Community’s Interest in Brownfield Development: A Case in Melbourne

Brownfield developments may be theoretically and practically approached as the method and process to convert previous industrial land with environmental concern that mitigates problem occurs in the urbanisation processes. Given rapid urban growth and land supply constraint, urban brownfield is becoming attractive to developers and local government. Along with research focus on developer and planner’s perspectives, this paper investigates local community’s involvement in and its impact on brownfield developments. Local community suffers cost and risk associate with brownfield development which can be easily discounted or even ignored in development phases. It is important to understand community’s concerns, involvement and impacts. A brownfield project from Melbourne is studied by questionnaire surveys and face-to-face interviews. The local community confirms their awareness of the project although their involvement is low because many claimed their lack of in-depth knowledge of project effects. Obstructions and lack of motivation at local community level in brownfield development impose policy challenge and social risk