Feedback sought on the possible sale of part of Council-owned car park

In such instance, part of the car park at 84-90 High Street, Shepparton would be retained. 

Council is undertaking community consultation from today, Friday 17 February to Friday 17 March 2023, to gather feedback from residents and business owners in the area.

Currently, Council does not have any request or plan to sell, lease or gift this land. If, in the future, Council does intend to sell, lease or gift the land, additional consultation will be undertaken with the community pursuant to Sections 114 and 115 of the Local Government Act 2020.

The consultation comes after Council officers prepared an Audit of Council-owned Land in Shepparton, Mooroopna and Kialla, August 2022 to identify all of Council’s land assets in Kialla, Mooroopna and Shepparton. The Audit Report identified 353 Council-owned properties within these urban areas, while only 15 were considered to be ‘vacant’ or part-‘vacant’. 

The Audit Report identified that the majority of land owned by Council provides open space, community resilience to flooding or stormwater drainage functions. It further emphasised the importance of the car parks within activity centres in the Shepparton CBD in providing a dual function – retaining public parking at ground level and residential apartments above.

The Audit Report recommended that Council consult on four Council-owned car parks in the CBD however, only three were considered at the September 2022 Council Meeting. Council subsequently resolved to consult with the community on only the south-east corner block of the High and Rowe Streets Car Park.

There are a number of strategic planning documents and strategies that promote increased development, including residential, in urban centres like the Shepparton CBD. These documents also assess and consider the need for Social and Affordable Housing across Greater Shepparton.

These include the Greater Shepparton Affordable Housing Strategy: Houses for People 2020 which Council prepared and adopted in April 2020 to investigate issues around, and barriers to, developing Affordable Housing in Greater Shepparton. In late 2018, the Strategy showed that Greater Shepparton had the highest homelessness rate in regional Victoria with 5.6 homeless persons per 1,000, and 1,041 households on the waiting list for social housing. 

Council recently considered an update to this Strategy, which found that there was a 60 per cent increase between December 2018 and June 2022 for the Goulburn (Shepparton) region, increasing from 1,041 households to 1,674 households. In addition, there has been a 17 per cent increase in presentations to local homeless services over a 12 month period to 1,488 households in 2020-21, with 66 per cent of these clients new to the service. Council is continuing to progress the recommendations of the Affordable Housing Strategy, which recommended the preparation of the Audit Report of Council-owned land. 

Mayor, Councillor Shane Sali said Council was now interested in hearing from the community on the potential future sale or lease of the south east corner block of the High and Rowe Streets Car Park.

“We are interested to hear feedback from the community. No doubt there will be feedback for and against, however, we look forward to better understanding the community’s thoughts,” he said.

“Council currently does not have any request or plan to sell, lease or gift this land. This consultation is purely a feedback exercise to help better understand what the community think.

“Following the consultation, Council will consider the submissions at a future Council Meeting and will determine whether or not to support the potential sale of the land or part of the land in the future.”

To have your say, visit Shaping Greater Shepparton

For further information, contact Council’s Building Planning and Compliance Department on (03) 5832 9700.