Zone reforms to return planning certainty
Wednesday, 11 July 2012
The Victorian Coalition Government’s sweeping reform of planning zones will return certainty to our suburbs and towns and in particular to councils, residents and the development industry.
“Planning zones are the greatest indicator of the style of development for any area. The Coalition Government’s sweeping zones reform package aims to give certainty for areas that deserve protection and those identified as growth nodes,” Mr Guy said.
“The Coalition Government’s zone reforms reflect what communities have been crying out for, for many years – clear identification of areas that can grow and strong protection for areas that are designed to be low rise, low density neighbourhoods,” Mr Guy said.
“These reforms will protect what makes Melbourne great – our streetscapes, our amenity, our liveability, while encouraging density and growth in clearly defined areas,” Mr Guy said.
The Coalition Government’s zones reform package features three new residential zones:
- Residential Growth Zone;
- General Residential Zone; and a
- Neighbourhood Residential Zone.
“The new Neighbourhood Residential Zone will be an instrument that can be adopted by councils to protect existing amenity of suburbs and towns.
“It will give many areas the protection they deserve and will be the strongest residential protection zone ever offered in the Victorian planning system,” Mr Guy said.
This zone will include a number of features including mandatory height controls, stricter regulations around subdivision and the consideration of minimum lot sizes. The Neighbourhood Residential Zone will also be able to protect existing streetscapes and amenity with clear guidelines on what can be supported by a planning permit application.
In order to support integrity of the new Neighbourhood Residential Zone the Coalition Government has also introduced a number of complementary residential zones that will support development of medium and higher density housing in appropriate locations.
The new Residential Growth Zone will provide for a clear level of growth and change in identified areas that have clear targets for greater density. Councils will be able to use this zone to provide a new incentive to direct density and built form change in areas that are well known and identified.
“Importantly, these zones will be at the discretion of the local councils. It will ultimately be the view of the community that will inform which zone best fits where,” Mr Guy said.
“Victoria’s economic integrity is at the forefront of its planning decisions and these reforms are no different. The residential zone reform package supports Victoria’s economy by clarifying where development can occur and what can be built,” Mr Guy said.
“Importantly, it returns a level of planning certainty that has been sorely missing for the past decade,” Mr Guy said.
Under the Coalition Government’s planning reform agenda, plans for new outer urban growth have been released as well as the identification of Australia’s largest inner city, urban renewal project in Fisherman’s Bend.
These projects, combined with planning law changes and planning zone reform represent a major overhaul of the Victorian planning system since the change of government in November 2010.
“The time is right for planning reform and the Coalition Government is getting on with the job of delivering it.”
The key features of the reformed planning zones will be issued for feedback for a period of 2 months from Monday 17 July until Friday 21 September.
Glen Eira Debates 
July 11, 2012 at 3:07 PM
On planning matters, VCAT has just delivered its judgement on the huge Orrong Rd development of several towers & 466 units. The decision is frankly appalling, but the message for councils is clear – ENSURE THAT PLANNING SCHEMES HAVE NO LOOPHOLES TO BE EXPLOITED. Stonnington unfortunately attempted its UDF after the application and since this site was not in a Major Activity Centre, there were no height limits in the scheme. ‘Neighbourhood character’ was also found to be inadequate in its prescriptions. The full judgement may be downloaded from the Orrong Group site (http://orronggroup.wordpress.com/2012/07/10/game-over-lend-lease-466-community-0/). Below are some edited lowlights. Readers need to pay particular attention to the criticisms of the Planning Scheme and ask themselves how Glen Eira’s planning scheme would go in similar circumstances –
“The Stonnington Planning Scheme does not currently clearly articulate a preferred built form outcome for the land. Consequently, resolving the appropriate scale and design mainly requires integrating and balancing the relevant State and local policies in the scheme in favour of net community benefit and sustainable development for the benefit of present and future generations.
The Council and many residents submitted the proposal failed to respond to neighbourhood character policy. They argued it did not ‘reinforce special characteristics of [the] local environment and place’ because it did not ‘[emphasise] … the built form that reflect[s] community identity [and] the values, needs and aspirations of the community’. They relied on the broad resident opposition to the proposal (about 600 objections to the Council and about 100 statements of grounds in this proceeding) and the Council’s unanimous refusal.
‘Community’ does not expressly refer to ‘local community’ and it does not follow that the policy only applies to local community. The wider community is not excluded from the policy. Indeed, State policy requires us to integrate policies in favour of ‘net community benefit’ which, at State level, must mean something broader than the local community. The opposition per se to the grant of a permit is not an expression of ‘values or needs’. We would hesitate to characterise the residents’ objections as an expression of the aspirations of the local community. Nonetheless, we must carefully consider and give weight to objections and we have done that.
It is relevant that Council’s vision statement identifies the land as a redevelopment opportunity and has included an urban design policy (to which we will refer shortly) and has not included a preferred built form outcome for the land.
It is also relevant to place the State provision in context. The policy specifically provides that ‘[p]lanning should achieve high quality urban design and architecture that … [r]eflects the particular characteristics, aspirations and cultural identity of the community’. The policy does not expressly refer to ‘local’ community. Various objectives then identify the aim of that policy, one of which is ‘to recognise and protect cultural identity, neighbourhood character and sense of place’. The ‘values, needs and aspirations’ provision is an implementation strategy. It is not the policy itself. If we are asked to consider aspirations as defined by a significant number of objections, the policy of high quality design and architecture would not then be measured by popularity per se but by objections based on relevant considerations, including policy.
The Council also asked us to give weight to activity centre policy that applies a context and character restraint to higher density residential development in a neighbourhood activity centre. This restraint does not apply to a major or principal activity centre.
Local policy, at a broad level, seeks to insulate most established residential areas in Stonnington from significant change. The main opportunities for significant change are in the higher order activity centres and on ‘large redevelopment sites’.
However, there is no built form local policy vacuum for the land. The urban design policy provides guidance. It ‘directs higher scale development’ to large sites identified on the strategic framework plan. It also ‘encourages’ the development of large sites that is consistent with the role and character of the surrounding area and commercial and residential strategies’
The second dot point qualification encourages a design that reflects and complements the built form character of the surrounding area. The meaning of ‘reflect’ and ‘complement’ were extensively canvassed at the hearing, with recourse to dictionary meanings. In the context of applying policy rather than statute, we adopt what was stated in Rowcliffe that reflect and complement do not mean replicate and contemporary architecture is not precluded
The Council and residents invited us to accept that, although residential development in the immediate vicinity of the land was one and two-storey built form, the existing largely five-storey office building on the land defined the built form character of the surrounding area. They submitted that only a development with a five-storey maximum height would reflect and complement that character. In doing so, they fall into the error of adopting replication, in the sense of replicating existing development of the land and not surrounding development.
We agree with the view expressed in Rowcliffe that to ‘integrate with’ is also synonymous with to ‘respect’. As the policy relates to higher scale development, the provision contemplates an outcome of higher built form at the interfaces provided it respects abutting properties. Abutting land in its ordinary usage means land that touches the subject land. We doubt this strict approach was intended because land that is very close but does not touch would be excluded. This makes little sense with larger sites. We consider ‘nearby’ land in a close and interface sense better captures what was intended.
When it adopted the UDF in November 2011, the Council also resolved to prepare Amendment C153 to incorporate the adopted UDF in permanent planning controls and to seek the Minister’s authorisation to prepare and give notice of the amendment. On 23 May 2012, the Minister granted that authorisation. Exhibition started on 7 June 2012.
C153 includes the subject land in Development Plan Overlay Schedule 2. The effect of the overlay is to entrench the UDF. It requires the preparation of a UDF-based development plan, including a 17 m maximum building height and no more than 250 dwellings. It requires any permit granted to be generally in accordance with either the UDF (if granted before the development plan is approved) or the approved development plan. The proposal would therefore be prohibited, if C153 were approved.
C153 has not reached a stage at which we should give it weight as a seriously entertained planning proposal. Nonetheless, in deciding what weight to give C153, we have considered a number of factors.
C153 is underpinned by an adopted policy, the UDF. The UDF was also prepared with expert advice and after significant public consultation. These factors operate to give C153 somewhat more weight.
Firstly, we consider it unrealistic to expect apartments of any reasonable scale to reflect the materials and architectural characteristics of late nineteenth and early twentieth century housing, except in the most oblique manner.
Any development as extensive as allowed over such a large site, even if limited to the five storeys that the Council prefers, could not feasibly be expected to reflect the architectural characteristics of the nearby residential heritage areas. The word complement, even adopting Mr Morris’ preferred alternative, is equally unhelpful (as we have already stated). Clearly, the Council might like to interpret this policy as requiring new development to be in some undefined way not very different from the buildings in the broader surrounding area.
However, in terms of architectural style and detail, this requirement again contradicts any reasonable form of development that might occur, even if again limited to five storeys, over such a large site. For example, the question of whether anything is an improvement is always debatable, depending on one’s initial premises. It is also debatable whether a particular quality of an object is better emphasised by contrasting it with, or imitating it by, a nearby object.
The most that might be hoped is that new apartments should reflect any stylistic conventions for apartment design that either can be found nearby or are widely recognisable because of their historic familiarity.
Secondly, the experts’ and residents’ references to a, presumably objective, architectural style that identifies apartment buildings seem to be referring to historic examples that, in their turn were originally often novel and controversial. We do not see anything immutable about architectural styles or any reason why they should not be allowed to evolve. New building technologies develop and these often support new stylistic developments. Architectural styles that were, in their day, innovative become overly and insensitively copied and inevitably new styles emerge. We have examples of architectural change over the last 60 years that amply illustrate this process.
At the heart of this proceeding is the tension between two policy themes. First are those supporting higher density residential development on a large site in the inner suburbs, on a main road and particularly well-served by public transport including abutting Toorak station. Second are those moderating development outcomes by seeking designs that reflect and complement built form character in the broader surrounding area.
We resolve that tension in this proceeding by giving more weight to the first policy theme for two main reasons. First, the land has a unique, almost island-like, location given the dominance of its main road, path, park and railway abuttals. Second, there are very few identified large sites for higher density residential development in Stonnington and the opportunity should not be dissipated. A positive response on this land will help ensure implementation of the broad local policy to insulate most established neighbourhoods from significant change.
The land has been identified by the Council as a large development site since 1997. However, the Council was not able to adopt a policy or establish in the scheme a preferred built form outcome for the land before the Applicants began preparing their proposals.
Although the Council consulted the local community, the policy it ultimately adopted was unresolved such that the Council was unable to follow it when deciding the permit application. The proposed amendment to the scheme to introduce a preferred built form outcome while considering this permit application is belated and too inchoate to be given significant weight at this time.
The design response is, subject to appropriate changes and conditions, an acceptable planning outcome.
The decision of the Council will be set aside and a permit granted subject to conditions.”
July 11, 2012 at 7:16 PM
what I am hoping from this govt policy is that people who live in an area that is designated high density benefit from high property values so they can benefit unlike the current scheme where a block of apartments go up next door and really adversely affect the property value.
July 12, 2012 at 11:05 AM
Not sure what to make of this. I don’t see an issue if someone sells their backyard for a unit but I do object to 20 plus stories developments which Lipshutz, Pilling, Hyams and Esakoff support.