Residential redevelopment of greyfield suburbs determinants of medium scale redevelopment

Urban redevelopment is an important issue facing Australian cities, and medium scale housing redevelopment has a key contribution in creating environmentally and economically sustainable cities for the future. However, this study of Melbourne greyfield redevelopment projects finds this type of redevelopment in only 16% of 6677 Melbourne greyfield statistical areas (effectively small `suburbs' called SA 1's) between 2004 and 2012. Medium scale redevelopment comprises projects delivering between 5-20 additional dwellings per lot, typically requiring some form of lot assembly among adjacent property owners. This paper examines five potential SAl (suburb-scale) determinants of medium scale redevelopment (distance from the CBD; level of public transport accessibility; percentage of lots with separate/detached dwellings; mean lot size and median sales price per in2), and one lot determinant of medium scale redevelopment (lot size). A cluster analysis is used to define six groups of small SA1 suburbs with significant differences in regard to the above potential determinants. Significant differences are also found between these clusters in terms of their redevelopment potential index and their level of medium scale redevelopment. A multi-level analysis confirms that the probability of a medium scale redevelopment for individual lots within any suburb also differs significantly between these clusters, with the effect of lot size significantly lower for the two most important medium scale redevelopment clusters. The results are confirmed using a second multi-level analysis based on the five SA I variables used to define redevelopment potential and to create the clusters.