Business Network Lunch
@ 100 Park Street, South Melbourne VIC 3004
On Thursday 31st March, Larry Dimasi was invited to attend a luncheon at 12.30pm in Melbourne facilitated by Chris Batzios from ResCom. The luncheon brought together twelve business representatives from the fields of finance, insurance, real estate and entrepreneurs. Apart from Larry, all the attendees were from metropolitan Melbourne. The luncheon was instigated by the financiers to explore real opportunities for growth and development in regional areas.
Larry was invited to talk about Mildura and the benefits of working in a regional area which has been growing rapidly in the last fifteen years and continues in an upward trend. The financiers were looking to Larry to explore opportunities based on residential growth, land development, infrastructure with the main focus being on green field site development with access to existing infrastructure. Larry’s focus was to present Mildura as a primary growth area as representative of many regional areas beyond Bendigo and Ballarat.
The main outcomes of this forum was the demand for community based infrastructure including tourist and serviced accommodation, education facilities, medical centres, nursing homes, retirement villages, commercial based developments and manufacturing. There was also an acknowledgement of the cost and efficiency of developing these on green field based sites as it amounts to faster approvals from a planning perspective.
Local Council is encouraging community based developments, yet financial and commitment support is generally lacking from state and federal governments. They seem resistant to spending in regional communities beyond the cities which are an easy commute to Melbourne.
Private developers have an immediate advantage in facilitating these regional developments due to the constant demand for community based facilities generated by population growth. There is also the opportunity to relocate large private and government departments to regional centres. These businesses can be located in regional areas without incurring any major restructuring of road networks or infrastructure and with out adding any stress to suburban growth. This is a major contrast to metropolitan Melbourne where infrastructure demands on road, transport, water and power utilities as well as economics play a more interactive role in growth.
They key to growth in regional areas is simple – it is all dependant on permanent job creation. When job creation occurs, development opportunities are created. Then population growth occurs efficiently, cost effectively and with access to a quality lifestyle.
