The City of Melbourne has released its Draft Budget 2026–27, outlining a $26 million investment in the city’s green spaces, including the delivery of 13 new or upgraded parks and public outdoor spaces in the CBD and surrounds.
One of the council’s key projects includes the city’s largest park in more than 50 years, dubbed Market Square, as part of the Gurrowa Place precinct at Queen Victoria Market, designed by NH Architecture, Kerstin Thompson Architects, Searle x Waldron Architecture, Jackson Clements Burrows, Openwork, Lovell Chen and Urbis, and previously 3XN Australia and McGregor Coxall.
Sited atop the former Old Melbourne Cemetery, the 1.8-hectare public park is set to replace the market’s current open-air car park. A plan to increase greenery on Franklin Street, linking to the market, is also part of the draft budget, as is funding for stage two of the $7.8 million University Square upgrade in Carlton, and an investment in a new 2,500-square-metre open space through the Chapman Street pocket park in North Melbourne.
In Kensington, in the city’s inner north-east, $6.4 million has been allocated to transform a warehouse into a community space at Chelmsford Street on the edge of the Moonee Ponds Creek, in the vicinity of the Younghusband precinct – a collection of historic wool sheds that were converted in 2025 into offices and retail spaces to a design by Woods Bagot.
On the south side of the city, the draft budget includes $5.5 million for a new 5,000-square-metre public space along the City Road undercroft beneath Kings Way. The planned recreation space will sit directly opposite the newly opened Hannah Street Hotel by Flack Studio and Fraser and Partners Architects, and link with nearby Boyd Park and Boyd Community Hub.
With a 450-metre section of new boardwalk at Birrarung Marr, on the northern bank of the Yarra River, now complete, the draft budget also accounts for further planning on the next stages of the four-kilometre Greenline project, to which the federal government has committed $4.4 million. Elsewhere in the south, the City of Melbourne’s funding plans include expanding reserves at Miles and Dodds streets in Southbank and at Normanby Road in South Melbourne.
Lord Mayor Nick Reece said that Melbourne was “leading the way as Australia’s Garden City.”
“We’re building a green legacy for a bigger, busier and more vibrant city,” he said, commenting that the 13 new and upgraded green spaces would be “delivered at record speed and scale.”
The Draft Budget 2026–27 is open for public consultation on the City of Melbourne’s website until 28 April.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
