Jacana, Victoria

Infobox Australian Place | type = suburb
name = Jacana
city = Melbourne
state = vic

|200px
caption = Jacana Railway Station
lga = City of Hume
postcode = 3047
pop = 1,963 (2006) Census 2006 AUS | id = SSC21357 | name = Jacana (State Suburb) | accessdate = 2007-09-17 | quick = on]
area = 1.2
est = 1920s
propval = $205,000 [ [http://www.domain.com.au/public/suburbprofile.aspx?suburb=Jacana&postcode=3047 Jacana] , accessed 27 November 2006]
stategov = Broadmeadows
fedgov = Calwell
dist1 = 16
location1= Melbourne
dist2 =
location2=
near-nw = Westmeadows
near-n = Westmeadows
near-ne = Broadmeadows
near-w = Gladstone Park
near-e = Glenroy
near-sw =
near-s = Gowanbrae
near-se = Glenroy

Jacana is a small suburb in Melbourne, Australia, situated north of the Western Ring Road, south of Johnstone Street and between the Craigieburn railway line and Moonee Ponds Creek. At the 2006 Census, Jacana had a population of 1,963.

History

The name Jacana was applied to an area between Broadmeadows and Glenroy in the 1950s by the Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV). The name comes from Jacana Street, to the east of the Craigieburn railway line (therefore, technically not "in" Jacana itself). Both the street and the suburb are slightly to the north of the Jacana railway station, which was built to service the suburb in 1959. However, Jacana as a built landscape did not spring fully-formed under the aegis of the HCV.

The streets in the southern section of Jacana were laid out in 1923 when 861 lots were offered for sale on land which had formerly been owned by Duncan Kennedy, a farmer in the area from the mid-1840s. The Housing Commission retitled some of the streets (for instance, the jokingly-named Emu Parade and Sunset Boulevarde) and built most of the housing stock in this section of Jacana in the 1950s. Only a few houses in Jacana - notably those in Pascoe Vale Road - predate the Housing Commission's arrival in Broadmeadows. In the late 50s a picture of the 'daily needs' shopping centre in Emu Parade appeared in the Housing Commission's "Annual Report" of 1958-9, presumably because it represented the progressive and ever-expanding nature of HCV operations. As the population increased, Jacana Post Office opened on 15 May 1961. Citation

last = Premier Postal History | title = Post Office List | url = https://www.premierpostal.com/cgi-bin/wsProd.sh/Viewpocdwrapper.p?SortBy=VIC&country= | accessdate = 2008-04-11 ] The Commission later laid out and built the northern section of Jacana in the early 1970s, the southernmost section of its showcase Meadow Fair estate. A small portion of the southern section of Jacana came under threat in the mid-1960s, when new branch line was proposed to extend from the Broadmeadows line close to the site of Jacana station, to extend to the new Melbourne Airport. This line was not built.

Construction of the newer area of Jacana took place in the Whitlam era, which ended with the opening of the Broadmeadows Sporting Club, situated on the Jacana side of the Moonee Ponds Creek Valley. The club was opened by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam on 10 November, 1975—the day before his dismissal by the Governor General, John Kerr. During the 1970s a major portion of what is now Jacana reserve was a rubbish dump created to fill a valley containing a small tributary of Moonee Ponds Creek. This area now features two sports ovals.

As is to be expected from a former Housing Commission development in this region, Jacana is a lower-middle or working class area which, because of its planned heritage, enjoys better amenities than many privately-developed or unplanned suburbs. It contains the aforementioned shops and Sports Club (which includes a bowling green), small playgrounds, a school, and extensive parkland. The north-eastern section of the suburb is the site of Broadmeadows Community Health Centre, relocated from a site north of the Broadmeadows Shopping Centre to a space long reserved for a hospital.

Jacana Progress Association

Community facilities in the wider Broadmeadows area were generally the outcome of community agitation through Progress Associations. The Jacana Progress Association was formed in 1959 and concentrated most of its energies on building a community hall. The Association requested that residents donate two shillings each towards this project, and along with a series of local carnivals, had raised $2 000 by 1968. As this was insufficient to construct a hall, the Association approached non-government bodies with aspirations to locate in the area. St. John's Ambulance was the successful 'bidder' for this and was given the money towards a hall on land which had been donated by the Housing Commission to the Association. It constructed the Hall which remains in Pascoe Vale Road, for its own and the community's use.

The Jacana Progress Association no longer exists, and little is known of the circumstances of its demise.

Transport

A bus route between Broadmeadows and Glenroy services the suburb six days of the week.

Jacana railway station on the Craigieburn railway line is served by Connex Melbourne trains.

Demographics

ABS 2001 statistics for the Jacana reveal a suburb in which 60.4% of the population is Australian-born - the remainder from a variety of sources, only the United Kingdom (3.1%) and Italy (2.6%) exceeding 2%. In 2001 almost 10% of Jacanaians were unemployed, and 48.5% were not in the labour force (over 30% of the population is under 18 or over 65). Of those employed, almost a quarter worked in manufacturing, and just over 15% worked in retail.

The majority of Jacana housing, as stated above, was erected by the Housing Commission of Victoria either in the later 1950s and early 60s, or in the early 1970s. It is mainly of brick construction with pre-cast concrete elements as per the HCV method of the 1950s-60s. There are no flats. 91.3% of Jacana residents live in separate houses. 48.3 % own their own home, and 26.2% are purchasing their home, a total of 74.5%. The average housing price in Jacana in 2001 was $131, 750; today premium streets such as Landy and Freeman Streets command prices over $300 000 as a result of the housing boom earlier in the decade. While this is a major increase over a short period of time, prices in Jacana are still far below the average for Melbourne.

See also

* City of Broadmeadows - the former local government area of which Jacana was a part.

References

* City of Hume, "Jacana Suburb Profile 2001"
* (88 pages)
* Hamilton-Smith, E.; Balmer, C. "Broadmeadows - A Growing City Vol. 1" Youth Services Planning Division, East Melbourne 1972
* Housing Commission of Victoria "Annual Report 1958-9" Melbourne, 1959
* (257 pages)
* Westland, Doug "Factors Surrounding the Provision of Community Facilities in Somerton Ward, Broadmeadows" Social Studies Report, Faculty of Architecture and Building, University of Melbourne, 1971

External links