When government minister Danny Pearson told journalists the government had been closely engaging with the community over the new Keon Park skyrail station, a tirade from two residents in front of the cameras was not quite what he meant.

Angered by how close the new elevated rail line and station is to high-rise apartments in Reservoir, Angela Villella and Goran Torbakov berated the minister as he arrived to spruik the opening of the 50th upgraded station under the Labor Government's Level Crossing Removal Program.

"Minister, you should be coming to check out the place, will you?" demanded Ms Villella, pointing towards her apartment, just metres away.

"This would not happen in a Liberal seat.

"This happened because it's a safe Labor seat and shame on you, shame on you!" she said.

"Rather than putting your spin on the station, you should come and see how these residents are living," said Mr Torbakov.

"We are not opposed to the station.

"All we've asked the minister and the state is to do something about our privacy and noise. Everything has fallen on deaf ears," they said.

Ms Villella and Mr Torbakov are two of hundreds of residents living in apartment buildings on Johnson Street, on the on the border of Reservoir and Thomastown.

When they bought their homes opposite the rail line, trains passed below and the station was more than 100 metres down the road.

As part of the Level Crossing Removal Program, the line and station have been elevated, with trains passing within metres of their balconies and frequent loud speaker service announcements outside their windows.

Mr Pearson is the Transport Infrastructure Minister and says the plans for the new station have been on display since 2022.

"We've been honest and upfront with the community that, look, this is what we're going to have to do and this is where we're going to do it," Mr Pearson said.

He said stakeholder liaison groups had worked "very closely" with the affected residents and had a voluntary purchase scheme in place for those who bought their apartments before 2022.

"If you purchased after those plans were gazetted … that's obviously a different scenario," Mr Pearson said.

Acting CEO of the Level Crossing Removal Program, Matt Thorpe, said the authority was aware there would be concerns from residents when it settled on the design for the skyrail and station.

But he said electricity transmission lines prevented an elevated station being built above the original site.

"Some things are not able to change, such as the location of the station, and the proximity to these apartments was not something that could be varied," Mr Thorpe said.

"There's opportunity for community to feed in at various points through the process and certainly our design teams listen and respond wherever possible to preferences from community and where there is an option to actually adapt a design, we do that."

Mr Thorpe described the number of residents who had objections to the development as small.

He said 45 apartments in two of the apartment blocks were eligible for the voluntary purchase scheme but "less than 10" took up the offer.

Ms Villella and Mr Torbakov said the buy-back scheme was not an option for all those who were given the offer.

"This is not voluntary, this is a forced buy back," Mr Torbakov said.

"Some of these people, this was the cheapest option for them to buy."

"I bought this apartment so I could live next to my mother," Ms Villella said.

"I'm her carer so it's not that easy to buy and sell.

"We have people from non-English speaking backgrounds who do not have the confidence to speak out and who are very, very distressed," she said.

The state government said there had been 24 "near misses" and one crash at the boom gates on Keon Parade since 2012.

It said more than 18,000 vehicles passed through the gates each day, causing a collective 41 minutes of delays when the gates were down during the morning peak.

"We think it's great that the crossing has been removed," Ms Villella said.

The pair said they were not demanding the new station to be moved but had asked for the government to cover the cost of noise mitigation devices, such as double or triple glazing, and to erect privacy screens on their bedroom windows.

They said their requests had been ignored.

"The arrogance of the government is really quite a concern," Ms Villella said.

She paid for her own double glazing on her bedroom windows which she said had drastically cut the noise, but did not stop the station's lighting from shining into her room.

"Bright lights 24/7 is a torture tactic in Guantanamo Bay and we've got them here in Keon Park," she said.

"I can handle it to a degree, I'm on my own but if you've got family with kids, the elderly, it's very, very difficult."

Mr Torbakov said he was concerned apartments bought by the government under the purchasing offer would be used for public housing, meaning vulnerable Victorians would then have to endure the conditions the departing owners were not prepared to put up with.

"This morning I was woken up by "dear passengers, the station is now open" from the Station Master," Mr Torbakov said.

"You can clearly hear the actual train, you can clearly hear the announcements."

The Level Crossing Removal Project said it would continue to offer a range of support measures to residents.