A Chinese real estate developer wants to build a luxurious new suburb on badly contaminated former Defence land in Maribyrnong that would include up to 6000 homes.
Developer Zhongren's $2.5 billion vision for the Maribyrnong Defence Site includes a canal carved through a sweeping bend in the Maribyrnong River to create more water frontage for future homes.
Redeveloping the site was the centrepiece of a housing affordability package unveiled by Treasurer Scott Morrison last month.
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The latest plans have led federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to describe the Turnbull government's strategy for the disposal of the 127-hectare Defence site as "a complete and utter shambles" with "zero transparency" that put "millionaire private developers ahead of local residents".
The contaminated Maribyrnong site is 10 kilometres from Melbourne's city centre but has been dormant since 2002. It has three kilometres of frontage onto the Maribyrnong River.
Used from 1908 until 1994 for the manufacture of explosives in bombs, mines, detonators and hand grenades, the site is highly toxic and requires an extensive clean-up.
A detailed "contamination remediation proposal" prepared by Zhongren and partner Carlson Design proposes redeveloping the site in five stages.
The site has three kilometres of frontage onto the Maribyrnong River. Photo: Penny Stephens
Under the plan, between 4000 and 6000 new homes would be built on the site. It is not clear what provision has been made for affordable housing. The plan for the site was presented to Defence early this year.
Mr Morrison in his budget speech last month described the site as "land for a new suburb that could cater for 6000 new homes".
A sign at the entrance to the contaminated site. Photo: Penny Stephens
Canberra last month announced it had scuttled a decade-long plan with the Victorian government to redevelop the land for 3000 homes, angering the state government and Mr Shorten.
Many of the homes proposed by Zhongren would be freestanding family residences, while there would also beapartment towers and office blocks.
The plan would incorporate existing heritage buildings, and includes at least two new bridges over the Maribyrnong, a military museum, a "public beach and swimming pool" and an arts precinct.
Most ambitiously, the proposal – which has also been pitched to Victorian state Labor MPs and Maribyrnong Council – includes a new canal through the land to provide more Maribyrnong River frontage.
Australia Zhongren Enrichment Holding Pty Ltd is the Australian company representing the Chinese interests involved in the bid.
The company's Melbourne frontman is Les Tarczon, a Labor Party member who ran in the safe Liberal seat of Malvern at the 2014 state election.
Mr Tarczon said the company had a total of $2.5 billion to spend on the project, and expected to spend $300 million cleaning up the highly toxic site.
"We have allocated $500 million for decontamination but we expect to only have it reach $300 million," Mr Tarczon said on Friday from the company's Little Collins Street office. The project would create 10,000 jobs, he said.
Mr Tarczon said the pitch for the land had been compiled over the past two years. "This is not an overnight thing," he said. "We've been throwing this around for a number of years."
He said the possibility the land might be progressively decontaminated and sold off in parcels – as flagged by a Defence deputy secretary in Senate budget hearings this week – would be a bad outcome.
"We don't just want certain pockets, we want the lot."
Company searches into Australia Zhongren Enrichment Holding Pty Ltd reveal it is largely owned by a Chinese-based developer. The company's Chinese website lists a project in Coburg's Gaffney Street as its lone Melbourne development.
A Golder Associates report from 2013 that the Chinese bid is highly reliant on identifies thousands of square metres of soil that must be removed because it contains asbestos and dangerous heavy metals.
The report finds that it is not known how heavily contaminated much of the site is because it has been in operation since 1908 and records from the period are scarce.
Mr Shorten said the process to sell the land set up by the federal government was "already a complete and utter shambles".
He said developers vying for the land wanted to "make a quick buck and it's the Maribyrnong community which will suffer".
"I thought this was supposed to be Malcolm Turnbull's big plan for affordable housing," Mr Shorten said.
A spokesman for Treasurer Scott Morrison said Maribyrnong would be an opportunity for private developers and the government "to work together to ensure Victorians right across the housing spectrum will be catered for".
"There will be housing for private buyers, private renters, affordable housing, social housing and opportunities for first home buyers – all of that can be realised in an integrated development on a site like this," he said.
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