MRRA Presentation

Note: A number of supporting documents attached to the presentation are not included here.

1. The State Significance Of Macedon Ranges And Surrounds Isn’t Specifically Recognized In Melbourne 2030

On the one hand Melbourne 2030 says Macedon Ranges, with Yarra Ranges and Mornington Peninsula, is an area identified at State level as off-limits to urban development. On the other hand it says Yarra Ranges and Mornington Peninsula are so significant they received statutory protection, whereas Macedon Ranges will be considered for “equivalent” protection through local policy. Equal significance, unequal (no) protection for Macedon Ranges.

2. Define Which Elements Of Melbourne 2030 Apply, Where – and please, be specific

The urban parts are being applied in rural areas, the rural policies aren’t. The urban elements of Melbourne 2030 – the consolidation, 15 lots/dwellings per hectare and Activity Centre parts, etc. – are being approved in rural towns, in tandem with suburban ResCode, with disastrous results. There is no clear definition of which parts apply where.

3. Question: By 2015 Will Victoria Still Have Any Rural Land Left – or will it all be just one big rural residential (e)state?

Spiralling land speculation and over-development necessitate a decision being made now. For example, another 20,000+ houses could be put on rural zoned lots in just 4 Shires between Melton and Bendigo - through open potable water catchments, and significant landscape, soil and conservation areas. There isn’t any planning tool available to effectively stop this burgeoning ad hoc development. Multiply the effect across Victoria…. VCAT says a house on a small rural lot on high quality agi soil in Macedon Ranges is “not in conflict with State or local policy”. There are policies to curb it within Melbourne 2030 corridors[5], but no implementation plan (or consultation), and 2030 policy for regional transport corridors is not supported in rural zone provisions. Melbourne’s sprawl is leaping into rural Shires. Bendigo is “Victoria’s growth corridor”

5. Lack of Rural Policies & Rural Context For All Policies at State level – the “country” is lumbered with Melbourne’s policies, standards and values

One size definitely doesn’t fit all. Drive around rural Victoria, you can see it. Rural Victoria needs a specific rural planning team within the Department of Sustainability and Environment to target rural issues and provide a clearer, more relevant and more direct focus (and response) on rural conditions, priorities, context, character and values – and that means rural policies for our towns, too.

Who is measuring what Melbourne 2030 produces? E.g. dwelling growth v population growth, occupancy rates, location of development and relevance to need/demand, type of development v impacts on existing character and values, suburbanization of rural areas, etc.

Terms of Reference for the Melbourne 2030 audit include a requirement for recommendations on appropriate mechanisms for monitoring implementation of Melbourne 2030.

The group has undertaken a broad review of 2006 census results to get a “snapshot” of trends for Victoria, Melbourne metro area, and “fringe” Shires, at a municipality level.

Do you know there were 216,000 unoccupied dwellings in Victoria on census night, 120,000 in Melbourne? That unoccupied dwellings increased as a percentage of all private dwellings between 2001 and 2006? Some places had vacancy rates over 40% (e.g. Queenscliffe (+50%), Bass Coast (47.7%), Surf Coast (43.7%), yet all also had relatively high levels of new dwellings: +52, +2,778 and +1,723 respectively.

Banyule lost 224 people, gained 829 households, gained 1,468 dwellings and had 2,737 unoccupied dwellings. Moonee Valley lost 193 people, gained 208 households and 1,023 dwellings, with 3,286 unoccupied dwellings.

Queenscliffe lost 148 people and 14 households, yet had 52 additional dwellings and a 50.2% vacancy rate.

Common occurrence. Small household increases, large dwelling increases, larger vacancy rates.

For example, Bayside gained +2,185 people but only 264 new households, had 95 fewer lone person households, 913 more dwellings and 3,235 unoccupied dwellings. Baw Baw had 892 new households, 1,321 new dwellings and 1,874 unoccupied dwellings.

Over-60s Grew But Nowhere Near Projected Rates - Over-Estimated In Almost All Municipalities

DSE projections have driven a boom in “unit” development that has caused existing residents a lot of pain.

Some places we think of as having booming young family growth also have high over-60s growth (e.g. Whittlesea, where over-60s growth equated to a third of total population growth).

Bayside lost 95, Boroondara lost 618, Stonnington lost 333. Other municipalities had reduced percentages of LPH e.g Port Phillip, Whitehorse. Yet projections simply assume all places are the same.

They are based on what has been happening, not what should happen. Broadest assumptions are used to produce projections – not specific to each municipality – rural and metro get the same assumptions, and pressure for the same outcomes. Projections are not influenced by policy but end up becoming policy in their own right. DSE projections drive development, are pushed down our throats as justification for bad development – over-development, and the wrong sort of development. E.g. 28 square, two storey “units” on 300 square metres to accommodate “old” people.

Post 2006 census, DSE seems ready to absorb yet another 630,000 people[6] into the next projections, without questioning whether Melbourne can accommodate more.

While Melbourne 2030 and other planning policy is creating plenty of new dwellings (+171,000 in Victoria), many are either not affordable, not what people want, or simply second dwellings that aren’t accommodating population growth. Do we in fact have a glut of (unusable) housing in a time of claimed housing shortages?

Developers are deciding what is built, where, when and at what cost, supported by government and the system. Much of what they produce is over-priced, top end (“gold tap”) elitist, in expensive locations, or cheaper and more profitable greenfields development that is too quickly filling up Melbourne’s reserve of vacant residential land – wherever the highest profit potential beckons. What happens after 2030?

Melbourne 2030 is delivering profits to developers, but wholesale pain to the wider community. Developers’ investments are protected, but not the investments of people affected by bad development. Developers will no doubt now be lobbying for yet more planning rules to be thrown out and more land to be opened up. A much more considered response is needed.

What happens when Mc Mansion homeowners walk away from homes they can’t afford – who buys their house, and where do they live? Have we created a generation with debts they may never repay? Add to that a new baby boom as well as the old, climate change, infrastructure deficiencies, and increasingly, social unsustainability.

Ordinary people and some planning experts have been telling government that Melbourne 2030 and the VPPs aren’t working. They are right. It’s well past time for the government to listen at least equally to the community and experts, not just developers, and to really get to the bottom of what’s happening under Melbourne 2030.

Tight controls for water catchments, important natural vegetation, areas of potential high value agi production.

Control development in rural areas to protect agriculture and avoid inappropriate rural residential development.

Over time, M2030 proposes to reduce the proportion of new housing development provided in rural areas…

Discourage development of isolated small lots in rural zones from use for rural living or other incompatible uses.

[1] M2030 Appendix 1, Green Wedge Attributes

[2] M2030 Direction 2

[3] Associate Professor Michael Buxton, personal communication, 15^th August 2007.

[4] P1037/2007 Pausacker V O’Meara, 8 August 2007.

[5] See Appendix 1

[6] DSE Presentation July 2007: 2006 Census, New Population Projections