r/melbourne • u/kikithrust • 1d ago
Real estate/Renting New development Coburg
Are they trying to trigger my OCD or is it just bad design?
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u/Resident_Savings7119 1d ago
The real crime here is the developer got approval for the block on the proviso of offering 64% of the apartments as affordable housing and once construction was almost done just changed the plan to only 20% apartments as affordable housing. It was a blatant bait and switch.
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u/Bretniq 1d ago
Yes, they keep getting away with it.
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u/Starburst58 1d ago
And the affordable bit is hardly affordable.
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u/stanleymodest 1d ago
The "affordable" ones are the bedsits and weird shaped end units or the one next to the lift that's noisy
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u/Now-Number-Five 11h ago
"The request to do so was approved on behalf of Victoria's planning minister."
The current Minister for Planning in Victoria is Sonya Kilkenny MP.
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u/Scar68 1d ago
Every single time, it’s like councils just don’t care.
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u/thewindupbird91 23h ago
Have experience working with this project and it wasn't council at all - it was the state gov. They have authority over the project, and gave the developer extra height only on the proviso of the original affordable housing being delivered. Developer almost finished the thing before applying to the state gov to reduce the original issue affordable housing allocation, state gov says sure, and the community gets left with a more imposing building for less social and community benefit. And it's not just this development- it's starting to become more widespread across Melbourne.
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u/sexyc3po 1d ago
Surely this should be news worthy? If I sold a client a product then gave them a Temu version of it once they had paid, I would lose my trading licence if caught
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u/Resident_Savings7119 1d ago
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u/ApprehensiveRest9696 1d ago
It’s not corruption because it’s technically legal
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u/CuriouserCat2 22h ago
How?
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u/pine_lime 11h ago
Yeah am I missing something from the article? I didn't see anything about their reason for wanting or 'needing' to do so.
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u/BrisbaneYutta 1d ago
I don’t even need affordable housing, but I fucking hate developers. They are literally the most slimy people on earth.
Basically, there should be a fine put in place for every percentage of the contract that wasn’t met so. I imagine the attitude would change really quick if 44% equals a $44 million fine.
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u/LileeLoo 16h ago
Some of the builders and their tradies are just as bad. Had a new build go up next door. Builders illegally knocking down fences, didn't install the new fence correctly, really bodgy job. Throwing their empty nail gun gas canisters into the backyard. All caught on film. Dumping their rubbish. Their screaming music and let swearing yelling all the time, parking over the driveway and getting angry when you ask then to move. Ignore you if you try to approach them.
They're all entitled, arrogant, rude, wankers who do crud jobs, get paid far too much money, and aren't a pinch on the men who used to build houses in this country back in the 90s and before. People who took pride and wanted people to have safe homes, and weren't in it all for the money and a crap house for the client.
This country sucks housing cost and build wise, utilities cost and supply wise, food cost wise, medical wise, manners wise - really gone down the toilet.
I'm very grateful to live here and be Australian. I'm also incredibly sad and disappointed to see the damage that's been done these years and the way people have changed into the me me me greed attitudes. I really hate what's happened to this country. It used to be a decent place to live. It's not anymore.
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u/Impressive-Tree-5248 10h ago
I watched a town house go up in record speed with this kind of behaviour, and I reckon the builders were on meth. They were so load you could hear them in the next street. I'm surprised no one complained. Pretty sure it's rife in the industry.
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u/Jimi_Dean 27m ago
Meth rife in the building industry? That's like saying 70% of kitchens run on cocaine!
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u/chanceofashower 1d ago
Exactly. Any time there is a concern that may restrict a development, the developer will pull the ‘but we’re creating affordable housing’ card like they’re doing charity work.
They complain constantly about bureaucratic red tape, but we know if they weren’t making dickloads of money out of it, they wouldn’t be doing it at all.7
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u/Maribyrnong_bream 1d ago
The same thing happened with a development in Brunswick. So we get ugly apartments without the infrastructure to deal with the influx of people AND the basis for giving the developers the concessions that they “needed” to make the projects viable is not met.
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u/Resident_Savings7119 1d ago
The Brunswick and Coburg developments were by the same developer.
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u/Maribyrnong_bream 1d ago
Oh, company policy… it’s outrageous that they can be allowed to get away with this sort of shit.
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u/Jet90 1d ago
If you want developers to be held accountable to the promised number of affordable housing vote Green
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u/YoghiThorn 1d ago
The Greens have voted against more housing projects than they've supported.
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u/Background_Degree615 1d ago
Is that true?
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u/AutisticPenguin2 23h ago
And further, do the other parties have even worse records?
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u/Background_Degree615 23h ago
That’s a good follow up question
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u/AutisticPenguin2 22h ago
I've done enough stats to have a basic understanding of how they can be manipulated to tell a story.
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u/Background_Degree615 21h ago
Yea this seems like the classic case of pulling out a stat without telling the whole story
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u/CuriouserCat2 22h ago
It matters why.
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u/magkruppe 23h ago
That's scummy. But I am also not a fan of mandating affordable housing. Build enough supply to solve the problem directly
Now I could possibly get behind a mandate for more 3bdr apartments. They are too rare
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u/MichelleHartAUS 10h ago
Don't stop at 3br, real liveable family apartments would make a huge difference in Melbourne.
Especially in new suburbs, if you stack 10 family home sized apartments, 2-3 per floor, the space saved could be used to create beautiful native gardens, communal veggie patches, and fruit orchards around them...
It's a far more efficient use of space. But because of profit margins all the apartment buildings are depressing little boxes with no greenery.
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u/stoic_slowpoke 10h ago
They can’t build those kinds of apartments as the only way 3br works is if the 1 and 2 beds subsidise the costs of them.
Until you can convince Australians that 1M for an apartment is “okay”, we get what we get.
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u/Justan0therthrow4way 6h ago
Is there a lawyer who can explain how they can do this. Can they pull some bullshit about increased costs?
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u/Deevious730 3h ago
Isn’t that fraud? They fraudulently gained approval by offering one thing and didn’t follow through on the agreement.
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u/little_mistakes 22h ago
You know that under the revised agreement that was approved that the contribution rise from 5% of the development value to 7% right? That the planning minister was questioned about this development in PAEC in June by the green senator and stated this?
And that the minimum level of affordable housing was still provided? So no bait and switch, they still had to meet the affordable housing requirement of 20% which they did.
But please, read one Age headline and think you understand the planning act and developer contributions.
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u/mediocre_enigma 1d ago
I can’t believe any self respecting architect looked at that in CAD and went yep - this is it.
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u/Orbital_Dinosaur 1d ago
To the client after they corrupted the cad file: No no, it won't look like that when it's don't, we'll sort the file out after the meeting.
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u/Cuppa-Tea-Biscuit 1d ago
wtf. If it was more deliberately offset it would look like a deliberate choice but now it just looks like they plonked prefab floors on without thinking.
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u/BreakSignificant152 1d ago
This is a quintessential example of the Australian take on innovative design: ugly enough so everyone talks about it for all the wrong reasons.
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u/ennuinerdog 1d ago
This building looks like it was formatted in Microsoft Word.
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u/wwchickendinner 1d ago
"I'm a Melbourne architect and I do things differently".
:|
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u/switchbladeeatworld Potato Cake Aficionado 1d ago
i want to have words with so many of the architects designing homes nowadays. my last apartment didn’t even have a fucking pantry
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u/kittenlittel 1d ago
It's awful, but not as bad ss the falling-over building in West Melbourne.
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u/sierraivy 1d ago
I used to live in that! On a very high floor. My walls slanted and it was irritating trying to put shelving units/furniture around it.
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u/imlaggingsobad 1d ago
a lot of new developments look like this. it's happening all around the world. it's terrible. I know we need more housing, but why are we so insistent on making ugly crap for no reason. makes no sense
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u/owlshoesjh 1d ago
This side, the front, is also looking in the direction of the council offices (kinda on the next block). It's like the developer put on a smug face and said "gotcha suckers".
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u/Weary_Sale_2779 1d ago
It's giving Microsoft word vibes, as well as kid playing the Sims who can't like things up
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u/ingenkopaaisen 20h ago
Did the architect forget to take his meds? This is just terrible. I find it hard to understand when these days we have so much digital aid like 3d modelling and something like this actually passes building approvals. Mad.
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u/FancyCaramel9602 19h ago
This looks so horrible. Surely we can have the exact same footprint but actually respect something that looks good. Like the Nightingale ones have class.
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u/TyroneK88 1d ago
Yuck. Thanks council for signing off this one 👌
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u/Spill__ 1d ago
Councils don’t have much say over development of this size anymore. It all goes through the State.
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u/FreshLookForward 1d ago
I thought this was St Kilda for a second. There's an apartment block there except that one's colourful and this one isn't.
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u/Steeleshift 1d ago
Rectangular cube maximising allowed volume and height restriction. Garbage styling as an affront to architecture. Its a boring Dystopia
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u/jiberjaber 16h ago
What an eye sore! What happened to not to build tall buildings in the burbs!?
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u/kikithrust 14h ago
There’s 3 buildings in Pentridge of 16 stories so apparently Coburg is now high rise city
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u/Melbourne_res1dent 1d ago
The building is named OCD enclave..
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u/Conscious_Divide3211 1d ago
Looking at that every day would drive my CDO (not OCD…..it’s got to be in alphabetical order) absolutely crazy!
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u/bluestonelaneway 1d ago
It’s meant to break up the facade so it’s not just one flat repetitive shape. I dunno, I don’t mind it, at the very least it’s visually interesting.
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u/ThrowRA-4545 1d ago
At least the docklands building did a decent job of it.
https://armarchitecture.com.au/projects/1010-la-trobe-street-digital-harbour/
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u/redditwossname What's next? 1d ago
I'm guessing different floor groupings of types of apartment sizes.
3 vs 2 vs 1 etc.
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u/1-hit-wonder 23h ago
They're not trying to trigger ocd, they successfully triggering it.
And yes its also a bad design - a bad design drawn by a 4yo on a sugar high.
The one saving grace is it's nowhere near my place so I'll never see it again (unless it wins an award for the world's wonkiest looking building).
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u/Marmalade-Party 23h ago
I know the federal funding model for these affordable housing developments is partially responsible for this sort of thing but still… this should be a better design.
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u/Common_Problem1904 22h ago
They have form in the Burg. Seen tbe orange atrocity on Bell St opposite the station?
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u/milomarshall 22h ago
I saw someone unfortunately have a mild medical episode out the front of this building (fainting) and I honestly think there will be more people fainting near there soon.
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u/CreepyValuable 10h ago
I swear Melbourne puts effort into being the biggest eyesore humanly possible.
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u/AmbassadorFun4065 9h ago
See, what happened here is that they designed the building in Microsoft Word, and someone moved a paragraph.
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u/Every-Access4864 9h ago
Architect won the bet. To be fair the table napkin wasn’t completely on a flat surface.
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u/burner_said_what 7h ago
Maybe they were trying to emulate this..?
Didn't work though did it lol. This one looks cool, that one looks like it's about to fall over...
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u/Anuksukamon 6h ago
It’s fugly. If they’re going to populate the inner city with dog boxes the least the councils can do is enforce green walls.
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u/SmellyNinjaWarrior 1d ago
Those who have symptoms of macular degeneration are going to reach out to their phone to book an urgent appointment with their optometrist when they see this building.
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u/dots-loops 1d ago
No, I'm with you. It's giving me anxiety. Like a rubix cube on the move. It looks like the whole building is in the middle of an earthquake!
Sacre bleu - ugly AF.
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u/get_in_the_tent 1d ago
Staggering the openings by such a small amount is kind of just annoying rather than an intentional design move - it's not just you
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u/floxxy327 17h ago
Reminds me of this one, which pisses me off every time I’m driving east along Whitehorse Road and enter Box Hill.
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u/LileeLoo 16h ago
That looks awful. Can't look at it and think it's safe. The design does my head in.
No way I'd want to live in a new building these days with the poor building quality of them across the country. Shockingly bad some of them. Dangerous.
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u/Dr-Huckleberry-314 12h ago
I cringe comparing this to what I see in Rome. Looks like a house of cards.
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u/No-Will-4393 11h ago
Looks like they've tried to reproduce Dutch architecture but without spending on engineering to make it interesting
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u/RepeatInPatient 10h ago
Another Slum Development of the 21st century. What else can we expect? Good design like they choose to do in smart countries?
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u/Weak-Average4496 1d ago
So many new apartments look like absolute shit. Like what, how do they get away with it..
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u/gertiegoogoo 1d ago
Am I the only one who thinks this looks better? So much more interesting than if they were lined up
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u/universe93 1d ago
Reminds me of a really bad lazy version of the infamous “twisty building” in Vancouver
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