Why do all of Melbourne’s newest suburbs sound like the titles of American soap operas? Saltwater Coast, Williams Landing, Woodland Waters… are we looking for land in Melbourne or channel surfing Foxtel here? Regardless, a couple of weeks ago the state government announced Melbourne’s city limits would be expanding into a number of new suburbs. If you’ve been vaguely thinking about buying land in Melbourne, you might want to check out these areas newly included in the city limits…
1. Diggers Rest
Located near Sunbury, this rural village has been resisting the threat of transforming into “just another Melbourne suburb”. Anyone moving to Melbourne won’t exactly find suburbia here – the locals take pride in the unique rural and historic properties of area. The area can’t grow too substantially, though – a recent report determined that there are airport flight path constraints and existing local transport links won’t easily cope with an expansion in population.
2. Lockerbie and Lockerbie North
Despite being located closer to Kilmore than Melbourne CBD, it’s only a 50 minute drive into the city from this newly-created outer north suburb, located near Beveridge. This new suburb, centred around the Hume Highway, will become home to 30,000 people over the next 25 years. If you can handle living that far away from the city, anyway…
3. Manor Lakes
Sheesh, yet another Melbourne house and land development near Werribee! The name of this suburb is also guilty of falling foul of sounding like an American soap opera title. Be wary of buying into this area – neighbouring Tarneit is already notorious for extremely poor public transport coverage and bottlenecked roads.
4. Merrifield West
This suburb will neighbour another new suburb, Lockerbie. Although some residential development is planned, developers seem to be hedging their bets on a massive 300 hectare business park in this area. Located along the freight corridor of the Hume Highway, this probably isn’t such a bad idea.
5. Rockbank North
This suburb is notable for finally providing a suburb for neighbouring Caroline Springs to make fun of. Crazily, this suburb is only a short drive to freakin’ Bacchus Marsh – how long until they’re swallowed up by Melbourne’s city limits.
These new suburb creations aren’t without their controversy, either – allegations have been made that big donors to the Liberal party have received favourable treatment in the rezoning of new suburbs.
(Images: Graeme Bartlett/Wikimedia - 1, 2; Mattingbgn/Wikimedia - 1, 2; Wongm/Wikimedia)
