Melbourne University academics Kate Shaw and Abdullahi Jama in front of public (left), and private (right) apartments. Credit:Justin McManus The report's release comes as debate escalates over the Andrews government's plan to replicate the Carlton model at nine other inner-city public housing estates. The government intends to demolish dilapidated low-rise public housing estates in Northcote, Brunswick West, Heidelberg West, North Melbourne, Clifton Hill, Flemington, Prahran, Hawthorn and Preston. Once the estates are demolished, the land will be sold to developers, which will rebuild both public and private apartments. It is likely the final mix of these estates will be about one-third public housing and two-thirds private. The $185 million Public Housing Renewal Program is designed to increase by at least 10 per cent the amount of housing for the disadvantaged in Melbourne.

The old walk-up apartments on one of the Carlton public housing estates. They have now been demolished. Credit:Victorian government Like Carlton, it also promises to "foster an integrated community" on the estates between public housing residents and private owners. But urban geographer Kate Shaw, one of the authors of the Melbourne University paper, said the results of the Carlton public-private partnership should serve as a warning to government, not an encouragement to follow such a model. One of the public-private housing developments in Carlton the government is using as a model for the redevelopment plan. Credit:Eddie Jim "The Carlton model is a little like keeping the front of the house warm by chopping up the back for firewood," Dr Shaw said. "It is unsustainable. At some point, further investment will be required and there will be no land left to sell."

The Carlton redevelopment was proposed as a cutting-edge "salt-and-pepper" mix of public and private dwellings scattered throughout the same buildings. But as the project progressed, developers demanded separate blocks of private and public dwellings. All of the buildings built as part of the redevelopment are separated according to whether the tenants are public or private, with separate entrance halls and parking lots and some also facing different streets. The private residents of apartment buildings on Lygon and Rathdowne streets even have exclusive access to a garden courtyard that residents in the neighbouring public building can only look at from their balconies. Public tenants are also separated from this garden by a 1.8 metre wall. Marketing material from developer Frasers (formerly Australand), which sold the private apartments in 2009, promoted this garden as "private, quiet and secure". Carlton was the second public housing estate to have been carved up and redeveloped by the private sector; the low-rise apartments in the Kensington estate were redeveloped from 2001.

The paper finds that the policy of "improving social mix" on public housing estates has been used as a way of covering up the politically unacceptable practice of displacing tenants and selling the land they lived on to developers. The other author of the Melbourne University report, Abdullahi Jama, grew up on the Carlton estate and was moved to other public housing when it was demolished. He and Dr Shaw interviewed public and private residents, one of the developers and those employed on the estate, as part of their research. Among them was Mary Parfrey, who has managed the Carlton Neighbourhood Learning Centre near the estate for 20 years. She said the developers selected by the government had demanded separation for private apartments from public housing. "Living next to public housing was definitely seen as undesirable [by the developer]," Ms Parfrey said. The Age asked Housing Minister Martin Foley how similar the outcome for the nine estates to be rebuilt would be to Carlton.

His spokeswoman did not respond directly to those questions, instead saying that consultations with tenants on the nine estates "have commenced and will continue". She said the plan to redevelop the estates was "in the early stages" and the government was "seeking responses from community housing organisations, financiers and developers". "The process is asking interested agencies to give examples on how they can produce the best outcomes for tenants, the 35,000 people on the public housing waiting list and the thousands of homeless people in Victoria," she said. Raoul Wainwright, a spokesman for the Victorian Public Tenants Association, said the report should be compulsory reading for all public housing decision makers. Loading

"Politicians and planners should be made to stand at the wall of Carlton to contemplate what not to do – we need less barriers between public tenants and private," he said. He said investment in public housing should not be "spasmodic", but rather "a normal part of budgetary planning".