This is a blog series where we share the community submissions sent to the Minister for Planning regarding the draft Preston Market Precinct Development Plan. We’re sharing these to give our communities voices a platform, and inspire others with stories about the market.
Submission 002:
Monday 5 October 2026
RE: Preston resident submission to the Engage Victoria draft Preston Market Development Plan
Dear Minister Kilkenny and Department of Transport and Planning workers,
I am a local Preston resident and rate payer. I have been using the Preston Market on a weekly basis for shopping and socialising since I moved to Preston from Brunswick in 2021. I do not represent a specific group.
My perspective on the development plans
I am strongly opposed to the current Preston Market development plans featured on Engage Victoria for several very important reasons outlined below.
My key concerns
If we lose it, it’ll be gone forever, so let’s improve it in its current form instead
To me, the market is all about local people coming together to meet, connect over food, music and culture, and to feed themselves and their families at affordable prices, whilst having access to local products and services.
It is the heart and soul of the community in the north and it is far too precious to risk. We need to retain 100% of the current market in terms of its cultural, architecture and heritage features. Instead of the current proposed development plan, we should fix and upgrade the current issues at the market including the parking/transport, electrical, sewage, cleaning and toilet facilities. We don’t need a 10-15 year long construction process to make these improvements. We can do them now and we all deserve them now. This could also be accompanied by other investments in programs and services that help boost the utilisation of all areas of the market (e.g. community buses to enable more folks with mobility issues to attend, provide spaces for arts studios like Schoolhouse Studios in Coburg, allow for more community spaces and uses like neighbourhood houses, more art and music activities, festivals and activations like the recent night market, etc).
If we leave the market in developers’ hands, chances are they will go far beyond the current plans, and bend the rules as much as possible, and this will lead to the destruction of key aspects of the market’s cultural, architectural and heritage features, and we will lose it once and for all.
The development plan will destroy the market’s character and function, including during construction
The current plans will destroy the market’s character, feel and history. I am strongly opposed to having large retail outlets at the market, like at Northland. The huge towers on all sides will suck the life out of the market, make it cold and sunless, and turn it into a wind tunnel. Clearly the folks who are making these plans have never enjoyed a coffee with friends on a sunny winter morning sitting in the main walkways of the market!
The construction process itself will also be highly problematic for market goers and local residents in terms of noise and dust, as well as due to traffic. The local traders of the market and the broader high st area are also sure to suffer. I spoke to a trader on Sunday that said they expect the construction to last for “10-15 years” and that “they don’t know if they will survive”.
The details about provisions for green space and public space are also far too general for me to feel confident about their quantity and quality. I don’t trust the developers to not try and maximise the amount of housing across the entire site. There needs to be guarantees made in terms of sustainability, accessibility, facilitates for all ages, tree canopy contributions, landscaping/planting specifications, human-centred and environment-centred design for areas for socialising and physical activity, and connections to existing and upgraded public and active transport options to help address the parking issues.
The proposed housing development scale, height and density are far too high, clash with the Preston Activity Centre intentions, and exclude public housing
I am also deeply concerned about the scale, height and density of the housing in the proposal. Housing, especially public housing, is needed in Victoria now more than ever. But our services and community spaces like the market are also needed more than ever. It is highly unnecessary to build such huge housing towers, given the Preston Activity Centre allows for 3-6 story housing developments throughout the entire area of the activity centre.
We don’t need to turn Preston into another Melbourne CBD. The current plans will turn us into the next Box Hill with ugly skyscrapers in every direction.
Instead, we could build well developed housing areas with landscaping, walkways, gardens, mid-density heights (3-6 stories), and nice public spaces like Preston Crossing Nightingale on less areas of the market site, with stronger guarantees for public housing (i.e. 50%)
The developer-friendly commitment of 10% “affordable housing” is weak and from my perspective is really a commitment that 90% of the housing will go to landlords for investment properties, which is not good enough in a housing crisis. But also, all through the northern suburbs we regularly see developers flouting the rules of housing commitments, and I don’t doubt that the same would play out with these plans and commitments.
The only way I would support this much housing development is if 100% of it was guaranteed by legislation to be assigned to public owned public housing.
This consultation process doesn’t let us put community needs before profits for property developers - it is a missed opportunity to re-build trust in public institutions and governments
Local residents and communities that are serviced by the market have repeatedly made it clear that we want local and state governments to save the Preston Market and to block developer plans.
I don’t trust developers to protect the interests of local traders, local residents, and communities that are serviced by the market. Under the existing consultation process, this is our one and only chance to provide any feedback on the development and after these two weeks are up we are locked out of any further input at all.
The plans that are being presented in the developers proposal is not what will actually be built on the site, it is rather an indication of what could be built within certain parameters. What will finally be built could be (and is very likely to be) substantially different (i.e. worse for the community).
The fact that this consultation period is so short, without proper designs supplied by the developers, and is being done without other means of engagement like face to face community forums to me shows that we can’t trust the plans nor the developers and we need to put the market in public hands, just like the South Melbourne, Queen Victoria and Footscray markets which are publicly owned.
Local and state governments could use this moment to listen to us in the community and to do something that we want for a change, and this would be a really powerful opportunity to re-build community level trust in public institutions, processes and local and state levels of government.
My preferred outcome
The only way I believe we can realistically address all of the above issues is that we publicly acquire the market. We need the market in public hands so that we can guarantee that it won’t be lost and used by developers to maximise profits. The South Melbourne, Queen Victoria and Footscray markets are evidence that it can be done.
If we put the market in public hands then we can run meaningful consultation processes with the community, traders and residents, that will help re-build trust in local and state governments, that will address the issues I outlined above, and that will lead to better outcomes for the people, not developers.
It is now over to you to make a decision that will either align you with the local community, or with developers.
Thank you very much
