Urbis Think Tank
Victorian Coalition Planning Policy – Urbis Headline Summary
As you would be aware, the new Government has released a comprehensive policy vision for Planning in Victoria. The Vision Statement contemplates sweeping reforms across a number of key parts of the planning system, with major changes foreshadowed to planning policy and consultative processes for planning permit decisions.
The Statement responds to the issues that the Coalition believes have been central to the community’s growing discontent around planning and development processes over the past 10 years. In particular it aims to deliver a fairer system, with greater transparency around where development will and won’t be encouraged across different parts of our city.
The key commitments have a focus around:-
- Managing land supply to ensure housing affordability
- Empowering local Councils with new models for decision making
- Reducing pressure for high density development in existing suburbs
- Directing major population growth to Melbourne’s fringe
- Developing a new metropolitan strategy for Melbourne
- Abolishing the GAA and Development Facilitation Unit
The proposed reforms will be accompanied by significant institutional change, which will see the abolition of the GAA and the creation of a new Urban Planning Unit with a mandate to manage the city’s population growth.
To assist you in understanding what lies ahead, Urbis has compiled a headline summary of the Coalition’s proposed reforms across the institutional, policy, legislative and decision making landscapes. Our team will be working closely with the incoming Government in the coming weeks to ensure the transition for client projects in the system or in the pipeline is as smooth as possible.