Essex Street, Prahran

The Essex Street development will deliver 155 new social, affordable rental, market rental and specialist disability accommodation homes with a mix of one ,2,3 and 4 bedrooms. 

There will also be space for a new cafe, and a new community garden and picnic area. 

The new homes at Essex Street will be all-electric with a 5-star Green Star rating, and 7-star NatHERS average rating, making them more comfortable and affordable to heat and cool all year round. 

New homes at Essex Street have been carefully designed to complement the Prahran area. The new buildings will be tenure blind. This means that social, affordable rental and market rental homes on the site will be built to the same standard and look the same. 

You can view the development plans for the project on the Engage Victoria website.

Relocated renters will have a right to return to the new homes once they are completed from late 2026.  

The new homes will be available to people on the Victorian Housing Register, including older women, Aboriginal Victorians, people living with a disability, those who may be homeless or at risk of homelessness,  those experiencing family violence, and other Victorians who need affordable rental or private rental housing. 

The Specialist Disability Accommodation will be available to eligible people on the National Disability Insurance Scheme.  

Yes, previous residents have the right to return to the new homes once they are completed, based on their ongoing eligibility.  

The Essex Street site will be managed by community housing provider, Community Housing Limited (CHL). CHL will be based on site to provide tenancy management, maintenance and community engagement programs for residents.  

We invited the community to tell us their ideas to shape the future of the Essex Street site in June and July 2022. 

We also asked the community to provide feedback on the development plans for the project between November and December 2023. 

We received feedback during these consultations that helped inform the final plans for the redevelopment of the site. We would like to thank everyone who took part in this process. 

For more information about how we engaged the community and to view the consultation reports for this project, please visit our Engage Victoria webpage for the project. 

A Ground Lease Model is a partnership approach to delivering housing. Under the model, Homes Victoria leases land to a project group to finance, plan, build, manage and maintain housing for a 40-year term. 

After the 40 years the land and all homes are returned to Homes Victoria. This means there is no sale of public land. 

Building Communities is a not-for-profit project group that we appointed to deliver new homes under a Ground Lease Model at Essex Street in Prahran.  

The Building Communities consortium includes the builder ICON, and the community housing provider CHL.