Community consultation and engagement

Consultation is only meaningful if people know they are affected, understand what is being proposed and have a genuine opportunity to influence decisions before they are made. Many residents believe that the most significant planning decisions had already been made before consultation began.

Consultation is not the same as communication, and communication is not the same as influence.

Meaningful community consultation is about more than asking people for their views.

It requires communities to have enough information to understand what is proposed and genuine opportunities to influence decisions before they are made.

The Victorian Government has described consultation on the Activity Centre Program as extensive.

However, many councils, community groups and residents have questioned whether the process met that standard.

Understanding the consultation process also helps explain many of the other planning changes discussed throughout this website.

This page considers four questions that help assess whether consultation was meaningful.

1. Were communities given enough information to understand the proposals?

2. Did people know they were affected?

3. Were they given genuine opportunities to influence the decisions that mattered?

4. Can the influence of community feedback be seen in the final outcome?

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Consultation without the full picture

During community consultation, residents were repeatedly assured that planning would continue to protect:

• neighbourhood character
• setbacks
• privacy
• trees
• liveability

What residents were never told

• The new planning Codes themselves were not the subject of public consultation.
  
  
• The Mid-Rise Code would fundamentally change the type of development permitted in their neighbourhoods and the way future development would be assessed.
  
  
• The Townhouse and Low-Rise Code would substantially change planning rules across residential areas.
  
  
• Both new Codes included deemed-to-comply pathways that significantly reduced opportunities for residents to object to compliant developments.
  
  
• Development would increasingly be assessed against the Government’s planned future urban form, rather than the existing low-rise neighbourhood.
  
  
• Activity centre catchments would determine where these new Codes later applied.

Meaningful consultation requires residents to understand not only where planning changes will apply, but also what those changes are and what they are intended to achieve.

What industry was told

By contrast, later presentations to industry audiences explained the planning approach underpinning the Mid-Rise Code.

These presentations reveal the broader planning philosophy behind the new Codes — a level of explanation that was not provided during community consultation.

“The objectives of each urban context standard in the mid-rise code refers to responding to future urban development instead of neighbourhood character.“

“A neighbourhood character overlay cannot modify a standard of the mid-rise code.”

“This means that a fully compliant application must be granted a permit and matters such as urban design policies, neighbourhood character policies, ESD policies and matters not implemented by overlays cannot be considered.“

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Notification of affected residents

Meaningful consultation depends on people knowing that they are affected.

Across the Activity Centre Program, many residents have questioned whether notification was adequate for planning changes of this scale.

Despite the scale of the planning changes, the Government did not write directly to all affected households explaining that their properties were under consideration for rezoning. Instead they relied heavily on general promotional material describing Activity Centres in broad terms.

Many residents did not realise that the proposals extended well beyond shopping strips and transport hubs into surrounding residential neighbourhoods through new “walkable catchments”.

As a result, some believed the consultation related only to improvements to activity centres rather than changes affecting their own homes and streets.

Many were even unsure what an activity centre was, with some assuming it referred to development over the railway station, a new recreation centre or a children’s playground, rather than widespread planning changes affecting surrounding neighbourhoods.

The most significant concerns arose during Phase 1 consultation for the 25 Tranche 2 Activity Centres (including Ashburton and Riversdale-Willison), where many residents reported receiving no direct letterbox notification that their properties were within planning investigation areas.

Community groups and councils subsequently undertook their own notification efforts to alert affected residents and encourage participation before consultation closed.

Without clear, property-specific notification, many residents were unaware that they could attend information sessions, complete surveys or make submissions.

This has led to ongoing concerns that community participation was substantially lower than it otherwise may have been.

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Consultation focused on activity centres — not the surrounding residential streets

Much of the consultation focused on the activity centre cores, where the highest buildings are proposed, along with other public landmarks and spaces such as parks and playgrounds.

However, for many residents the most significant changes occur in the surrounding residential catchments, where existing neighbourhoods are being rezoned to allow 3–6 storey development.

Throughout the consultation, it was presented as a given that there would be inner and outer catchments permitting 3–6 storey development in residential streets.

Whether these catchments should exist — and how far they should extend — was not open for public discussion.

As a result, many residents did not appreciate the significance of the catchments or the extent of the proposed changes, and many remain unaware of how substantially their streets could change.

There was no public consultation on the new planning zones or residential building codes that now apply within these catchments, despite these controls ultimately determining what can be built and the future of residential streets.

See Government plans → Townhouse and Low-Rise Code and Mid-Rise Code.

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Limited opportunities for meaningful engagement

Most consultation occurred through online surveys, webinars and information sessions, supported by a small number of drop-in sessions. Community Reference Groups (CRGs) involved relatively few participants and operated within a limited scope.

Community Reference Groups (CRG)

CRGs focused primarily on activity centre cores, public spaces and broad urban design themes such as movement, safety, infrastructure and open space.

Participants were asked how more housing could be delivered while protecting the qualities that make their area unique.

However, they were not informed about the new residential planning Codes that would ultimately govern development within those neighbourhoods.

Those Codes — including the rules governing building height, setbacks, site coverage, neighbourhood character and many other aspects of residential development — were not themselves the subject of public consultation, and residents were not provided with information about how they would fundamentally change the planning framework within activity centre catchments.

Residents were asked what they valued most about their neighbourhoods without being given the information needed to understand how those neighbourhoods were intended to change.

Online surveys

The online surveys relied heavily on leading statements, binary choices and assumption-laden questions that limited respondents’ ability to express principled disagreement or propose alternative approaches.

Complex planning changes were reduced to simplified checkbox questions that bundled multiple issues together, making it difficult for participants to distinguish between different aspects of the proposals.

The raw survey results were not publicly released.

Information sessions and drop-in sessions

Both online and in-person information sessions gave residents opportunities to ask questions, but many participants reported that detailed planning and policy questions were not answered.

During online sessions questions were frequently grouped or paraphrased, and responses often addressed broad themes rather than the specific issues raised.

At drop-in sessions, staff were frequently unable to answer technical questions about matters such as the planning codes, heritage, tree canopy, flooding or environmental standards.

Many questions were taken “on notice”, but residents reported that responses were often not subsequently provided.

Many residents considered these consultation processes insufficient for planning changes of this scale and complexity.

Collectively, they created the impression that consultation focused more on refining aspects of a predetermined program than on genuinely exploring alternative approaches or allowing meaningful influence over the decisions that mattered most.

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Did consultation influence the outcome?

The Victorian Government has stated that community feedback informed the Activity Centre Program.

However, many residents, councils and community groups have questioned how consultation influenced the final plans.

BCG believes that the consultation process was largely performative — a “tick-the-box” exercise that provided limited opportunity for community feedback to influence the decisions that mattered most.

Changes following consultation were generally confined to relatively minor refinements, such as small boundary adjustments, or changes to the core’s built form.

At the same time, many of the key elements of the reforms — including the introduction of new planning zones, residential building codes and broad catchment-based redevelopment — were introduced without public consultation.

The comparison below illustrates this point. While individual centres varied, the fundamental planning framework remained substantially the same following consultation.

This has contributed to a widespread perception that consultation influenced minor aspects of the proposals, while the most significant planning decisions had already been made.

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What this means for Melbourne

Consultation is not simply about asking people for their views.

It is about ensuring they know they are affected, providing enough information to understand proposals, allowing sufficient time to consider them, and genuinely considering whether feedback should influence the final outcome.

Consultation should occur while communities can still influence the outcome — not after the most important decisions have effectively been made.

Good consultation is measured not by the number of engagement activities undertaken, but by whether the community had a genuine opportunity to influence the decisions that mattered.

Many of the most significant planning decisions — including residential catchment boundaries, planning zones, building heights and the new residential planning codes — were either not open for public discussion or were introduced without separate consultation.

Even where building heights were shown on consultation maps, the public was generally not informed that, in many areas, the Planning Minister retains discretion to approve developments exceeding those heights.

Nor was this discretionary power clearly identified on the final released maps. This makes it difficult for communities to understand the full extent of the planning changes.

Meaningful consultation also depends on meaningful notification. If many affected households never realised their properties were under consideration for rezoning, participation could not be broad or representative.

When communities are not fully informed, cannot comment on the decisions that matter most, or cannot see how their feedback influenced the outcome, confidence in both the planning system and future consultation processes is inevitably diminished.

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