Noisy NIMBYs to be silenced on housing projects

With Melbourne set to overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city within a decade, Premier Daniel Andrews has warned that Melbourne cannot keep expanding on its fringes by building suburb after suburb.

“We need to create more housing with the best design standards where people want to live,” he recently told The Sunday Age.

The push to remove councils from decision-making for medium density housing projects follows suggestions the government will strip local councils of some planning powers. It sets the government on a potential collision course with communities in Melbourne’s leafy middle suburbs.

VCAT recently overturned a decision by the City of Stonnington to block a four-storey apartment building in Malvern East after council ignored a recommendation by its own planning officers that the permit be approved.

As part of its reasoning, VCAT ruled that Melbourne is now at a “critical point”, requiring new housing in inner and middle suburbs to tackle an “acute” housing shortage.

The proposal to build 29 two and three-bedroom apartments on Wattletree Road in Malvern East was unanimously rejected at a council meeting last December after councillors sided with residents.

There were 37 objections to the development, which is located in a residential area next to a tram line and across the road from Central Park.

Many of the objections came from a neighbouring three-storey apartment block.

“There’s nothing of this height and magnitude in this area,” said Mayor Jami Klisaris at the meeting when the proposal was blocked.

“The design is not in keeping with the area … it’s quite modern, which I think would be a very harsh contrast.”

However, VCAT member Michael Deidun overturned the council decision in June, stating that the application met Stonnington planning scheme guidelines. Deidun said that the development was an example of the battles being fought over housing in the inner suburbs of Melbourne.

“Our city is at a critical point where new housing in inner and middle ring suburbs is required as one means of addressing an acute supply issue,” he said.

“While I appreciate that the housing proposed on the review site will not be ‘affordable’, it will nonetheless increase the overall supply of and access to housing in our city.”

While the objectors argued they represented the surrounding community, Deidun said he also needed to consider those who could not break into the Malvern East housing market in his decision, “as well as future generations of Victorians”.

“It is these later sectors of the community that will benefit most from the provision of increased housing supply in this desirable and highly liveable location,” he said.

Rollo Wright, director of real estate developer firm Roulston, said he felt the proposal had little chance of being approved once nearby residents began raising objections, even though it had the support of the council’s planners.

“Councillors have got that in one ear and on the other hand they need to decide whether to listen to their paid experts,” he said.

Resident groups have recently stopped developments in Stonnington including a six-storey tower with 80 apartments proposed by Woolworths on Burke Road in Glen Iris. VCAT upheld the council’s decision to block those plans.

“Many residents have time and money to lobby councillors,” Wright said.

He said the Wattletree Road building would primarily attract older downsizers who were leaving big family homes, freeing those properties up for younger buyers who want to live in the inner suburbs.

“It all contributes to affordability, it’s supply and demand,” he said.

The City of Stonnington defended its decision-making, saying that it had approved 97.4 per cent of planning applications in the past financial year. “Council must assess each planning permit application on its merits,” the council said in a statement.

“For apartment developments, this often involves balancing policy that calls for increased density with the protection of residential amenity and character.”

Planning expert Marcus Spiller, from SGS Economics and Planning, said VCAT should stay out of broader planning policy questions.

“The policy content in planning I think should be strictly the preserve of elected people,” he said. “The role of VCAT is to resolve disputes in the interpretation of policy, but not to make policy.“

When asked about the plan to prevent locals from objecting to developments at council level, a state government spokesperson said there would be announcement about housing in due course.

“We know there’s no more important issue anywhere in the state right now than housing – that’s why we’re working hard on a housing package,” they said.

A key part of the government’s plan to tackle Victoria’s growing pains will be to strip local councils of decision-making powers, particularly those in key development zones close to public transport, such as along the government’s flagship Suburban Rail Loop.

The push was bolstered by the release of a report by Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission into developer payments linked to Casey Council.

The investigation, known as “Operation Sandon”, detailed how developer and consultant John Woodman dished out more than $1 million in alleged bribes to councillors, and sought to influence politicians on both sides.

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