RP1

We moved to Oak Park from North Melbourne in December 2015. Oak Park is a quiet, pleasant family-oriented suburb. The suburb has a few different zones. West of Pascoe Vale Road tends to have bigger blocks and single dwellings. The zoning in this part of the suburb makes it harder for developers to build town houses. The south-east corner east of Pascoe Vale Road and around Devon Road tends to have smaller blocks, more townhouses going up all the time and more rental properties. The north-east corner close to Northern Golf Course has bigger blocks and more single dwellings than the south-east corner. The original housing stock is mostly 1960s and 1970s family homes, roughly half of them weatherboard and half of them brick. There is a long belt of parkland along the western edge, including a big public swimming pool on Pascoe Vale Road which the Council is planning to redevelop. There isn't much in the way of shopping, although Snell Grove (near the train station) has all the basics - bank, post office, supermarket, fish and chips. There is no nightlife to speak of, not even a pub. The little shopping strip on Winifred Street on the western side of the suburb has the area's first hipster café, called Frances Winifred. It is excellent - great coffee, great food. Childcare was surprisingly easy to arrange (a big shock for us after the long struggle to get places in North Melbourne) and people speak highly of the local primary schools (one state, one Catholic). Transport is very good. Pascoe Vale Road has easy access to the Tullamarine Freeway. The train station is on the Craigieburn line, which has services about every six minutes in peak hour. The train takes about 30 minutes to the CBD, and you can even get a seat in peak hour. All in all we're very happy we bought here, and I suspect property prices are only going to rise as more people discover it.