After developer Fraser Brown’s estimated $190 million purchase of Cranbourne Golf Course, former UDIA national president and Intrapac chief executive Max Shifman called for more Melbourne golf courses to be rezoned for housing, saying struggling private clubs in the south-east are infrastructure-rich and ripe for development while governments dither.
As I told the Herald Sun: “the perfect locations to unlock much needed land for new housing”
I also said: “They (golf courses) are ripe for development and could be unlocked very quickly, which is what you need in a housing crisis — it just needs a bit of political will,”
And I added: “Golf courses represent an incredible opportunity in the midst of a housing crisis to develop affordable housing in typically quite established parts of Melbourne, where you’ve got infrastructure and amenities.”
I went on to say: “In all honesty, the golf courses are one of the biggest opportunities we have, if government was actually willing to make some brave decisions,”
I also made the point: “There’s a very large difference between the idea that you would rezone and redevelop public golf courses, because that’s public land and probably plays a different role to private golf courses (which are) tracts of land that are privately owned, and for members only and not really publicly accessible,”
And finally: “available to only those few people that play golf a couple of times a week”
I also noted: “So it’s not a net loss, it’s actually net gain for the community,”
the Herald Sun, 16 May 2024 — Read the full article