An entire car lane of Southbank Boulevard will be transformed into a $35 million linear park from St Kilda Road as part of an ambitious $170 million City of Melbourne program to claw back open space and improve Melbourne's livability as residents flood into the city in record numbers.
"The story of this budget is growth," said lord mayor Robert Doyle. "Australians are no longer taking sea changes or tree changes, they're just moving to Melbourne."
The 2.5 hectares of new open space along the boulevard and Dodds Street will provide a little breathing space for Southbank, the most densely populated suburb in greater Melbourne.
The city's draft budget for 2017-2018 allows $11 million a year towards greenery, new bike lanes, a play space and the opening up of the arts precinct between the Victorian College of the Arts and the Southbank theatre precinct.
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It's estimated that losing a lane of traffic will not increase congestion along Southbank Boulevard, as the road has only been carrying 13,000 vehicles a day for the last sixteen years, down from 50,000 in the 1980s.
Elizabeth Street to close
The southern end of Elizabeth Street is also slated for a well-overdue $1.5 million makeover, with plans to close the southbound lane between Flinders Lane and Flinders Street to make this major entrance to the station more pedestrian friendly, with new paving, street trees and – essential in a flood prone area – drainage.
Saying it was time to give Elizabeth Street "the sort of love we've given to other streets," Cr Doyle noted that the current T-intersection with Flinders Street is "pretty ugly. It doesn't work terribly well".
Construction is expected to begin later this year, and Cr Doyle said ultimately he was open to plans to extend the streets' walkways as far as Bourke Street, "but we are not ready go there yet".
Artist's impression of Elizabeth street Mall. Photo: Supplied
City reaches 'peak parking'
The city's big spending spree on capital works, particularly the $250 million Queen Victoria Market redevelopment, will be underwritten by the revenue from rates and levies, estimated at $451 million for the next financial year. Next year's surplus is expected to be about $1.9 million.
While rates will increase by 2 per cent year-on-year in line with the cap imposed by the state government, the city still expects to earn $318 million from residents by 2020.
A recent analysis of census figures found that Melbourne's city centre had the fastest growing population in Victoria, when compared to areas of comparable size.
Despite this, the council does not expect to underwrite its projects through parking profits, as the city has already reached "peak parking", according to the city's own financial estimates.
Fewer cars are coming into the city, and on-street parking is disappearing during the Melbourne Metro construction boom. This year, the city area has lost 400 parking spaces.
The council elected not to raise parking fees this year, and the lord mayor does not expect to introduce price rises during his current term. At the draft budget launch, he noted that in 1974, a beer and an hour's parking cost 20 cents. In 2017, an hour's city parking on-street costs $5.50, still the same as a beer on tap.
Even parking fines, often identified as a nice little earner for councils, are expected to decline over the next four years, from $40,675 in the next year to $38,867 by 2020-21.
Only $29 million will be spent on the Queen Victoria Market this year as the city waits on Planning Minister Richard Wynne to approve plans and heights for the Munro site tower.
"[The Minister] is the determining agent," Cr Doyle said. "We need his sign off."
Smart bins everywhere
The city does want to install 360 smart bins throughout the city, which can compress up to seven times as much garbage as a normal bin and even alert garbage collectors when they need emptying. The project will go out to tender later this year.
"Seeing overflowing bins will be a rarity in the city," Cr Doyle said.
Smart bins will be rolled out across the city. Photo: Penny Stephens