The Carlton Association was a community action group that campaigned on behalf of residents of the suburb of Carlton in Melbourne, Australia, between the years 1969 and 1993. The group was involved in protests against some of the most controversial redevelopment plans in the city’s history and was arguably the most politically successful residents’ action group that Melbourne has seen.
Beginnings
The Association was formed in March 1969 by residents of Carlton and neighbouring Carlton North, in order to mobilise opposition to the Housing Commission of Victoria's (HCV) plans to redevelop large tracts of the two suburbs under its program of slum clearance. The HCV had long considered much of the housing stock of the inner suburbs of Melbourne to be unfit for habitation. The Commission’s modus operandi involved the compulsory acquisition of dwellings in a designated block, the wholesale demolition of these, and construction of high-rise flats of public housing. The commission flats, as they are known to locals, feature prominently in the skyline of Melbourne’s inner suburbs to this day. The first such complex of high-rise Commission flats in Carlton, announced in 1957, was constructed in the block bordered by Lygon, Rathdowne, Princes and Neill Streets. Despite vocal protests by residents whose houses were ‘reclaimed’ to make way for this development, the response from the Commission to these and other voices of opposition was invariably that ‘broader community goals must take preference over individual interests’.
When additional plans to redevelop of Carlton emerged in the mid-1960s, a group of Carlton traders published a vociferous pamphlet attacking the proposal under the title “HANDS OFF CARLTON”. Whilst the long-term goal of the Commission was to redevelop this entire block of land, the Commissioners focused their immediate attention on a smaller parcel of land within this selected area: the block bounded by Lee, Lygon, Princes and Drummond Streets in Carlton North, containing nineteenth century terrace housing. However, this proposal was met with significantly more opposition from locals, who, this time around, were able to organise themselves effectively.
First meeting
The first public meeting of what would become the Carlton Association was held on 17 March 1969 at St Michael’s Hall in Princes Hill. It was attended by 170 Carltonians who heard fiery speeches from residents whose homes were threatened. The meeting concluded with the election of a ten-person committee and a plan for action. The Committee decided upon an organisational structure that would best enable the Association to address the central concerns of residents. In addition to three permanent sub-committees (architecture and town planning, community services and education), action groups would be established to respond to urgent concerns. The first of these action groups got to work immediately on the most pressing matter: the proposed demolition of the Lee Street block.
The action group prepared the case for preserving the existing buildings in a report addressed to the Commission. This report contained a comprehensive analysis of the block, demonstrating the historical significance and structural soundness of the buildings, the acceptable level of sanitation and the lack of ‘overcrowding’. It argued that there were no reasonable grounds upon which the houses could be demolished. Moreover, it challenged the HCV to prove that the area constituted a slum. The Carlton Association represented the views of many Melburnians in its warning to the Commission that “posterity will be justifiably angry if we permit destruction of this and similar areas – destruction of the historic heart of Melbourne.” However, the Commissioners were unable to see it this way, convinced as they were that the condition of ‘slum areas’ that had shocked the public during the Depression could never be rehabilitated.