In 2009, current Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas, then Minister for Major Projects, said the site was “one of the last remaining large derelict areas in inner Melbourne that does not currently have a strategic plan long-term”.
The Napthine government later moved to sell the land, launching an expressions of interest campaign just days before losing the 2014 state election.
At least four major developers (Lend Lease, MAB Corporation, Walker Corporation and Cbus) were considered in the early days of the Andrews government to build the project. Beautiful green district concepts were published in newspaper articles touting “one of Melbourne’s best development sites”.
“But then things went quiet,” says McKee, who formed a community group called Western Connection, which included city planners and a range of professionals, and pushed for a major green space project in the new suburb.
“And then came the announcement that Transurban would be using the site for the West Gate Tunnel project.”
Critics say the only reason for E-Gate’s potential loss was the Andrews government’s decision to allow Transurban to build two large toll extensions through the site, as part of the West Gate Tunnel in 5.5 billion dollars.
An early concept of the E-Gate site. Credit: Victorian Government
Melbourne City Council was one of the most vocal dissenters from the plan, stating in submissions to the government at the time that the move would ruin “a once-in-a-generation opportunity” for E-Gate, and that the proposal was ” incoherent”. with the policy and practice of the last 30 years, in an area of Melbourne where we should be planning specifically for the next 30 years.”
An inquiry and advisory committee, convened in 2017 to hear submissions on the West Gate Tunnel, recommended to then Planning Minister Richard Wynne that he considered the impact on E-Gate to be “sub-optimal” and that there would “a lost opportunity” if the design was not solved.
Despite these protests, including from groups like Western Connection who proposed an alternative road configuration, the steps went ahead. The only concession was to lower the road by about 10 metres, to 2.6 metres, for much of the route, but it will still rise to 11 meters in some places.
Urban planner and associate professor at RMIT’s Center for Urban Research Andrew Butt, who was also part of the Western Connection group as an expert and local to West Melbourne, said the decision to allow the toll operator cut off the site he “sacrificed”. .
A site view created by Western Connection. North Melbourne train station is on the bottom right. Credit: Western Connection
“It was an exercise in providing tolling for Transurban and not necessarily transport solutions,” Butt says.
Docklands Chamber of Commerce chief executive Shane Wylie said E-Gate would have been a game-changer for the harborside suburb. By connecting Docklands with Melbourne’s west and north, E-Gate could have ended the precinct’s isolation.
“Retailers, traders and residents were very excited,” he says. “It is disappointing for the Chamber and Docklands businesses to see such an exciting proposal go away.”
Western Connection’s rendering of what the view from North Melbourne train station might look like. Credit: Western Connection
Wylie says the intrusion of the West Gate Tunnel into the site is now a major barrier to the planned development becoming a reality. The dwindling appetite for major new developments caused by the pandemic leaves Wylie with little hope that the E-gate development will get off the ground.
“The barriers that exist now are too great and the rewards for this proposition are not what they used to be,” he says..
When or if E-Gate will become a proper suburb will be a decision of the state government of the day. An Andrews Government spokeswoman said it would reconsider E-Gate for development when the West Gate Tunnel is completed and the site is no longer used as a railway parking yard and maintenance site.
He said significant changes were made to the project design to bring out the “full potential” of the E-Gate development site, including reducing the extent of Wurundjeri Road to allow direct access to the site.
“The extension of Wurundjeri Way … will create a CBD bypass, facilitating travel between the inner north, the city center and the western suburbs,” he said.
An artist’s impression, released by the Napthine Government in late 2014, of what the E-Gate site was to look like. Credit: Victorian Government
“It will take traffic off Spencer and King Streets and use less than 1.5 acres of the 20-acre E-Gate site on its northern and eastern boundaries, leaving the vast majority available for future development.”
But Rohan Leppert, a Greens-aligned councilor in the City of Melbourne who was active in the council’s failed fight against the plan, said toll road ramps had reduced the E-Gate idea to a shadow of its former self.
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“Elevated freeways are a recipe for urban blight, and E-Gate will be surrounded by large, hostile arterials. Weaving E-Gate together with West Melbourne and Docklands will require a latticework of bridges, and that’s not cheap,” he said.
“But if these challenges can be overcome, E-Gate has the potential to be a world-class urban renewal precinct, with sustainable buildings and the reintroduction of trees and vegetation. This is what our new municipal planning strategy aims to achieve , despite the ridiculous insanity that is the West Gate Tunnel, where “tunnel” means “highway on stilts.”
Anthony McKee, for his part, says he hasn’t completely given up his hopes of one day seeing a remnant of his group’s original vision for E-Gate.
While it would need to be built over rail lines as much as new highways, he says there are already examples of this on different stretches of Wurundjeri Way in Melbourne and other Australian cities.
“There’s a lot of traffic in Sydney that goes under the tunnels,” he said. “And above ground, you wouldn’t know anything was there.”
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