For years, affordable housing has attracted families to Melbourne's west. But after a long housing boom and surge in real estate prices, residents say their neighbourhoods are changing.
It's a hot Thursday afternoon and Aaron Taylor is in the water, enjoying a swim in Port Phillip Bay with his two labradors, Buddy and Vader.
An unusual surge in pink jellyfish has put most locals off a cool dip on this afternoon.
But they haven't stopped Aaron smiling and splashing about.
On the sand, more people are out enjoying the warm weather.
A man sits topless on a bit of driftwood, chatting to people as they pass him by.
A samoyed chases a ball through the shallows and a couple of women walk ankle-deep in the water, going slowly, looking carefully for flashes of pink.
It's on this stretch of wide open beach that Aaron likes to relax — throwing balls to his dogs and unwinding after a day's work.
The chippie is only half-joking when he explains he moved to Altona, in Melbourne's south-west, to be close to this dog beach.
"I was coming here three times a week to bring my dog to the dog beach and the prices were just cheaper," he explains.
So 12 months ago, he moved out of Melbourne's inner-city and got a house with a bigger yard.
He says with more space "we ended up getting a dog for the dog" and his commute to the beach became a lot shorter.
He's part of a shift seen across the pandemic, of people moving out of higher density locations in search of bigger houses and yards or more affordable housing in the suburbs.
But here in Melbourne's west, population growth is not a new trend.
The region's traditionally lower property prices have been attracting people in big numbers for more than a decade.
The west was described as the "the fastest growing region of an already fastest-growing city" in a report by consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers back in 2018.
"These growth rates are borne out by the high rates of building approvals right across the west, but most particularly the outer west and south-west," it found.
It's been four years since that report, but Aaron reckons that housing boom has finally arrived in his part of the western suburbs.
"There is construction going up everywhere, townhouses everywhere and all the streets are turning into a carpark. You can see that is the change in Melbourne that is coming our way," he says.
Aaron moved further out from the city to get away from that busyness, but the tradie says he can now see the same inner-city construction trends following him to his new neighbourhood.
He reckons development has been a little slow in getting to Altona because of its industrial heritage.
It's a suburb best known for the oil refinery that sits at its northern entrance and the factories and manufacturing surrounding it.
For decades, these businesses provided jobs for many of the locals, who would travel up Millers Road each day to work.
"I think it [development] has just been delayed a little bit because it has been hidden behind the oil refinery and no-one is game to come this side of that," Aaron says.
But now a combination of surging house prices and a decline in that heavy industry has finally caught up to this little pocket of Melbourne.
The western side of Port Phillip Bay, and its beaches which sit a kilometre or two behind this industrial heartland, are transforming.
They are changes some of its residents are embracing, and changes that many also worry about.
Back in the water, as Aaron throws the ball to his dogs, he hopes some of that change leads to new local businesses in his neighbourhood.
"It could do with a bit more nightlife and a bit more foodwise," he reckons.
But he also fears his "quite hidden" little pocket of suburbia will become busier and more "yuppie".
He's not the only one to have noticed the construction and development in the area.
In his suburb, everyone has their own reflections on what should and shouldn't change.
An Australian dream, years in the making
From the dog beach, you need to follow the Esplanade, past old fishing piers, new mansions and a perfect view back to the city skyline, to get to Susan Hhi's fish and chip shop and ice-cream store.
On hot days when the beach attracts visitors from across the city, Susan and her family must get to work before 10am to make sure they can find a park.
"If we come late sometimes it can be half an hour looking for a park," Susan explains.
Local businesses and delivery drivers have, she says, noticed the beach becoming busier and parking trickier to find.
But on this Thursday evening, things are quieter.
Families wander across from Nippers training at the beach to order fish and chips while children play in the water.
For the past seven years, Susan, her husband and her young daughter have made this part of Melbourne home, but for many years this was just a dream.
She first visited Altona 20 years ago after moving to Melbourne from China with her husband.
"We heard from friends, they told us 'Oh there is a suburb that is close to the beach and the houses are not expensive'," Susan remembers.
"The first time we came here, we straight away liked it here, we wanted to buy a house here, we wanted to see the water every day."
For years, her family had to settle for day trips to the beach because their work was too far away to commute.
But on one of those visits in 2015, Susan noticed the fish and chip shop for sale and leapt at the chance to make the move.
Her family is part of a demographic shift being seen by real estate agents across the area, who have noticed younger families buying into the suburb.
Large drills and bulldozers are dotted along Susan's street, laying foundations for new homes and expanding those already there.
Just a few doors down the road from her shop, tradies have spent the day tearing down an older home. It's a trend Susan has noticed.
The small business owner welcomes the new developments popping up all over Altona.
"A lot of new townhouses, new apartments which is really good," she says.
She still appreciates the chance she had to move to her beachside suburb, but she knows surging house prices mean families must pay more than a million dollars to buy a house here now.
Susan sees the new apartment and townhouse developments as an important way for more affordable housing to be delivered to the area.
"It will give more people the opportunity to live in Altona. Not everyone needs the big house, not everyone needs the backyard, some people prefer the apartment," she says.
In the house his dad built, Peter has watched his suburb grow
Just back from the Esplanade, Peter Weaver tends to the fruit and vegetable garden that surrounds his house.
He started with just a lemon and lime tree and now says he is up to "33 fruit trees, five chickens … the nature strip has become a garden as well".
On his small suburban block every bit of space is used to grow and produce food.
A vine clings to Peter's fence, heavy with Japanese grapes that are not quite ripe yet, trout swim in tubs and strawberries and herbs grow in little containers along a wall.
But it wasn't always like this.
When Peter bought the house he grew up in from his mum, he ripped out more than 170 rose bushes from the yard.
The local real estate agent understands better than most the local tension between those who want to preserve what the suburb has been, and those who are ready for change.
His childhood was spent in this very house, during the suburb's first major growth spurt in the late 1960s and 1970s when the oil refinery and factories attracted families to the area.
"That is when Altona really boomed, because we had the migrant population, all of the factories were being built, the council could charge the factories for rates, so Altona council was one of the richest councils out," he remembers.
Peter's dad was a builder who constructed many of the houses for the new families to the area.
He was also a local mayor, who Peter says helped develop the region's infrastructure with rates from the factories.
But that industrial change also came at a huge personal cost to Peter's family.
In the late 1940s, right before the suburb took off, the land Peter's grandfather owned was forcibly acquired so the oil refinery could be built.
Peter says the traumatic loss of his home was "too much" for his grandfather and he later took his own life.
In his own family's history, Peter can see the story of his neighbourhood's pain and progress.
More recently, the realtor says he has enjoyed watching his suburb boom once again.
The surge in housing prices has been good for his business.
Last October was the best month of sales he has had in his 20-year real estate career.
"I think we were going up 10 or 15 per cent a month at that time," he says.
"You just couldn't read what a property was worth."
He has also enjoyed seeing more children and younger families in the area again.
"We went through the 80s and 90s where, especially [in] Altona, there were no kids and the schools all compressed and were closing and that community was lost," he says.
He says he's now seeing a band of young people move into the area who "care about the community".
While the factories once attracted families to the region, now he says it has been major government infrastructure projects.
In recent times he has noticed engineers and technical workers on the Victorian government's West Gate Tunnel and bridge-widening projects moving into the area.
"It was working-class factory workers when I was growing up, they were bogans, hate to say that word but they were," he says.
"Nowadays … there are a lot more fancy cars, a lot more professional people."
And while he believes this new boom is bringing life and energy back to the area, he also knows it is creating some tensions.
The local business owner says council needs to increase the density of the area as the city's population grows and provide more affordable housing options.
But he believes on some streets there has been "overkill where every house has been pulled down and two, three, four [townhouses] have been built in its place".
And he knows as prices surge, not everyone is a winner.
He says there is resentment from some locals who can see that their own children will not be able to afford to buy in their local neighbourhood.
It is something he knows personally – both his daughters have recently bought their first homes, but had to leave Altona to find cheaper housing options further west.
As a real estate agent, he knows similar stories are playing out across cities and towns around Australia.
New townhouses have paved the way to a sea change for Danny
Along the Altona beachfront, retired police officer Danny Civ loves to ride his bike.
In this part of Melbourne you can start on a bike path near the West Gate Bridge — the major link by road to Melbourne's west — and follow the water all the way to Hoppers Crossing in the outer west.
Danny says the path has "beautiful views of wetlands, of parklands … that was a major selling point for us".
He bought a townhouse in Altona in 2018, just a block back from that track, where he now lives with his two adult daughters.
Danny says when he retired from the force, his family decided to downsize from the larger house they had in Melbourne's north and move to a lower-maintenance townhouse.
"It had to be new or almost new, it had to have all the modern features like an alarm, intercom, air-conditioning, heating, low-maintenance kitchen," he says of his wishlist at the time.
He didn't want a big lawn to mow or a property that needed a lot of upkeep.
On his street, most of the blocks of land have been subdivided for townhouse developments.
"There is a trend now that a lot of the old 1950s homes on the big blocks are getting purchased by developers and then they are putting townhouses on that," Danny says of his neighbourhood.
He didn't want to live in an apartment building, but says these smaller blocks of land and gardens are perfect for his stage of life.
Danny says he has noticed local traffic getting busier and more cars parking on the street as developments have gone up.
"The thing with townhouses is you are putting more cars on the road because you are combining more people," he says.
For him, it has been a small price to pay for the chance to live in a new home by the beach.
A younger crowd has arrived, but facilities are battling to keep up
Head down Altona's main shopping strip and you'll go past plenty of beach cafes, hairdressing salons and gyms, before you eventually get to the Hobsons Bay City Council building.
Its large, low-rise headquarters sits behind perfectly manicured gardens and next to the the local bowling club.
It's here that councillor Daria Kellander represents residents from this part of the shire.
She was born and raised in the western suburbs of Melbourne and has also watched the region change.
She says 10 years ago when she was trying to buy her own home, the shortage of housing in the area was obvious.
"There was a small amount of houses and as horrible as it is to say, you would have to wait for somebody to to pass away or make a decision to downsize, before you could find a place to live," she remembers.
In the decade since, she says, Hobsons Bay City Council has had to balance the need for more housing in the area while also making sure Altona retains older suburban blocks and family homes.
While Aaron and Susan have noticed housing projects being built all over their neighbourhoods, Ms Kellander describes the suburb's growth as modest.
Council provided the ABC with data showing it had received between 51 and 63 development applications for additional dwellings in Altona each year for the past five years.
The council approved between 24 and 58 subdivisions each year for that time period.
But that data doesn't show the total number of extra dwellings approved for construction each year and it doesn't distinguish between townhouse and apartment building developments, so it is hard from those numbers to get a detailed sense of the change residents are noticing.
Like Peter, Ms Kellander has noticed a big generational shift in the area, with a lot of young families moving in from other parts of Melbourne.
That's brought a significant shift in community needs and the councillor says some infrastructure has struggled to keep up.
She says the only pool in the area where local children can learn to swim is already incredibly busy and she'd like to see funding go towards a new public pool.
It's not the only community facility Ms Kellander says there needs to be a focus on.
She says things like playgrounds and childcare are also important for the younger families moving in.
Ms Kellander says she personally experienced the area's growing pains when she tried to find a childcare place for her young daughter.
"I actually started looking when I was 15 weeks pregnant and I found it impossible to get a placement when she was 12 months [old]," she says.
Since then, council and the Victorian government have funded a new childcare hub for the area.
"That had 175 places for children aged sort of zero to four and that booked out within weeks of opening," Ms Kellander says.
It is the kind of issue, often seen in areas growing or changing quickly.
From her seat by the beach, Ava's watched her suburb evolve
Across the road from Altona's main beach and its Norfork Pines, Ava Jurcic sits in her bathers and hat, keeping score of a game of cards she is playing with three friends.
For 40 years she and her friends have held picnics here.
"In the park we really do love [it] because the car park is free and not only that, we have the shops here," Ava explains.
The friends swim, eat, play bocce and cards.
Ava says often the friends bring their own lunch, but other times they wander across to the local cafes.
Sometimes there are more than 20 people, today there are less than 10.
"The most important bit, we are all together," Ava says.
The friends all migrated to Australia from Croatia as young adults.
They built lives across Melbourne – travelling here to the beach from all over the city for their regular catch-ups.
Altona beach has been a big part of what Ava's friend describes as their "second life" in Australia.
As the group has aged, their numbers have declined.
Ava says seven of their friends are no longer with them.
But on this Thursday, with the sun and their cards out, Ava says she is grateful to be here enjoying life with her mates.
She has also noticed her favourite beach spot getting busier.
"When it is a public holiday, this park you cannot move," Ava says.
And Ava has noticed new housing going up in the area.
But she doesn't worry about the suburb's development, it hasn't affected the most important thing about the area for the retiree.
Because here, Ava can still see the beach from her picnic spot, the parking is still free and her friends are still good company.
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Credits
Reporting and production: Elise Kinsella
Photography: Danielle Bonica and Patrick Rocca
Editing: Kate Higgins and Joseph Dunstan
