Residents may #SaveBlackburn from sky-high developments
By Lily Nicolitsopoulos
After a year-long battle to scrap the Blackburn Station activity centre project, residents have been handed a partial win as amendments and budget-funding address their key concerns.
Blackburn Station is one of 60 train and tram activity centres proposed by the State Government in 2025. Activity centres are a designated zone for increased development, centred around public transport activity hubs.
Member of the Blackburn Creeklands Advisory Committee, John McMahon, said that the committee were handed a “major win,” as the project moves forward with problem areas excluded from forthcoming plans.
“We’re very pleased that what we argued for, we won,” he said.
Activity centres are a part of the government’s Plan for Victoria initiative, which sets housing targets for every municipality in Victoria. May’s state budget has allocated funding to address the strain that increased housing density will put on infrastructure across Victoria.
The Creeklands Committee were “up in arms,” over the environmental impact of the state government’s initial plans.
Blackburn is a unique area in the eastern suburbs because of its bushy tree canopy and abundance of native wildlife. There are multiple areas near Blackburn Station that are protected by significant landscape overlays (SLO) which prevent multi-storey developments and preserve vegetation.
“The national trust classified those streets way, way back because they had that kind of rural country feel and preserved the canopy in the streetscapes that you’d expect in a much more rural, country area,” McMahon said.
“If urban density succeeds in those areas, the amount of canopy is going to diminish as more of it gets built up, so it'll become less suitable as habitat.”
McMahon authored the Creeklands Committee’s submission to the Department of Transport and Planning in late 2025, which highlighted concerns about the inclusion of SLO areas in the initial activity centre zoning maps.
“We argued that the SLO areas should be exempt from the activity centre area altogether, and that's succeeded,” he said.
While the Creeklands Committee are happy with the solution provided by the government, McMahon said that other residents might not be as content. Other than the SLO areas, locals are also worried about crowding, traffic and noise pollution from high density housing.
State Member for Box Hill, Paul Hamer, said that the area was identified as a possible activity centre because of Blackburn Station’s high train frequency and the proximity to large capacity roads.
“You've got Whitehorse Road being a six-lane road and having a large carrying capacity to accommodate that level of growth,” he said.
The state budget invests $29.2 million to upgrade crossings, intersections and road surfaces in Melbourne. This includes upgrades to a key intersection at Blackburn Station, which Hamer said could lead to “capacity improvements.”
The budget also promises increased frequencies on the Belgrave and Lilydale line, with weekday evening frequencies increasing from 15 to ten minutes in the Ringwood corridor specifically.
“There are more frequent trains out to not only Blackburn, but all the way out to Ringwood, which helps from a capacity issue and also encourages more people to catch the train because they don't have such a long wait,” Hamer said.
Residents now anxiously await the next stage of planning, when the final activity centre plans will be released to the public.
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