SPEAKERS

Feasibility is the silent veto on every ambitious project in Melbourne right now. Construction costs up more than 40% since COVID, banks retreating from development lending, a $50 billion gap being filled by expensive non bank finance, and the NCC 2025 becoming mandatory in Victoria in May, forcing developers to remodel feasibility from scratch. 

Behind the maths, good design quietly gets stripped back, public space gets cut, and ambitious planning outcomes get traded before the project even gets off the ground.

This conversation brings together perspectives across civic leadership, architecture, development, construction and property economics to explore what it really takes to create places that balance commercial reality with long-term value for people and cities.

The conversation will cover:

• What's actually killing good places at the feasibility stage, and who has the power to stop it.

• Is the property sector bad at measuring and pricing the long term value of better places, or is the value genuinely not there?

• How designers, developers, government and investors can align earlier to balance ambition, feasibility and long term outcomes when the numbers are tight.

• How we protect design intent through cost pressure, procurement and delivery.

• What role local government can play in making good projects viable, not just approvable.

• Who carries the cost of doing better, and what needs to change in policy, funding and industry collaboration to make better places easier to deliver.