Boomers drawn by sky farm into city centre living
LONDON: Boomers are being drawn into city centre living by the opportunity to tend a burgeoning sky farm enterprise.
A “Sky Farm” perched atop a city tower is set for expansion in a twist to its original plans.
The urban farm on a rooftop above a carpark has grown 1600kg of fruit and vegetables after a “soft launch” its creators believe provides a blueprint for future food production and a potential ease to the cost of living crisis.
Plans ticked off by the City of Melbourne approved construction of a cafe and farm gate on the rooftop overlooking the Yarra River, near the Melbourne Convention Centre and Seafarer’s precinct.
But Melbourne Skyfarm director Brendan Condon told the Herald Sun red tape had made those plans too expensive so a new strategy had been devised to instead fill the 2000 sqm space with more fruit and vegetable plots.
“The new fire regulations on old buildings made some of those original plans very expensive to deliver and a bit beyond our budget,” he said.
“So we’ve pivoted to expand a lot more urban farm, so there is much more expansive areas of food growing, rooftop fruit trees and the whole farm will expand out what we’ve already been doing over the last two years.”
The council in 2019 approved partial demolition and the use and development of the top level of 671-701 Flinders St, Docklands, to make way for the farm, nursery and event space.
It also tipped $300,000 into the project.
But a recent planning application seeks to remove the farmgate shop, cafe, a number of approved structures including a grand entry.
The new plans, expected to be determined by the end of this year, would add about 60 per cent more green spaces, roof top orchards and outdoor classrooms.
Mr Condon said a cafe and farm gate could be added in the future but the plans called for a “more simple design”.
“We won’t have as much built form, it will be a lot more urban greenery,” he said.
“It’s a very innovative and unique project for Melbourne.”
He said operators wanted to engage with schools, tertiary and corporate groups and could bring in coffee carts and pop up caterers to stage functions on the rooftop.
“We want to have lots of seeding and education spaces,” he said.
“We’re looking at 1000 school kids to come up to the rooftop and get their hands into some healthy soil, learn about our food system, composting, capturing rain water.
“And how to grow food really effectively in the middle of the city.”
The farm, which only needs watering twice a week, grows tomatoes, pumpkins, corn, bananas, egg plants, zucchini, leafy greens, basil, passionfruit, melons, plums, apples and olives.
He said the “thriving farm” that had been built on a “big blank concrete slab that gets very hot in the middle of summer” had drawn global interest.
“We see huge opportunities in our cities to build urban farms,” he said.
“The cost of food is going north, it’s a big part of our cost of living pressures.
“Melbourne is a very low density city with a lot of concrete, a lot of under-utilised spaces.
“There are huge number of rooftops where we could do similar things.”
