The future of the Maribyrnong Defence site remains up in the air with the state government threatening to walk away from plans to redevelop the land.
Places Victoria has been in lengthy negotiations with the Department of Defence over acquiring the heavily contaminated land of the former munitions factory and building a 3000-home estate on the Raleigh Road site.
But Planning Minister Matthew Guy told the Weekly he might consider pulling the plug on the project.
“The federal government has had three-and-a-half years to sell it to us. We gave them a final offer so it’s with the federal government now.”
Mr Guy said the site was immensely complex, with a number of heritage buildings and tens of millions of dollars of remediation work to be done. It is contaminated with heavy metals, hydrocarbons, explosive residues, asbestos, volatile organic compounds and solvents, meaning it has “limited value”.
“I am not going to burden the Victorian taxpayers with a major clean-up of the site,” Mr Guy said, adding that he would prefer to put state resources elsewhere.
Places Victoria has been in financial strife, losing $192 million over the past year and slashing half its staff. A Defence spokeswoman said negotiations with Places Victoria were ongoing, but details, including an estimated price, were “commercial in confidence”.
An EPA spokeswoman said the Department of Defence had engaged an EPA-appointed auditor to assess the level of risk the site posed to the environment and human health. “Once this process is complete, EPA will work with Defence to ensure all site works are in accordance with the auditor’s clean-up plan.”
