Housing Commission of Victoria
The most visible legacy of the commission is the 44 high-rise apartment towers in inner Melbourne, all built using the same pre-cast concrete panel technology as part of a major urban renewal.
In 2023, the Government of Victoria announced it intended to demolish all the remaining high rise towers which house more than 5,800 families and redevelop the sites under a Public–private partnership model.
[2] Through the 1920s and early 1930s, a campaign highlighting the dreadful conditions and moral dangers of the 'slums' of inner city Melbourne was led by social reformer F. Oswald Barnett.
[6] The Group proposed to use unemployment relief funds for the rehousing of slum occupants to rentals based on social rather than economic conditions.
[9] On the passing of the legislation, Premier Dunstan declared the beginning of the commission's activities as a 'war on slums', but also recognised the magnitude of the task before it.
[10] The legislation not only gave the Commission powers for housing construction and improvement, but also made it 'a planning authority in its own right'.
[12] It developed a plan of action in March 1938, concentrating its attention on 1,240 houses in lanes, rights-of-way and slum pockets, referred to in HISAB's earlier report.
[16] The commission then began to acquire cheap land in the northern suburbs of Coburg, Brunswick, Preston and Northcote as well as in inner suburban areas such as North Melbourne, Fitzroy and Richmond.
[20] The commission also had difficulties dealing with local municipalities, in acquiring properties in the North Melbourne reclamation area as well as with the labour movement, who believed that the government should subsidise loans to enable workers to buy homes rather than rent them.
[28] The commission recruited Frank Heath from its advisory Architects Panel to deal with these problems but it was stripped of its town planning powers later in the same year.
After World War II, with greater funding and a severe housing shortage, the Commission's activities greatly expanded through the late 1940s into the 1950s.
[37] Approximately 27 precast concrete 20 to 30 storey height buildings were constructed around Melbourne in the 1960s, until the type of development fell into disrepute.
[39] In the period of the 1960s-70s large scale redevelopment by the Housing Commission of Victoria caused the displacement of low-income residents.
[40] In the early 1970s with the towers out of favour, the Commission turned back to building large suburban estates, including the creation of satellite towns in Pakenham, Sunbury and Melton.
The high-rises have become somewhat iconic, the instantly recognisable image of the Melbourne 'Housing Commission Tower Block' has been used in artworks, film and TV, and as a graphics on T-shirts, bags and the like.
[42] 1 Low Rise 100 Napier 24 (1971) In 1973 due to mounting criticism of its high-rise program, the Housing Commission announced it would no longer build towers, instead switching to medium density infill (or townhouses)[49] which ironically modelled on the Victorian terraces which were the subject of the original slum clearances of the 1950s.
[49] Production moved to low rise walk-up and single dwelling units, with about 10,000 homes using locally engineered design and erection methods constructed using the technology.
[53] The tower at 33 Alfred Street, North Melbourne in particular was subject to a "hard lockdown" due to more than 11% of residents were found to be positive.
