Solomon Heights: A zombie subdivision?

Recent work from the Lincoln Institute has identified the phenomenon of the 'zombie subdivision', described by authors Holway, Elliot and Trentadue as 'the living dead of the real estate market'. The authors' case study examples are recent formulations, their residents casualties of the profligate early 21st century. Yet there remains in many quarters of the western world examples of much older, and perhaps by dint of age even more problematic, 'zombie subdivisions'. Solomon Heights, 10kms west of the centre of Melbourne, Australia, on what has now become prime riverside real estate, is a case in point. Although subdivided into a residential pattern during the 1920s, the site had been rezoned industrial in the mid-1950s under Melbourne's first comprehensive city plan. It was thereafter left fallow, for reasons unclear, without basic urban services like water or sealed roads. Environmental social issues have since come to impact on the site, while landowners seek the opportunity to build. In a submission to the 2009 review of the city's urban growth boundary, Solomon Heights owners urged that: The alternative of now acting now...is to commit Solomon Heights to a further period of prolonged stagnation-a period that exacerbates the effects of 100 years of inaction. This paper examines the history of the '100 years of inaction', with particular attention to the efforts by the current responsible LGA to broker a satisfactory outcome for all stakeholders.