By Violet Li
Unlocking housing supply, facilitating employment land, public transport delivery, activity centres growth, and greater canopy cover are among the Casey Council’s key priorities by 2050, a draft submission to the state’s planning strategy reveals.
The State Government intends to prepare a Plan for Victoria to guide the future growth and development of the state, which will replace the existing metropolitan planning strategy Plan Melbourne 2017-2050.
The envisioned strategy will seek to support the previously announced target of 70 per cent housing growth in established areas and 30 per cent in growth areas.
Four focus areas have been identified to guide the community and industry engagement, including affordable housing and choice, equity and jobs, thriving and liveable suburbs and towns, and sustainable environments and climate action.
Council summarised its priorities and strategic directions under each focus area in a draft submission and endorsed the draft at the 18 June meeting.
Affordable housing and choice:
• Unlock additional housing supply through infrastructure funding and delivery, faster approvals for PSPs and more timely referral agency review of planning applications.
• State Government and local councils to co-develop housing targets for each LGA, including targets for differing typologies and minimum amounts of social and affordable housing based on local needs.
• Application of enforceable, non-voluntary statutory mechanisms for increasing social and affordable housing (such as mandatory inclusionary zoning, uplift rates, minimum outcomes within Precinct Structure Plans) by co-developing the reforms with local government and setting a timeline for their implementation.
Equity and jobs
• Prioritise planning and infrastructure delivery to unlock, protect and facilitate the development of employment land.
• Prioritise equity and inclusion within economic development to ensure access to employment for all.
• Improve consultation with under-represented groups to ensure safety and inclusion can be more effectively built into planning systems and structures.
Thriving and liveable neighbourhoods
• Prioritise public transport reform and delivery of key infrastructure including the Clyde Rail Link and broad bus network improvements.
• Improve coordination of the planning, provision and funding of regional-level infrastructure.
• Implement planning and policy reforms to unlock growth and investment within activity centres and major urban precincts.
Sustainable environments and climate action
• Improve policy, funding, and partnerships to enable greater canopy cover on government-owned land and in the private realm.
• Improve regulation and investment in support of sustainability through Environmentally Sustainable Design, water reuse, and funding models for water infrastructure.
• Develop statewide policy focused on the identification, protection, and restoration of priority habitat corridors for threatened species.
Casey administrator Cameron Boardman said the submission was only a snapshot of the fundamental comprehensiveness of the consideration that everyone within the organisation deals with on a daily basis.
“It does capture our strategic inputs into the current council plan and where we see the requirements and the considerations that will undoubtedly be the responsibility of a future council,” he said.
“But we’re very much looking forward to how the State Government receives these and other submissions, how the future Plan for Victoria further materialises, and the specific additional considerations and requirements that will be forced upon us by the state government in this municipality and the region into the future.
