New planning scheme speeds up planning approval in suburbs
- Laura Jolly
- Whitehorse Leader
- July 12, 2013 12:00AM
DEVELOPERS can now build restaurants, larger shops and high-density apartments without troublesome permits.
The planning zones changes came into effect on July 1 and have split councils.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy said the changes would simplify commercial and industrial zones, provide more retail floor space and encourage investment, particularly in Melbourne’s urban fringe.
Whitehorse Council fears the changes could open parts of the municipality to uses not contemplated for these areas, and displace industrial activities.
Whitehorse city development general manager Julie Reid said the council endorsed a submission to Mr Guy in September outlining concerns with the changes.
“In particular, there is a concern with the commercial zones significantly changing the range of uses permissible in the existing zones,” Ms Reid said.
“This will have the effect of opening up parts of the municipality to a range of uses not contemplated for these areas and potentially in contradiction to many of the council’s policies for these locations.”
She said there was support for some of the changes to industrial zones.
“Council has the flexibility of being able to determine how much office floor space is appropriate in industrial precincts across the municipality.
“Some of the other changes to the industrial zones could, however, displace industrial activities.”
Ms Reid said it was not known whether the changes would benefit commercial and industrial property owners in Whitehorse, or whether housing demand would increase in the commercial 1 zone.
She said the changes would result in fewer uses requiring planning permission, and where a permit was required, the guidance for assessing applications had been improved.
Changes support council plans
Meantime, Maroondah Council has applauded the changes to planning zones that allow apartments in Ringwood and Croydon’s main business areas.
But council is reserving judgment on the effect of the changes on the rest of the municipality, and will spend the next 12 months working out which areas will need special protection.
Maroondah Council’s director of city development Phil Turner told the Leader because Mr Guy had only just released the zone reforms last week, council officers were still reviewing those changes.
They would make a full briefing to the council later this month.
However, Mr Turner did say that the new planning zones supported Maroondah’s plans for the Ringwood Central Activities Area and the Croydon Town Centre Structure Plan.
“Council has specifically encouraged a mix of higher density residential and commercial developments within the Ringwood Activity Centre,” Mr Turner said.
“Croydon has also been the focus of major residential development over the past few years, with high density, apartment-style living encouraged in and around the town centre.”
ON JULY 1, five business zones were consolidated into two commercial zones with relaxed rules on the types of businesses that could open or expand without a planning permit
VICTORIA’S three industrial zones have also been amended to remove floor space restrictions and allow small supermarkets up to 1800sq m, which were previously not allowed
CONVENIENCE shops will be allowed in Industrial 3 land to create commercial opportunities and competition
MORE information can be found on the Department of Planning and Community Development website.
– with Melanie Gardiner and Emma Hastings
Glen Eira Debates 
July 12, 2013 at 11:51 AM
Why the concern. This useless State Government is a one term mob. They are hopeless.
July 12, 2013 at 2:23 PM
Labor is as bad as the Libs. They voted for these awful bits of law. Both have no clue.
July 13, 2013 at 3:43 PM
Mathew Guy’s fate will be the same as Justin Madden who was responsible for the demise of lab
July 13, 2013 at 6:11 PM
So Guy goes but the reform zones will stay – meanwhile Glen Eira will still not consult the residents who are going to be impacted big time.
July 14, 2013 at 11:57 AM
Commercial Zone 1 is a poor choice of zone if the dominant activity being encouraged is residential dwellings. The really scary thing is just how little say the public has about planning—with the few exceptions that Government permits, most decision-making continues to be discretionary, with constraints almost unenforceable by residents. A new Chadstone for example can be built wherever commercial activity is permited, which is most of the new residential zones. A developer just has to be smart about it, and do it piecemeal.
Just over 10 years ago an application for a lap-dance venue in Koornang Rd was refused a permit, subsequently confirmed by VCAT. People will vary in their emotional reaction to such an application, but people should consider whether the reasons for refusal were valid and what the situation is under the new zones where so many uses are “as of right”. It was disturbing to read that 10 years ago others were seeking to obtain commercial advantage as their primary reason for objection, and Council came to the conclusion that it would “detract from the pleasantness of the Carnegie Urban Village”.
Most of us don’t think much of the “high quality architecture” that Council is so enthusiastic about for its Housing Diversity/Urban Village areas—the 100% site coverage, the height and mass, poor articulation, lack of respect for neighbouring properties, non-existent landscaping, minimal or no open space, utter failure to manage the increase in traffic. It came as a surprise to me that Council invoked “pleasantness” as a reason for rejection since it refuses to apply Rescode wherever it has the legal freedom to do so.
Of course the chief “architect” of the planning failures continues to argue how successful his policies have been, but that’s because his only metric is how many dwellings have been built in Housing Diversity areas. For GECC, nothing else matters.
July 14, 2013 at 1:17 PM
The rate of new dwellings has doubled in the space of 5 years, going from 600 to over 1200. Housing diversity can’t sustain this growth so either you expand housing diversity which is already happening or the infill mushrooms into minimal change. That’s well and truly underway already. Add on another 1000 plus subdivisions and we’re bursting at the seams. Nobody has looked at population growth in any meaningful way of course nor planned adequately for the infrastructure required. The new zones will make this scenario ten times worse. I predict that nearly half of the land will become fodder for more development when all major roads and even smaller roads are considered.
July 14, 2013 at 2:00 PM
Why blame the Councils if the State government wants to see over population in Melbourne? The government sets the directives and development laws at Spring Street. Why shoot the messenger? The State government is now afraid that if the referendum to recognise Councils in the constitution goes ahead they stand to not only loose their control of funding, bullying, cost shifting and the huge amounts paid to them by the Federal government to distribute the money according to their whims and fancies. The State Government are therefore running a negative campaign.
Should the recognition take place, it would be a good idea to skin some of the duties and responsibilities of the Ministers and Members of Parliament and passed on to the councils in Victoria.
The million dollar question that we need to ask ourselves as rate payers is: Which is the government that is working for residents (keep aside our views on GECC for a moment) State or Local? It would be good to see logical debates on this forum.
July 22, 2013 at 5:00 PM
And you would rather those donkeys in Canberra allocate the funding??? Oh yes, I can see how they have a better idea of which Councils in Victoria need funding for which projects. If fact, they will allocate funding based purely on marginal electorates and then take full credit. That’s all we need – Local Government becoming dominated by the party politics and not by local people with a genuine desire to serve their community. There’s enough political interference in Local Government as it is, don’t encourage more.
Btw, this article in the Whitehorse Leader is actually misleading and inaccurate. Result of poor research by the journalist. You still need a permit to ‘build’ restaurants, shops, supermarkets etc. Only some ‘uses’ are exempt now which will allow existing empty buildings, which if you drive around the various municipalities in and around Glen Eira you will see a lot of empty buildings, to be utilised without the need for new builds. Great job Mr Guy!
July 22, 2013 at 6:22 PM
Political interference is not the exclusive domain of the federal government. The State government also has quite a bit to answer on this score. The latest meddling is Powell’s activation of a never used before section of the LGA ordering councils to report on their spending for the constitutional referendum. Personally I don’t give a damn about this since both are as bad as each other. What does get me riled is this interference which is so blatantly and unashamedly “political”.