Published: 29 July 2020
Last updated: 4 March 2024
[embed]https://thejewishindependent.com.au/video-and-podcast/lap-caulfield-park-ashley-browne/[/embed]
IT IS ONE OF THE favourite Friday night dinner conversations in Melbourne’s Jewish community. Who sold, who bought and what are they going to do with it.
Leading real estate agent Phillip Kingston is at the heart of those conversations, and he is urging Melbourne’s Jewish community, especially those who live in Caulfield and its surrounds, to embrace the growing population density of the area and the new dual occupancy residences that go with it.
Kingston, the director and co-founder of Gary Peer Real Estate Agents told Plus 61J’s Lap of Caulfield Park podcast that the area can easily handle more residents.
“Even if we just kept the residences to the main roads, they can handle much, much more density,” he said.
The streets that house so many of Melbourne’s Jewish community have undergone a huge transformation in the last 10 years with townhouses and apartment buildings springing up along all the major thoroughfares and increasingly down the side streets as well.
He said that that the objections of long-term residents to new developments were natural, but there is a reason why multi-dwelling buildings have become popular in the area.
“If you want your kids to live much closer to where they’re currently living, the politics of this has got to change,” he said. “It is a dilemma because bad, ugly developments makes us not want more development but development done really well encourages more.
“I think Caulfield is getting better and better. The increased population density is driving better parks, better facilities and even if I apply that to streetscapes…demand for cafes is growing, strip shopping centers are getting better, the shops that are on offer are better supported because the more people you have, the more people are going to shop at the local bakery or cafe.”
The proposal for an exclusive bike lane along Inkerman Street has drawn strong opposition from the local residents, but on the podcast Kingston explains why he supports it, while he has also urged local politicians from all sides to work together to bring to life plans to relocate Mount Scopus College from Burwood to the Caulfield Hospital site and to develop facilities for the entire community – not just the Jewish community – to go with it.
“Unfortunately, governments don’t have a great track record of doing things really well, (but) that’s an incredible site. It’s a game-changer for Caulfield and it should be done,” he said.
Other subjects he discusses in a wide ranging conversation include:
- His path from a farm outside Cootamundra to one of southeast Melbourne’s largest real estate agencies and the sliding doors moment when he first met Gary Peer.
- Auctioneering as a performance art and auctions as must-see events.
- The genesis of the now-famous coffee carts.
- How COVID-19 has affected the real estate industry.
- Work-life balance in a demanding, 24/7 profession.
- Why his holidays include…knocking on strangers’ doors to look inside their houses.
