities of scale are non-existent and demand for high-quality residences continues to outstrip supply,” he said at the time.

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