Council backtracks on planning strategy

Ambitious housing targets set by the state government have sent the City of Melbourne back to the drawing board to rethink its approach to planning.

The new Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS) sets out the council’s planning vision for the next 10 to 20 years. However, between the release of documentation for the April 15 Future Melbourne Committee meeting and the meeting itself, City of Melbourne management recommended that the rollout of the amended MPS be deferred.

Prior to the meeting, management initially requested that the Minister for Planning appoint an independent planning panel and refer all submissions to the panel for consideration. However, this may not occur until November 2026.

The rationale behind the decision is to avoid the need for the council to undertake a second planning scheme amendment process, due to changes introduced by the state government as part of its Plan for Victoria, which outlines its revised approach to planning and development.

As part of this strategy, the City of Melbourne’s housing target is 120,000 new homes by 2051, and a new activity centre will be established in inner Melbourne. Lord Mayor Nick Reece said this needed to be better reflected in the Municipal Planning Strategy and City Spatial Plan.

At the April 15 meeting, where councillors unanimously endorsed the deferment of the MPS, Cr Reece noted, “There’s no getting around the fact that the policy, the parameters and the goalposts have moved very significantly, and it is appropriate for us to pause.”

However, a senior source involved throughout the consultation and development of the MPS, who is not authorised to speak publicly, was dumbfounded by the decision to defer.

They believe that the council had ample time to account for the planning reforms and the vision set out by the state government, and that the last-minute decision to halt the MPS rollout was confusing.

Cr Dr Olivia Ball raised similar concerns at the meeting, but the City of Melbourne’s general manager of strategy, planning and climate change Evan Counsel stated that analysis of the new reforms remained “ongoing.”

There were also concerns about the costs associated with amending the Municipal Planning Strategy. However, Mr Counsel was adamant that deferring the process would be more cost-effective than undertaking two separate planning scheme amendment processes.

Additionally, following the public exhibition of the new Municipal Planning Strategy, 37 submissions were received from a range of stakeholders, including residents’ groups, developers, large organisations such as Crown Resorts, RMIT, and the Port of Melbourne, as well as government agencies such as Creative Victoria, Melbourne & Olympic Parks Sports Trust, VicTrack and Homes Victoria.

Consideration of these individual submissions will also be deferred and incorporated into the updated strategy. •