Curating Communities

A clutch of developers who cultivate design values and sustainability are seeding enduring boutique multi-family settlements in the inner city.

- Stephen Todd

WHEN MELBURNIAN Michael McCormack couldn’t find a house in a neighbourhood he and his wife wanted to live in at a price they could afford, he decided to become a property developer. So Milieu was born in December 2010, when he was just 28.

“I bought a block of land in Fitzroy with a terrace house on it, demolished it and built five townhouses for us and people like us who didn’t want to live too far out or in an inner-city tower block,” he explains. “We’re interested in the idea of community, sustainability and good design. All our projects are kind of pitched to ourselves,” ‘ourselves’ being partners Shannon Peach and Ross Troon and others in his immediate milieu.

McCormack, as the grandson of a carpenter and with a degree in construction management and an understanding of law, may not be typical, but he is emblematic of a new spirit in the development sector. Polyester pants and hard profit are no longer the driving forces for a generation of developers who were born looking down the barrel of a housing crisis. “When we started we had very little cash so we would take all the more challenging sites – the tight, bizarre little blocks of land that nobody else could figure out,” says McCormack.

By finding design solutions to spatial problems Milieu quickly made a name for itself as a savvy, solution-oriented development group. It was never about glitz, but the true grit of inner urban living definitely had its appeal. Milieu is active in Melbourne’s inner-northern suburbs, McCormack’s home turf, always close to amenities such as public transport and schools.