There are few things as important to people’s lives as safe, secure, affordable housing. But housing in Victoria, and especially in Melbourne, is increasingly expensive. Too many people can’t find a home close to where they want to live and work. Fewer now have a home to call their own. And many Victorians struggle to find a home at all: about 31,000 reported being homeless on Census night in 2021.
At the heart of the problem is the fact we just haven’t built enough homes to meet the needs of a growing population. This is especially true in places where people most want to live: close to jobs, transport, schools, and other amenities. Land-use planning rules in Victoria are highly prescriptive, and particularly restrict construction of townhouses and apartments in established suburbs.
Past Victorian state and local governments have restricted these kinds of medium- and high-density developments to appease local opposition. About half of all residential land in Melbourne is zoned for housing of three storeys or less. The politics of land-use planning – what gets built and where – favour those who oppose change. The people who might live in new housing – were it to be built – don’t get a say.
The result is a vast ‘missing middle’: hectares of prime inner-city land, close to jobs and transport, rising barely taller than two storeys. Melbourne is one of the least dense cities of its size in the world. The flow-on effect is high prices and rents, falling populations across swathes of Melbourne’s most affluent suburbs, a stagnating economy because fewer people can live close to jobs, and further expensive and environmentally damaging sprawl into farmland and floodplains.
The Victorian Government’s recently-announced land-use planning reforms seek to overcome the local politics of planning by taking greater control of land-use planning in key locations. The Activity Centre Program will deliver much-needed high- and medium-density housing around 60 rail stations and other key transport hubs. The new Townhouse and Low-Rise Code will streamline development approval processes for developments in residential zones across the state, with greater codification and less subjective assessments.
Victorian Planning Provisions amendments VC257, VC267, and VC274 are critical pieces of this reform program and should not be impeded. These reforms have the potential to unlock hundreds of thousands of extra homes in the coming decades in areas with some of the best infrastructure, amenities, and public spaces. These reforms are necessary because many local councils have been unwilling to allow sufficient housing to be built in those scarce inner-city locations where Melburnians most want to live, thereby pushing up housing costs and forcing many lower-income families to look for housing elsewhere.
These changes do not dictate where housing must be built in Melbourne: they simply permit more housing where demand for housing is highest. Unsurprisingly, the Victorian Government’s plans have met resistance from some local councils. But the reforms remain popular with the community as a whole.
Directly up-zoning well-located land and better codifying what is allowed to be built are the most direct ways to expand the housing choices available to Melburnians. The Victorian Government should stay the course on this reform agenda in the face of council opposition. The reforms also warrant the support of the Parliament.
These reforms are about allowing more homes, and creating a better, healthier, and more vibrant Melbourne. Current and future residents of Melbourne can afford no further delay.