We thank council for the opportunity to provide feedback on Item 8.3. Notice of Motion No.14 of 2026 – Victoria Street.
At its core, this issue is about public safety. Strong Towns wrote:
What if one of the most important parts of public safety is just ordinary people being out on the street?
Jane Jacobs wrote about this in ‘The Death and Life of Great American Cities’, arguing that a well-used city street is more likely to be safe, while a deserted one is more likely to be unsafe.
She was talking about the everyday life of a place: someone walking to the store, a shopkeeper opening for the day, a parent pushing a stroller, a neighbor watching from an apartment window, or a few people heading out for the evening.
These people make up what Jacobs called “eyes on the street.” Many of those helping keep order, she wrote, aren’t even conscious that they’re doing it.
Eyes on the street don’t appear just because a sidewalk exists. A blank wall, a hostile crossing, a long stretch of parking, or a block with nowhere to go can keep the street empty. The safety comes from giving ordinary people ordinary reasons to be there.
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We all want our streets to be safe. If council wishes to act on something that is within its sphere of influence, the best thing it can do is to broadly and significantly upzone all properties within a walkable catchment area of Victoria Street.
That change would act to legalise the construction of many more homes. It would act, over the medium term, to double or triple the local population, i.e. the number of eyes on the street, and thus improve public safety.
It would lift property values, and revitalise the precinct. By collaborating with the state government, it wouldn’t actually cost much money, for either level of government.
The western end of Victoria Street is only 1.6 km from the edge of Melbourne’s Central Business District, and is linked to the CBD by a tram line.
A walkable catchment area extends 800 metres to either side of Victoria Street. That area is similar to the area of the CBD, and upzoning and building on that walkable catchment area could support a population equivalent to the population of the CBD, which has thriving activity across all hours of the day. The Hoddle Grid has over 54,000 residents, and if Victoria Street had a similar population base, local businesses would have a thriving, vibrant future.
Further information and a detailed description of the opportunity is available in our previous submission to the draft Victoria Street Revitalisation Plan.