Developer yield vs liveability & good planning: What communities stand to lose
Liveable homes, streets & neighbourhoods.
Communities without a say.
The Government’s planning model prioritises housing yield over complete, liveable communities and places. Sunlight, trees, gardens, heritage and neighbourhood character, privacy, local voice and even rooftop solar have been treated as barriers to more homes and faster development.
Planning for community spaces, new open space, employment, community facilities and place has been neglected by a singular focus on housing yield.
As planning becomes more standardised and decision-making more centralised, local communities lose the right and their councils lose the power to influence outcomes that benefit public space and community interests.
The question is not whether to provide greater housing diversity close to transport. The question is whether apartment living should become the dominant housing type within walking distance of public transport in Melbourne’s established suburbs. As these suburbs are progressively redeveloped, future generations will have fewer opportunities to choose the housing type that best suits their needs and budget at different stages of life.
The measure of success is not simply how many homes are built within a 10-minute walk of a train station, but whether they are the type of housing people wish to live in and whether the neighbourhoods and communities they create remain places people choose to live throughout different stages of life.
Future residents risk losing many of the qualities that make these suburbs worth living in.
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Explore further
- Concerns → Privacy, overshadowing and amenity
Explore how more intensive development can affect sunlight, privacy and residential amenity. - Concerns → The reality of piecemeal mid-rise development
See how market-led redevelopment progressively transforms established residential streets one site at a time. - Concerns → Heritage and neighbourhood character
Explore what weakened heritage protections and more intensive development will mean for Melbourne’s established neighbourhoods. - Concerns → Loss of gardens and tree canopy
Explore how larger building footprints and reduced garden space threaten tree canopy, biodiversity and climate resilience. - Concerns → Community and Council locked out
See how centralised decision-making has removed the ability of communities and councils to influence development outcomes. - Concerns → Can infrastructure keep pace?
Explore why the infrastructure planning and funding accompanying the reforms fall short of what is needed to support the scale of housing growth being planned.