Future Docklands? Fishermans Bend ‘Miyawaki’ forest a promising step for green space

A “Miyawaki” micro forest inspired by a famed Japanese botanist and filled with native greenery is slated for Fishermans Bend under a plan some hope will avoid a repeat of a Dockland’s concrete jungle.

Malaysia-based developer Gamuda Land wants to build a 20-storey building with retail space and 200 apartments on the 2600 square metre former home of Dunlop Rubber on Normanby Road.

However, next to the tower, Gamuda intends to create an urban forest within a new 3000-square-metre public park. Asphalt would be replaced with green space by permanently closing part of Johnson Street in South Melbourne.

A render showing part of Gamuda’s planned building and forest.

Fishermans Bend – an industrial precinct in South Melbourne and Port Melbourne – is forecast to be home to 80,000 people by 2050, with plans to build apartment towers, schools, parks, roads and public transport.

Former planning minister, now outgoing Liberal opposition leader, Matthew Guy, rezoned the area from “industrial” to “CBD zone” in 2012.

The urban renewal project is Australia’s largest and the government has set ambitious greening targets, including a goal to deliver 50 per cent tree canopy coverage in public spaces by 2040.

Gamuda’s plans are yet to be formally approved but have been conditionally endorsed by Port Phillip Council. A decision is expected from the planning minister next year.

The developer intends to use a method pioneered by Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki to create its micro forest.

The planting technique involves restoring native habitats in urban areas by delivering dense, miniature forests where trees can grow 10 times faster than usual. The method has been applied to recent projects in Sydney and Canberra.

Gamuda’s Australian general manager Jarrod Tai said the north side of the park would take in the forest, while to the south there would be a grassed area for picnics that would act as a wetland for flood mitigation.

Tai said the company had successfully applied the Miyawaki method to its Malaysian projects and had consulted local biodiversity groups and Indigenous urban design advisers for its Fishermans Bend plan.

“We wanted to create a park that would be a homage to the pre-industrial time of the area,” he said.

If approved, construction on the building and park is expected to begin next year for completion by 2025.

Gamuda Land’s Australian general manager Jarrod Tai at the Fishermans Bend site.

RMIT professor of urban planning and sustainability Sarah Bekessy said Fishermans Bend offered an opportunity to demonstrate best practice urban design and bring back nature.

“It requires a lot of focus and constant attention to ensure it doesn’t get [costed] out,” she said.

“Planning decisions around releasing that land for urban development happened extremely quickly without providing much thought to urban greening.”

Bekessy said the Victorian government had to provide strict oversight on the kinds of developments and greening outcomes it was approving.

“This is going to be a huge part of Melbourne. If we have a repeat of Docklands it will be on the government’s head,” she said.

How the planned “Miyawaki” micro forest in Fishermans Bend could look. Credit:Gamuda Land

Anthropologist Dr Heather Threadgold is co-director of Aboriginal urban design advisory firm Murri:Yul with Wadawurrung woman Melinda Kennedy. Both are working with Gamuda on the Johnson Street park.

“We see a lot of good and bad practice in our field,” Threadgold said. “A lot of development gets rushed and is generic in its process and design, but this is very different.”

Threadgold said she and Kennedy embedded Indigenous perspectives on landscape and the park will be planted with natives including tea trees, gums, wattle and salt bush.

“For this project we went right back to the pre-colonial era … and this space consisted of kangaroo grounds and low-lying wetlands.”

Emma Cutting, head of the community group, the Heart Gardening Project, said she had been approached by Tai to help ensure the park supports the Melbourne Pollinator Corridor – an unbroken green link for pollinating insects from Port Melbourne to the Royal Botanic Gardens in South Yarra.

“I really hope this is the start of developers seeing that it doesn’t take a lot to think about our local biodiversity,” Cutting said.

Gamuda’s project will replace the former home of Dunlop Rubber Company.

Bernadene Voss, former Port Phillip mayor and now president of the Fishermans Bend Business Forum, said with a dearth of parkland in the area, the community would welcome any increase in green space.

“It’s the only development I’m aware of that is making significant green space on the ground for the wider community,” Voss said.

Tai said Gamuda was working with Port Phillip Council to minimise traffic impacts from the permanent road closure, including upgrading the Johnson Street and Normanby Road intersection.

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