The illegal demolition of the Corkman Hotel is set to be followed by further affronts to the public realm in the inner suburbs, this time government-sanctioned.

Not far to the north east, on a picturesque spot near the Merri Creek gorge in Northcote, the Walker Street public housing estate is to be demolished and sold off to a private developer for a huge new apartment complex, one of the first under the state government’s public housing renewal program.

The Merri flows through Melbourne's northern suburbs before joining the Yarra. Credit:Justin McManus

The program, part of the government’s "Homes for Victorians" initiative, will use seed funding of $185 million to expand community housing by handing over nine inner and middle suburban "walk-up" public housing estates in need of redevelopment to private developers. In exchange, a proportion of the new apartments – at least 10 per cent more than existed on each site previously – would be reserved for community housing.

Touted as a way of improving the lives of public tenants and addressing the shortage of public housing in Victoria, plans now released for community comment by the developer reveal its dismal social reality and environmental cost.