Increasing housing supply through planning
As part of the Victorian Government’s Homes for Victorians strategy, more than $58 million in planning reforms and initiatives will be introduced.
The reforms and initiatives, which will be developed and implemented over the next five years, will help ensure housing supply can meet demand and facilitate the supply of social housing and other affordable housing.
In addition, the refresh of Plan Melbourne and the review of residential zone changes will ensure there is greater housing choice in locations close to jobs and services.
Helping ensure housing supply meets demand
100,000 extra lots in Melbourne’s growth corridors
Despite strong demand, residential land in Melbourne’s outer suburban growth corridors remains much more affordable than land in other Australian capitals such as Sydney and Brisbane.
This is because there is a good supply of development-ready land to meet demand. This supply must be maintained to keep downward pressure on prices.
To ensure ongoing supply, the Victorian Planning Authority will work with councils to complete 17 precinct structure plans by December 2018.
These high-level plans for land use and transport will deliver an extra 100,000 lots of zoned land to the long-term land supply. That’s enough for five years of land supply – even at a high level of sales – and will be in addition to the current supply.
The intention is to have 15 years of developable land available as a rolling supply for the foreseeable future.
Increasing development opportunities in Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs
We need to make better use of land in Melbourne’s inner and middle suburbs to make more of it available for housing.
Plan Melbourne 2017-2050 will set out the planning principles for the redevelopment of these areas.
The Victorian Government and local councils are already developing plans for former industrial land in precincts such as Fishermans Bend and Arden Macaulay.
New urban land and quality urban environments in regional Victoria
Housing supply in regional Victoria will be guided by the Regional Growth Plans, with the Victorian Planning Authority working with councils and Regional Partnerships.
Progress under the Regional Growth Plans is well advanced in a number of key regional cities and towns, and additional funding is being provided to many regional councils through the Victorian Planning Authority’s Streamlining for Growth program.
As part of this program, Precinct Structure Plans have recently been completed for new housing areas in Moe, Drouin and Warragul and work is underway in Torquay, Shepparton and Wodonga.
The Victorian Planning Authority is also supporting Bendigo Council in the development of Plan Bendigo. This plan will see the redevelopment of sites near the heart of the city, a new future suburb near Maiden Gully, and an employment precinct at Marong.
Speeding up local government planning decisions
$21 million will provide critical assistance to councils to speed up local planning decisions.
The rate at which new housing projects can be built is determined by many factors including when infrastructure can be funded and the capacity of the residential development industry to meet demand.
It can also be held up by unnecessarily lengthy approval times for rezoning, subdivision plans, local roads, drainage and services. In recognition of this, $4.2 million was allocated in the Victorian Government’s 2016-17 Budget to support councils and help speed up the sub-division of land.
To build on this, an additional $16.46 million will be made available over four years through the Victorian Planning Authority’s Streamlining for Growth program to provide targeted assistance to regional and metropolitan councils to support priority strategic and statutory planning work.
This includes $4 million to speed up the rezoning of strategic sites in existing suburbs to open up sites in the places where people want to live.
This will significantly reduce processing times for major greenfield subdivisions, maintain a strong supply of affordable land, and provide assistance in the rezoning of brownfield sites.
Smarter planning for permits
$26 million has been provided to simplify and modernise our planning system through the Smart Planning program, and an additional $3 million will be provided to bring the investment in our planning system to $29 million.
As part of the Smart Planning program, the government recently announced an extension to VicSmartthat will enable more applications to be assessed under this expedited approval system. These include:
•single storey extensions to single dwellings where specific design criteria are met
•buildings and works up to $100,000 in residential zones, where not associated with a dwelling
•building and works up to $1 million in value in industrial zones
•building and works up to $500,000 in commercial and special purpose zones
•building and works up to $250,000 or up to $500,000 depending on the rural zone.
These changes to planning schemes are being rolled out over the coming months, with the changes to industrial, commercial, special purpose and rural zones planned for March 2017.
Initiatives for streamlining the planning system, such as VicSmart, will now be extended with a further $3 million to streamline the process for planning permit applications and amendments to introduce ‘as of right’ categories of minor approvals. This will cut council red tape and free up resources for significant applications.
Facilitating the supply of affordable housing
Homes for Victorians includes major initiatives to give social housing organisations greater ability to build, buy and rent homes for vulnerable Victorians.
Homes for Victorians also recognises that we can also be smarter about using underutilised Government land and that the Victorian Government can work more closely with local governments, the community housing sector and residential developers to deliver social and affordable housing.
Inclusionary housing pilot program
An investment of $1.25 million will enable the Victorian Government to explore how inclusionary housing approaches can deliver innovative outcomes for social housing.
There are a number of identified sites where the government owns land that is not required for a critical purpose, but which offers unique and strategic opportunities to deliver well-located social housing.
The government will sell selected government land to residential developers at a discount price in return for the construction of up to 100 new social housing dwellings over four years. This initial pilot will see $25 million of government land sales revenue forgone to enable innovative social housing response in areas close to jobs and transport.
Pilot sites will go to market by the end of 2017 with a view to construction commencing before the end of 2018.Lessons learned from the pilot will be used to inform future decision making on the best use of surplus government land.
Inclusionary housing in major redevelopments
$4.6 million has been allocated to recognise affordable housing in legislation and develop tools to enable voluntary provision of affordable housing in major developments.
Local councils and developers are increasingly proposing new and innovative ways to deliver social housing and other forms of affordable housing.
These proposals include ways to harness the substantial increase in land value that can come from rezoning and other planning controls to deliver a community benefit such as affordable housing.
The development of a clear framework and planning mechanisms will give councils, the community housing sector and residential developers greater certainty about ways the planning system can support and leverage investment in social and affordable housing, while being broad enough to harness expertise and enable innovation. To support a framework the government will:
•legislate legal definitions of social and affordable housing
•amend the Victoria Planning Provisions and State Policy Planning Framework to recognise and give statutory effect to the delivery of social and affordable housing as a legitimate planning outcome, and provide clear policy direction on the provision of social and affordable housing
•develop a new planning mechanism to make it easier for local governments, the community housing sector and residential developers to enter into agreements to deliver social and affordable housing as part of large residential developments
•develop a new planning mechanism to harness the substantial increase in land value that can come from rezoning and other planning controls to deliver a community benefit such as affordable housing.
These reforms will be implemented over three years through consultation with councils, the community housing sector and residential developers.
Fast tracking social housing projects
Unnecessary delays in the planning system can add time to the delivery of new social housing projects – this can slow supply and add costs.
To facilitate faster delivery of social housing projects, the Victorian Government has committed $480,000 to develop a new streamlined approval process.
We will look at barriers in the current planning system and implement priority approval processes for planning scheme amendments and permits to minimise unnecessary delays.
The redevelopment of public housing estates will be the first priority for this new process, which will include consideration of social housing redevelopments through an advisory committee process to ensure good design, public consultation and consistent decision making resulting in timely delivery of social housing projects.
Identifying more underutilised and surplus government land
Funding of $1.87 million has been provided to develop a pipeline of sites suitable for inclusionary housing projects.
Over the next five years Land Use Victoria will identify further underutilised government land to assess its suitability for development.
Land which is assessed as suitable will be rezoned through the Fast Track Government Land Service.
This recently introduced service provides planning certainty as it can rezone land in less than seven months, compared to the three to five years it can take to progress through local government processes.
The Fast Track Government Land Service represents a major saving to government in security and maintenance of vacant sites and missed opportunity costs.