Croydon Community Wellbeing Precinct

The CCWP Masterplan guides the redevelopment of the precinct, with a focus on improved connectivity of key aspects of the area, including recreational hubs, retail, Croydon Town Square, services and public transport.

The Croydon Community Wellbeing Precinct masterplan will ensure the precinct has a focus on being a place of belonging, enjoyment, support, safety, connection, learning and growth.

It will bring together a range of community services, programs, and activities for people of all ages, in accessible and integrated community hubs, and within a parkland setting. The Precinct also contains other community and recreational facilities such as a Library, RSL, Bowls Club, Scout Hall, Youth Centre, Senior Citizen’s Centre and early childhood services.

Since the masterplan for this area was endorsed in 2018, works completed include the redevelopment of the former Croydon Council Offices into a hub for local community groups including U3A Croydon, Croydon Senior Citizens, Meals on Wheels and Occasional Child Care. Council’s Youth Services will also soon call this hub home.

This multigenerational hub provides a welcoming space for people of all ages, allowing groups to run programs and activities for the community whilst mingling and collaborating with others.

Consultation with the community and key stakeholders has helped to create a shared vision for the precinct:

• The Croydon Community Wellbeing Precinct reflects and facilitates the community we aspire to be, where people know and support each other, and feel a strong sense of belonging.
• The Precinct brings together a range of community services, programs and activities for people of all ages and abilities, within a parkland setting.
• The village feel and local character of Croydon is preserved through excellence in urban design, and with improved pedestrian connectivity with links to Croydon Main Street and Croydon rail and bus interchange.
• The accessible and integrated community hubs create opportunities for social connection; improved health and wellbeing; and exciting opportunities to bring together new learning experiences that raise the wellbeing of our community.
• Importantly the precinct provides links to our cultural heritage and history, while also providing flexibility to meet the current and future needs of the community.

The current Croydon Civic precinct contains a significant number of separate community facilities that are occupied by a number of community groups and sporting clubs. These facilities have reached the end of their useful life, are no longer fit for purpose, and don’t meet the future needs of the community groups, sporting clubs, and the broader community.

Council has undertaken a masterplan for the redevelopment of the Croydon Civic precinct to facilitate the creation of a new Croydon Community Wellbeing Precinct that will include elements such as, community hubs, enhanced open space, enhanced accessibility and connectivity, and potential development sites.

A community/cultural hub is a conveniently located public facility that is recognised and valued in the local community as a gathering place for people and an access point for a wide range of community activities, programs, services and events.

The hubs in the Croydon Community Wellbeing Precinct will be focused on enhanced community wellbeing for all ages and abilities.

The current pond at Croydon Library is in poor condition and as such, the proposal is to retain an enhanced, smaller, water body, that complements the facilities and open space areas in the precinct. This will form part of the future staging, and will include further community consultation and design.

The Masterplan envisages parking within the precinct to facilitate access for all within close proximity to the buildings.

Existing council parking facilities in the precinct will also complement the development.

The hubs are within walking distance to the Croydon Station and Bus interchange with bus stops also located along Mt Dandenong Road. The newly built Devon Street multi-deck car park is also well positioned in close proximity to the precinct.

The façade of EV’s Youth Centre, formally Croydon Hall, has local heritage significance, and is intended to be retained and incorporated into the design and construction of the new cultural hub. The artist impressions above best represent the intentions for this Heritage aspect.

This Heritage Victoria listed building will be retained on-site and enhanced as part of the project. A separate Heritage Victoria Planning Process will be undertaken for this portion of the site as a further stage of the project.

Listed community groups have already been or will be relocated within the precinct during various stages of construction. We are working closely with all groups currently operating on the site to make sure their needs are met.

Information will be available during the Planning Process.

The Masterplan sets out an objective to connect a pedestrian spine through the precinct. This is still the case and will continue to develop through further project stages.

The cultural hub will be a 5 Star Greenstar accredited and certified building and will include measures such as Solar Power, Rainwater Harvesting and Low-carbon Materials.

The Masterplan sets out the expectation for enhanced open space throughout the precinct. This is still the objective. The development of the cultural hub sees the start of that objective being realised. Over future stages of the project further open space planning and design will occur and the community will be involved in this development.

Council has received funding from the Australian Government to provide a community performance and events space for local creatives.

This space will service the missing link in smaller scale performance and presentation spaces in Maroondah.

Features include:

• Small to medium scale theatre space to seat approximately 160 patrons.
• Versatile space with retractable seating based on a black box model
• Accessible and inclusive space design to meet the needs of our diverse community
• Mixed use space to meet the needs of smaller scale productions and user groups
• Regular and casual hire groups

The Masterplan informed the land usage around the precinct. Since that time, further detailed work has informed the design to date.

An updated Masterplan for the area is currently being prepared to provide a detailed overview of the precinct and its future works.

This is expected to be approved in the next few weeks.

Along with being home to the new Croydon Library, and a Council’s customer service centre, a wide range of community organisations and groups will utilise the many facilities available in the hub. On the top floor, we are working with key community partners to attract services to the hub that will add value to the community and support them with their wellbeing.