Brunswick Voice

Advertisement

Apartment dwellers want planned skyrail station moved

Location would be just metres from balconies

Emma Chrisp, Geordie Barker and Katherine Sundermann at the location of the proposed new northern station.

Mark Phillips
Tuesday, October 22, 2024

RESIDENTS in apartment blocks along the Upfield line will call on the state government to move the location of the proposed new northern station to be built as part of the Brunswick level crossing removal project. 

Close to 100 people who live in apartments between Hope and Albion streets attended a rally at Bulleke-bek Park on Sunday as the first step in a campaign to oppose the location of the new station. 

They cannot understand why it is in the narrowest part of the southern Upfield line, pressed up against existing dwellings, and they want it to be moved south of Hope Street to a wider rail corridor where there is currently no housing. 

With construction of the elevated railway, or skyrail, not due to begin for another few years, the group which calls itself Elevating Brunswick hopes there is plenty of time for the project to be redesigned. 

But some residents are already considering selling and moving away from Brunswick if the station is built in the proposed location.

An artist’s impression of the new station looking west along Duckett Street. Image provided by Andy Fergus of Elevating Brunswick

The project will see eight level crossings removed in a 2.1 km area from Park Street to Albion Street, with a new elevated railway built above the current Upfield line. This will allow the equivalent of two MCGs of open space to be reclaimed.

Recent plans for the project show there will be two new stations. The northernmost would be about 200 metres south of Anstey Station, with entrances at West Street/Bulleke-bek Park and Hope Street. 

The southern station would be built near the RMIT University campus, about 450 metres south of Brunswick Station and 200 metres north of Jewell Station.  

The Level Crossing Removal Project authority (LXRP) says the locations of the two stations were chosen after assessing a number of factors, including accessibility, heritage and construction impacts, and the amount of open space that could be created. 

It says the new northern station could not be built south of Hope Street because that location would require more significant compulsory property acquisition and would impact on the heritage-registered Lux Foundry building. A station further south could also push the railway line even closer to existing apartments, and it is not possible to locate it any further north either, the LXRP says. 

Residents have been told that the station design will be less obtrusive than Moreland Station, but will need to service about 500,000 passengers a year. 

Residents in buildings immediately adjacent to the Upfield line – many of them developed over the past few years by the award-winning Nightingale group – are at pains to stress they support the skyrail concept. But they fear the noise and light from the new northern station would be unbearable. They are also concerned that the bulk of the station would ruin enjoyment of Bulleke-bek Park for everyone. 

They fear that if the project is not redesigned and the station moved, they will suffer a repeat of the situation at the new Keon Park Station in Thomastown, where trains pass just metres from the balconies of apartments. 

“We support the government’s decision to elevate the Upfield line, but the proposed station location is a poor choice,” said Geordie Barker, a spokesperson for Elevating Brunswick.

“There are better options: like moving the station 180 metres south to a vacant site. This location would minimise disruption to existing homes, has better connections to bus and tram routes and create opportunities for new housing, aligning with the government’s own housing goals.” 

Part of the crowd at the rally on Sunday.

Some people at Sunday’s rally said the recent public information sessions held by the Level Crossing Removal Authority heightened their concerns that the station locations were already set in stone. 

They are also frustrated that the announcement about the stations was made after Merri-bek Council went into caretaker mode for municipal elections, hampering its ability to respond to the plans.

“My understanding of what they [LXRP] were saying is, ‘You just have to trust us’,” said Alex Fearnside, who lives in the Urban Coop building. 

“And when I look at some of the [community] wins for skyrail, I do trust them. Bbut when I look at the narrow corridor work they’ve done a little bit further up at Keon Park, I don’t trust them, because the results have been awful from a community perspective.” 

Katherine Sundermann, who lives in the Evergreen building and is President of Urban Design Forum Australia, said she was worried the community that had been nurtured in the Nightingale Village would be torn apart by the impact of the skyrail project. 

“In terms of the building that I live in, a number of people are looking to move out,” she said. 

“We’ve taken that time to build that community, and we’re going to have quite a lot of people leaving this neighbourhood, and I understand why, because the new station will be about a metre away from their balcony, they’ll be able to reach out and touch the station.  

“We’re going to have a station announcement every seven minutes, and the horn siren and things like that. So just that kind of impact on the people that are living here is quite intense.” 

Residents air their concerns about the skyrail

Brunswick MP Dr Tim Read who attended the rally as an observer said afterwards that he felt the Elevating Brunswick group has raised “very reasonable concerns” about the location of the station and he hoped the LXRP would engage in genuine consultation with the community as the project progressed.

“The community by and large is supportive of the elevated rail and I have heard very few people who are opposed to the project,” he said.

“Very few actually don’t want it to happen, so you’ve got a largely supportive community but what they do want is for the project to be well-designed in the precinct around the [Bulleke-bek] park and the high-rise apartment blocks.

“This is not like the chorus that has erupted in other areas about put it underground or don’t do it at all so I really hope they will listen to these concerns and look forward to hearing from the government and the project about their plans.”

Read said residents at the rally had also raised concerns with him about protecting existing vegetation and heritage in the design of the skyrail.

Katherine Sundermann said no-one living in apartments near the Upfield line opposed the elevated railway project themselves, but they believed it could be improved by relocating the station. 

“We really want to help the government get the best outcome by moving it south. And we think that’s definitely possible, and we’re really keen to work with them to make that happen.  

“We hear the politicians all the time talking about more homes, more homes. They want us to live in these apartments, they want us to live close to public transport.  

“And we completely agree. We’ve had the Premier come and stand on the rooftop of this building and say, ‘This is what we want to see’ – but now the same government is putting a train station right next to it. It compromises the very liveability they were celebrating.”

An LXRP spokesperson said: “As with all our projects we have completed extensive engineering and technical assessments to determine the best location for the new stations.

“We encourage locals to have their say and we will continue to consult with the community as the design and development work progresses.”