Altona's Harwick Flats Gets Rezoned for Mixed-Use Development

Altona's planning department has quietly scheduled a formal rezoning hearing for Harwick Flats, the low-density residential pocket wedged between Caldwell Road and the Eastern Rail Corridor, for September 11, 2026. If the proposal clears the Altona Municipal Planning Tribunal, roughly 140 hectares of single-storey housing stock will shift to a Mixed-Use Zone 3 designation, unlocking mid-rise development of up to eight storeys along the Caldwell Road frontage.

The timing matters. Altona's wider housing market has absorbed three consecutive quarters of price growth, and supply in established inner suburbs has tightened sharply. The median house price across the city hit $612,000 in the June 2026 quarter, according to the Altona Property Institute's quarterly index, up 9.4 percent on the same period in 2025. Harwick Flats, by contrast, is still trading at a significant discount: freestanding homes on Rendell Street and the northern end of Pelham Grove have been changing hands for between $390,000 and $430,000 through the first half of this year. That gap is what has agents talking.

Why Harwick Flats Has Been Ignored, Until Now

The suburb spent the better part of a decade stuck in planning limbo. An earlier rezoning push in 2019 was shelved after community objections centred on traffic modelling for the Caldwell Road and Minter Avenue intersection, which the council's own engineers rated as already operating above capacity. The Eastern Rail Corridor upgrade completed in March 2025 changed the arithmetic. The new Harwick Flats Station, opened as part of the $340 million Altona Inner Rail Renewal project, added a direct 14-minute link to the Central Business Precinct, and that commute time has rewritten how planners and developers see the area.

The Altona Urban Land Authority flagged Harwick Flats in its 2026-2031 Growth Corridor strategy paper published in February, describing the corridor between Caldwell Road and the rail reserve as a priority precinct for residential intensification. The document identified capacity for between 2,800 and 3,400 new dwellings over a ten-year build-out horizon, contingent on the rezoning proceeding. The Altona Community Housing Alliance has already submitted a formal proposal requesting that any rezoning approval include a 15 percent affordable housing set-aside on developments exceeding 20 units.

What Buyers and Investors Should Watch

Two specific sites are attracting serious developer interest ahead of the September hearing. The former Rendell Street Bus Depot, a 1.2-hectare council-owned parcel that has sat vacant since 2022, is understood to be the subject of at least three confidential expressions of interest. The Pelham Grove shopping strip, currently dominated by a handful of independent retailers and a branch of the Altona Credit Union, sits within the proposed MUZ3 boundary and would become a permissible site for ground-floor commercial with residential above.

Buyers targeting the suburb before a rezoning decision carries real risk. Councils do reject or substantially water down proposals, the 2019 collapse is a live example here, and a failed hearing in September would likely stall any price premium. The smarter play, according to analysis from the Altona Property Institute, is to target properties with large lot sizes above 650 square metres on the Caldwell Road side of the suburb, where the density uplift, if approved, would be most pronounced. Lots in that configuration are currently listed in the $440,000 to $475,000 range.

The September 11 hearing is open to public submissions until August 15. The Altona Municipal Planning Tribunal will publish its final determination within 60 days of the hearing date, meaning a decision could land by mid-November 2026, before the traditionally active spring selling season winds down. Investors who have done their homework will be watching that date closely.

This article is general information only and is not personal financial or investment advice. Consider your own circumstances and seek licensed professional advice before making financial decisions.