Draft Budget 2018/19: Preparing Melbourne for future growth

More than one million people including workers, visitors and residents are expected to be entering the city on a daily basis by 2022. That number is predicted to grow to 1.4 million by 2036.

Growing demand on resources and an ever changing city landscape are also driving the City of Melbourne's $161 million planned investment in infrastructure and maintenance works in the 2018/19 financial year.

Key 2018-19 draft budget highlights:

$576 million total budget spend$435 million on programs and initiativesFully funded $141 million Council infrastructure works, additional $20 million for maintenanceProposed underlying surplus of $14.9 million Second year of Council's 2017-21 Council Plan2.25 per cent increase in rates$1.50 per hour parking fee increase in CBD. 

We're investing $22.7 million expansion of Southbank Boulevard and Dodds Street to create two new hectares of open public space, which will help us deliver on our Open Space Strategy. More than $7.1 million has been set aside for renewal of Melbourne's 480 hectares of internationally acclaimed parks and gardens and a further $2.1 million allocated for North Bank Open Space and Public realm projects.

We're getting on with delivery of the Queen Victoria Market Precinct Renewal Program in accordance with Council's Implementation Framework, with $19.8 million set aside to work with the community on the design of the new 1.5 hectare public open space, undertake necessary onsite restoration of the heritage open air sheds and delivery of precinct wide projects to improve customer and trader amenity. In addition, we're set to deliver more than $70 million worth of community infrastructure in partnership with PDG Corporation, developers of the Munro site. We'll spend $6.6 million to redevelop the Lady Huntingfield Child Care Centre into a 106 place integrated family and children's centre. 

We're spending $1.8 million to build on a world leading response to homelessness including $480,000 for youth homelessness (Frontyard), $438,000 for the Night Time Safe Space and $341,000 for grants including Youth Street Teams, rooming house project, legal project, women's homelessness project, and weekend meals program.

Improving the way pedestrians and motorists move throughout the city is also a major focus of this year's draft budget, with Council committing $5.5 million for road improvements and $4 million for better footpaths. High foot traffic areas will receive streetscape improvements including $2 million for the southern end of Elizabeth Street and $1 million for Southbank Promenade.

Cyclists are also winners with $1.1 million set aside for bike network improvements in Southbank Boulevard, Carlton, North Melbourne, Kensington and Southbank. The work also includes 500 additional bike storage hoops across the municipality.

A total of 39 new projects worth $35.1 million will be funded in this budget including $2.7 million for Boyd Park, $4.1 million for University Square, $3.5 million for Lincoln Square masterplan and $2.2 million for public art in Southbank.

We're investing $5 million to commence the redevelopment of a Council owned block between Bourke Street and Little Collins Street to provide new, sustainable retail and commercial tenancies in the heart of the city and renew Council accommodation that is well beyond its useful life for more than 1,400 City of Melbourne employees. Three million dollars will also be set aside to fund critical rectification works on Town Hall and prepare a feasibility study for future restoration works. The feasibility study will look at the best options to restore the buildings to their former glory, and ensure they're equipped and well utilised by the public whilst preserving their cultural and social significance.

The draft budget also includes:

$36.4 million to promote the city including more than $17 million on major events including Moomba, New Year's Eve and Christmas$18.6 million to deliver maternal and child health services, immunisations, parenting services, youth and student services$16.3 million to support Melbourne's arts, including more than $753,000 on our Indigenous Arts Program$12.5 million to operate our six libraries and community hubs $6.1 million on home and personal care, delivered meals, respite and community transport$5.5 million for the ongoing program of IT upgrades to provide customers with  better online service$5 million will go towards switching old street lights to energy efficient LEDs. 

On top of this, we're continuing to deliver more than $36 million of Victorian State Government funded permanent barriers at a total of nine key sites which include bollards and street furniture, and close on $10 million to expand the CCTV network and install a new Public Address System. This represents the largest investment in Australia for protective measures against hostile vehicles, in line with the State Government's and Council commitment to continue improving security in the Melbourne CBD. This will be added to this draft budget before it is finalised.

The City of Melbourne is committed to providing the highest level of services to our community, and in order to do that we are increasing rates by just two and a quarter per cent. At the same time, Council is committed to containing core operating costs to minimise the burden on ratepayers. Over the past six years, Council's annual growth in costs has been contained to 2.8 per cent - just above inflation - managing population growth of 5 per cent. This budget includes operating costs growth of just 2.9 per cent, compared to the predicted inflation of 2.25 per cent and expected population growth of 6.15 per cent (6,583).

Since 2011, there has been a 22 per cent decrease in parking spots in the CBD along with a five per cent reduction outside the central city area. These figures will continue to steadily decline as the number of major state-led infrastructure programs ramp up. To offset this decline in revenue and maintain our investment in services and infrastructure, we are increasing fees for on and off-street parking. A one-hour park in the central city will rise from $5.50 to $7, bringing the cost in line with on-street parking costs in Sydney's CBD. Parking spaces outside CBD will increase no more than 80 cents per hour. It is the first time that parking fees have been increased since 2013.

The draft budget will be considered at a special Council Meeting at 4.45pm today. Members of the public can comment on the draft budget until 13 June 2018. A final version will be considered by Council on 26 June 2018.

Comments from City of Melbourne Councillors on the Draft 2018/19 Annual Plan and Budget: Finance and Governance 

“This budget delivers on our vision for our city’s growth, prosperity and liveability.  It secures our competitive advantage as a top global city: as a premier location for business and knowledge sectors to expand and thrive. It increases expenditure on our core services and creates opportunities for our community.

“The state and federal budgets have talked about the unprecedented population growth and infrastructure investment: but City of Melbourne is where the rubber hits the road. That’s why this budget delivers record investment on programs and services to keep Melburnians safe, ensure they have access to the best parks and gardens, clean streets, new community infrastructure and maintains our investment on our events, visitor and business services that are so vital for our economic growth and prosperity.

“This budget maintains our focus on that long-term thinking and paves the way for the largest investment in council’s history: the renewal of Queen Victoria Market.”

Deputy Lord Mayor Arron Wood, Chair of the Finance and Governance portfolio

Small Business, Retail and Hospitality 

“Melbourne’s retail and small business communities are the heartbeat of our city and an integral part of our city’s continued growth. This is why we’re investing $10.7 million on a range of initiatives designed to support the local economy, residents and businesses as the city goes through an unprecedented transformation in the coming years. 

“These initiatives include the delivery of retail and hospitality activations that promote the CBD as a premier shopping destination. With our retail and hospitality sectors contributing a total of $5.7 billion to Melbourne’s economy, it’s vital we continue to strengthen our existing City of Melbourne campaigns and improve our support for affected residents and businesses.”

Councillor Susan Riley, Chair of the Small Business, Retail and Hospitality portfolio

Arts, Culture and Heritage 

“As Melbourne undergoes unprecedented change, it’s become more important than ever to protect our city’s heritage. The significance of Melbourne’s heritage doesn’t always lie in the building itself, but is found in the social, cultural and historical fabric of the site. 

"We’re ensuring our heritage controls across the municipality are up-to-date as Melbourne continues to grow. This includes investing in a number of heritage reviews, including that of the Hoddle Grid. We’re also continuing to support Melbourne’s artistic and cultural life, ensuring the growth of our creative community.”

Councillor Rohan Leppert, Chair of the Arts, Culture and Heritage portfolio

International Engagement 

“There’s no denying that Melbourne is a city of choice for international students, with more than 227,000 living or studying in the municipality, many from China and Asian countries.That is why we’re increasing our investment in the WeChat social media platform. By investing a further $100,000 into WeChat we can attract even more Chinese visitors, students, businesses and potential investors in the World’s Most Liveable City.”

Councillor Philip Le Liu, Chair of the International Engagement portfolio

Knowledge City 

“This year we’re investing significantly in the knowledge sector, with knowledge based employment set to increase more than 50 per cent in the next two decades. We’re continuing to undertake a major renewal of our libraries, which are  key knowledge sector infrastructure, serving the needs of our community by growing both the collections as well as increasing our capacity to provide the community free access to new technologies.

“Our library service records more than 1.4 million visits annually. As part of this year’s annual plan we will be exploring options for the provision of future services across our library network. Such research will help inform the design and services on the new City Library. I’m please to say that we’re investing an additional $110,000 into Melbourne’s pre-eminent knowledge sharing event, Melbourne Knowledge Week (MKW). This event provides an invaluable extended opportunity for the wider community to engage with the knowledge sector, learning about the research and the technologies which will shape our future. The popularity of MKW is increasing year on year, with more than 13,000 people taking part in last year’s event.

"It’s imperative we continue to invest in the knowledge sector in this city. A thriving knowledge based economy will underpin our economic prosperity, affect the liveability of our city and contribute to the wellbeing of our community.”

Councillor Dr Jackie Watts, Chair of the Knowledge City portfolio

Planning 

“Melbourne is growing fast and the number of visitors to our CBD is expected to rise to 1.4 million per day by 2036. Our city’s liveability is one of the key reasons more people from interstate and overseas are making Melbourne home and Australia’s fasting growing city.

“This Draft Budget is about planning for the future and helping ensure an increasing number of residents, visitors and workers have access to bigger and better public space, affordable housing and community infrastructure.  We’re also committing to supporting development that contributes to our city’s liveability. Through well considered planning controls, we will continue to encourage the development industry to deliver high quality urban design and innovative architecture that respects our heritage buildings and, where possible, provides community benefit.

“This Draft Budget also includes funding to progress how we can get better design outcomes across the City of Melbourne. The budget commits funds to the investigation of design competitions for significant new proposed projects. Design competitions would aim to lift the standards of new developments and improve the way they contribute to the city.  Sydney has been running design competitions for some years now and has had some stunning outcomes – we want to see if this model could work in Melbourne.”

Councillor Nicholas Reece, Chair of the Planning portfolio

Prosperous City

"We’re securing Melbourne’s reputation as the events capital of Australia, spending $36.4 million in this budget to deliver an exciting program of major events including New Year's Eve and the iconic Moomba Festival. We've also committed a further $625,000 to our Precinct Program in 2018-19."

Councillor Kevin Louey, Chair of the Prosperous City portfolio

Environment 

“As the city grows so too does the need for more greenspace and that’s why we’re spending almost $23 million to continue creating two and a half new hectares of public space through the expansion of Southbank Boulevard and Dodds Street. Our existing 458 hectares of world famous parks and gardens will also receive $7.1 million dollars’ worth of renewal works. 

“We're continuing our three year $5 million program to switch nearly 16,000 street lights to energy efficient LEDs across the municipality. We will invest over $5 million on a range of other street scaping and greening works. All of these funds help Melbourne counteract the effects of climate change.”

Councillor Cathy Oke, Chair of the Environment portfolio

People City 

“As the fastest growing municipality in the country, it’s vital we continue to provide families the community services they need. The investment of $6.6 million into the redevelopment of the Lady Huntingfield Children’s Centre in North Melbourne is a great step forward, as we bring our family and children’s services together under one roof as a fully integrated service.

“Tackling increased demand for sporting facilities is also a priority, with $450,000 to plan and design the redevelopment of Kensington Community Recreation Centre and $100,000 will be used to plan the redevelopment of the North Melbourne Community Centre. With the growth of women’s sports in general and the emergence of AFLW, we’re also ensuring our women’s sporting groups have space to grow, investing $200,000 in ensuring our sporting pavilions and facilities are accessible for all.”

Councillor Beverley Pinder, Chair of the People City portfolio

Aboriginal City and Transport  

“This year’s budget shows we are also committed to providing a safe and sustainable city for the one million workers, residents and visitors who frequent the city every day. We’re spending almost $10 million on road and footpath improvements to keep the city moving and more than $1.1 million to expand the bike network in a number of key areas including Southbank Boulevard, Carlton and Kensington. We’re also installing an additional 500 bike hoops on top of the 1000 we fitted across the city in the last two budgets.”

"I’m proud to say that in the 2018-19 draft budget, we will deliver our first year of the Aboriginal Melbourne Action Plan. The plan presents a set of actions that will contribute to Melbourne acknowledging and fostering an understanding of its Aboriginal history, heritage and identity and ensuring that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples contribute to the city’s cultural, social and economic life.”

Councillor Nicolas Frances Gilley, Chair of the Aboriginal Melbourne and Transport portfolios