SRL East Precinct Planning: Independent Peer Review and Expert Witness

Project overview

SRL sits among Australia’s largest megaprojects, with the full project creating a new 90km orbital underground rail line connecting every major train service from the Frankston Line to the Werribee Line via Melbourne Airport.

The first stage of SRL, SRL East, was approved in 2022 and involves the delivery of twin 26-kilometre rail tunnels from Cheltenham to Box Hill and six new underground stations. Following that approval, SRLA progressed the preparation of structure plans for each of the 6 SRL East Precincts, informed by technical studies (including transport assessments) and ongoing consultation.

The new stations will support the delivery of 70,000 additional homes and more housing choice in the SRL East neighbourhoods – aligning transport and land use.

The role of each structure plan is to be a blueprint to guide how an area develops and changes over time. It sets out how growth within an area will be managed in an appropriate and sustainable way. Each structure plan considered transport matters, focussing on car parking management and improved active transport connections.

EUKAI’s role on the project

Eukai initially provided peer review advice to SRLA (via White and Case) across all six of the SRL precincts to inform the development of the Transport Technical Reports (TTRs) being prepared for each precinct to support the structure plans.

Each precinct sits in an existing or emerging activity centre with differing transport and land use landscapes. This peer review role spanned more than 9 months and concluded following the finalisation of the TTRs.

The finalised TTRs, the draft structure plans and draft planning scheme amendment (PSA) documentation, were exhibited in February 2025 for public consultation, with public hearings scheduled from August to December 2025. For this stage of the project, Eukai prepared and presented expert evidence at the public hearings for the Glen Waverley, Monash and Clayton precincts as well as the “General Matters” hearing.

Peer review of SRL precinct Transport Technical Reports (Integrated Transport Plans)

TTRs for each precinct were prepared by AJM on behalf of SRLA. To assist with their development, Eukai provided advice to help steer the reports, with the primary aims of:

·       Aligning the structure and content of the TTRs with relevant policies, guidelines and practice notes; 

·       Enhancing the robustness of the justification presented in the TTRs with respect to the recommended transport responses; 

·       Providing guidance on technical matters, such as car parking rates including the areas to which those rates apply; and 

·       Providing comment on matters that can be addressed as part of the subsequent stages

Providing expert transport evidence at the public hearings

Following the exhibition of the draft structure plans and draft PSA documentation, Eukai reviewed both the exhibited documentation and public submissions from Kingston and Monash Councils, Monash University, landowners and other interested parties.

Eukai then prepared and presented expert transport evidence at the public hearings for the Glen Waverley, Monash and Clayton precincts as well as the “General Matters” hearing.

Each evidence statement documented our review of the exhibited material and our recommendations, with the aim of assisting the Standing and Advisory Committee to enhance the material such that it can be finalised and gazetted in the planning scheme.

Specifically, the matters we assessed and presented evidence on at the hearings included:

·       The achievability and appropriateness of the target mode shifts

·       The appropriateness of the proposed pedestrian and cycling infrastructure in the precincts

·       The appropriateness of the proposed car and bicycle parking controls including rates of provision and design guidelines

·       The appropriateness of the proposed road networks including associated public acquisition overlays.

 The Panel report is set to be released in the first half of this year and all documents mentioned above can be found online.

For more information, contact Tim De Young or Hans Gao