The Aurora site, nearly 650 hectares in size, was one of the largest accessible suburban sites still available for residential development in metropolitan Melbourne at the turn of this century. To be master-planned by a team of expert consultants, it would eventually house approximately 25,000 residents in an estate with neighbourhoods, shops, schools, community facilities, public transport and generous parklands. It represented a major challenge to the Victorian Urban and Regional Land Corporation (URLC) and its consultants to achieve sustainability objectives which to date had largely eluded developers.