Future redevelopment of the former VicRoads site, Kew

Development Victoria is responsible for the redevelopment of the land at the former VicRoads site in Kew.

Development Victoria’s community engagement

Development Victoria consulted on the future of the former VicRoads site from 21 March to 11 April 2025. Council strongly encouraged community participation in the pop-up events and the survey, through the Engage Victoria page. 

For more information, please visit Development Victoria’s website.

Council’s submission to the consultation

Shared path connection for the wider community

We view this redevelopment as a great one-off opportunity to make a shared path connection through the site, which forms a key part of our Greenways Plan. A new green link will fill a critical gap in making a high amenity and safe continuous active transport connection from Kew Junction to the Glenferrie Activity Centre and the future Box Hill to Hawthorn Trail.

This shared path connection won’t only benefit any future occupants of the site, but the broader community as well. Expanding and connecting our network of walking and cycling paths in Boroondara is key to making it easier and safer for our community to move around, stay active, drive less and enjoy our local environment.

Additional affordable housing, including social and public housing

While we note the Development Victoria requirement for 10% minimum affordable housing for medium income households, we think this falls significantly short of what could and should be delivered at the site in terms of both quantity and diversity.

We were also disappointed to see that social and public housing wasn’t in the original proposal and we strongly encourage Development Victoria to revisit this.

Deliver a mixed-use development

While developing more housing is something we strongly support, there’s a great, and rare, opportunity to transform the site into more than just housing.

The relocation of the VicRoads offices resulted in a significant loss of high value jobs from Kew. We see this redevelopment as a strategic site in the Kew Activity Centre that should accommodate new businesses, enhance economic activity and deliver substantial new high-quality jobs, services and amenities to the community.

Sustainable development

We’re very supportive of Development Victoria’s commitment to best-practice sustainable design and carbon neutrality by 2030.

Using independent rating tools, making provisions for electrification of buildings and vehicles, circular economy waste management solutions and incorporating energy efficient dwellings are all ways we want to see large redevelopments like this significantly reduce their environmental impact in Boroondara.

Create a Community Reference Group and have the State Government work with us every step of the way

We’d like to be involved in the ongoing consultation process of the site, and to be given the opportunity to review successful proposals before any planning permits being lodged and processed.

Rezoning

The site was rezoned by the Department of Transport and Planning (DTP), under delegation from the Minister for Planning on 21 October 2024 (Amendment C411boro).

The amendment:

• applies an Environmental Audit Overlay
• rezones the main northern portion of the site from Transport 1 Zone to Commercial 1 Zone
• rezones the southern ‘tail’ to the General Residential Zone – Schedule 4.

The existing Design and Development Overlay which sets discretionary height limits and design objectives for the site will be retained.

In our submission to the amendment, we requested that the ‘tail’ be rezoned to the Public Park and Recreation Zone to facilitate the creation of a new bicycle/pedestrian link and new public open space; however, DTP did not support this.

More information

You can find out more in the documents available for download.