Former planning minister Matthew Guy shunned the early warnings of his own top planning officials when he launched Australia's largest urban renewal project without a clear plan or finance for community infrastructure including transport, open space and affordable housing.

Confidential departmental briefs from early 2011 to 2013 obtained by The Sunday Age, reveal how senior bureaucrats urged Mr Guy to buy key strategic sites before allowing redevelopment of industrial Port and South Melbourne to create the Fishermans Bend precinct.

"Lack of investment in such sites is likely to result in sub-optimal market responses and development outcomes," warned department heads in one of the briefs from early 2011. "Such outcomes are difficult to revisit late for further improvement and development."

The state's most senior planning bureaucrats also told Mr Guy that he should ensure gradual development from a hub centred on public transport. The lack of a central focal point dogged the progress of the Docklands precinct for years. And they called for some existing industries to be protected from residential redevelopment.