Yarra City Council manages a significant property portfolio on behalf of the community.

We are responsible for all property management functions for buildings owned by Council. This includes the investment, acquisition, operation, maintenance, and disposal of properties. To support and govern this, Council adopted its first Property Strategy in 2018.

We're building on the previous Strategy to provide a more comprehensive property management approach. The revised Strategy includes a clear decision-making framework to guide how Council manages its properties and ensure that everyone in our community can fairly access and benefit from our properties.

The revised Strategy also sets out a series of strategic property objectives to guide our work in this space moving forward.

From 31 May to 24 June 2024, we asked the community to share whether they thought we needed to add anything further to the draft Property Strategy before it was considered for adoption by Council.

The community were asked to review the draft Property Strategy and answer two open-ended questions:

• Have we missed anything in the draft Property Strategy that you think is important to include?

• Do you have any other comments about the draft Property Strategy?

What did we hear?

We heard seven key themes of feedback throughout the engagement:

1. Feedback on the proposed officer delegations for the acquisition and disposal of property
2. Concern that properties will be sold to generate income and repay Council debt
3. Concern that community properties will be sold without consultation
4. Suggestion that the 2018 Yarra Property Strategy does not need to be updated
5. Varying views on whether Council should sell property
6. Unique suggestions on how we could improve the strategy
7. Support for the property strategy

The following changes were made in response to the feedback we received during the consultation and internal reviews:

• property acquisitions and sales are the decision of the elected Council
• including community consultation requirements as set out in the Local Government Act in the strategy to ensure transparency
• increasing the typical lease or license term from three years to five years

Additional wording and formatting changes were also made to refine some parts of the Strategy and improve its clarity.

What comes next?

The revised Property Strategy was adopted at the Council Meeting on Tuesday 8 April 2025. View the agenda and minutes of the meeting.

There will be a review of the Strategy in 12 months to ensure its effectiveness. Work is also currently underway to develop a property register that lists all of Council’s properties.

Visit the project page.

To learn more about this consultation please visit the Property Strategy project page.