Wednesday, 16 October 2024

Production of documents

Residential planning zones

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:05): I move:

That this house:

(1) notes the announcement by the Allan Labor government of 10 high-rise, high-density designated activity centres, including associated catchment zones, namely:

(a) Hume City Council (Broadmeadows and Jacana);

(b) Boroondara City Council (Hawthorn, Hawthorn East, Camberwell, Canterbury, East Camberwell);

(c) Stonnington, Monash and Glen Eira councils (Malvern East, Oakleigh, Hughesdale, Murrumbeena, Chadstone);

(d) Whittlesea City Council (Epping, Mill Park and Lalor);

(e) Frankston City Council (Frankston and Seaford);

(f) Bayside, Glen Eira and Kingston city councils (Bentleigh, Brighton East, Hampton East, Moorabbin and Highett);

(g) Moonee Valley City Council (Niddrie, Essendon and Airport West);

(h) Moonee Valley City Council (North Essendon, Essendon and Strathmore);

(i) Darebin City Council (Preston, Northcote, Thornbury and Reservoir);

(j) Maroondah and Whitehorse city councils (Ringwood, Ringwood East, Heathmont, Mitcham and Heatherdale);

(2) further notes the recent declaration by the Allan Labor government of population growth targets over the next three decades for Victorian municipalities;

(3) requires the Leader of the Government, pursuant to standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, advice, briefs, documents, assessments and modelling relied upon by the Minister for Planning and/or the Premier in making their announcement of:

(a) the municipal population targets; and

(b) the 10 high-density, high-rise activity centres and their associated catchment zones.

This is a straightforward documents motion that notes the announcement by the Allan Labor government of 10 high-rise, high-density designated activity centres, including the associated catchment zones. They are Hume council; Boroondara City Council; Monash, Stonnington and Glen Eira councils; Whittlesea council; Frankston council; others at Bayside, Glen Eira and Kingston; Moonee Valley council, where there are two; and Darebin City Council. Maroondah and Whitehorse councils make up the final one, running from Heatherdale all the way out to Ringwood East and through the central part of Ringwood but going a significant distance in the catchment zone in either direction – I am using that by way of example. It further notes the recent declaration by the Allan Labor government of population targets over the next three decades for Victorian municipalities. It requires the leader of the government, pursuant to standing order 10.01, to table in the Council, within three weeks of the house agreeing to this resolution, advice, briefs, documents, assessments and modelling relied on by the Minister for Planning and/or the Premier in making their announcement of (a) the municipal population targets and (b) the 10 high-rise, high-density activity centres and their associated catchment zones.

This, as the President outlines, is actually a narrow documents motion. The decisions on the 10 high-density, high-rise zones – these are very large areas of our city. There are about 120-odd major activity centres in our city; 10 of them have been designated in this way for high-rise, high-density with massive so-called catchments. The catchments allow, according to the government documents, either three- or six-storey as-of-right development.

The Minister for Planning and the Premier in making this announcement must have relied on briefing material, modelling and assessments that have been undertaken and must have been provided with briefs by the department. What this documents motion is seeking is those sources of information on which the Premier and the Minister for Planning relied – it may be that there is a deep and concentrated amount of information and significant modelling; that is not my information, but I am happy to be corrected in that – and for that information to be provided to the chamber and the community and the councils to enable them to understand and make proper assessments of these matters.

In the case of the targets that have been set for municipalities, you can say a lot about this, but again, this is an attempt to understand how the government arrived at the various targets, how they developed the targets, what modelling was behind them, why more here and less there and what background work has been done to develop those specific targets. That is actually the essence of the documents motion. It is not a complex motion. It refers to two recent planning decisions that have been made by government, two recent steps that have been taken by government in the case of the targets and councils being advised of these, without much at all in the way of consultation.

In the case of the high-rise, high-density activity centres, they fall into two parts. There is often a central node, and the example in Ringwood is one of them where there has been discussion with government about the very central node. That is in around the station and Eastland and so forth. But the new thing that completely popped out of the blue when the government made this announcement was the catchment zones, which go for more than 800 metres in some places but in general at least 800 metres in a series of directions out from these central nodes – so they are quite large so-called catchment zones. How did the government arrive at these, what examination and modelling did they do in the particular areas and what material was presented to the Premier and the Minister for Planning that enabled them to make these announcements? They must have had information in front of them that enabled them with some confidence to go out and make these announcements. The community has every right to see that information, and the community has every right to have significant examination of that information.

I know the councils were completely and utterly surprised. In the case of Maroondah, in the case of Whitehorse, in the case of Boroondara, in case of Stonnington and even in the case of Monash, the councils – I am quoting a few here – were ‘completely surprised’ by these catchment zones. There had been no discussion on those matters. The government must have somehow or other had material in front of them and must have had some assessments. Maybe they have got the Victorian Planning Authority, the VPA, to do modelling. I am told that there is modelling at the VPA. I have not seen the modelling. Others have discussed that with the VPA and received back from the VPA modest pieces and snippets of information. For example, with respect to heritage and the protection of heritage, we are told, through people who have discussed it with the VPA – these are direct conversations that have come to me to from those who have had the conversations with the VPA – that they have modelled the loss of 50 per cent of the heritage zones. Michael Buxton is the one; he has spoken to the VPA.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (10:12): I rise to speak on Mr Davis’s documents motion seeking a range of materials, pursuant to standing order 10.01, relating to advice, briefs, documents, assessments and modelling relied on by the Minister for Planning and the Premier in making their announcement of the 10 activity centres and population targets therein. Noting that this is a short-form documents motion, I do not propose to spend it talking about conversations that someone has had with someone else at the pub who has talked to someone who has seen the documents. That is not how we rely on evidence to conduct serious debate.

What I will say is that the government’s announcement of the metropolitan activity centres as part of the housing statement in September 2023 has been accompanied by substantial amounts of information which has been put into the public domain. As this is a motion seeking documents relating to these decisions, I would encourage Mr Davis and other members who are interested in good public policy, who are interested in good public engagement and who are interested in figuring out how we are going to solve the housing crisis – how we are going to find ways to provide homes for more Victorians, which is what is at the centre of this policy question. How do we make sure that there are enough homes for Victorians to live in, and how do we make sure that more Victorians are able to live closer to transport, amenities, jobs and schools and take advantage of the existing infrastructure that we have in suburban Melbourne so that we are not pushing more and more people who want to buy somewhere to live to our urban growth corridors and see an ever-expanding urban growth boundary? For people who are interested in that, like Mr Davis, I would encourage them to go to the Engage Victoria website, where there is substantial information in the public domain that goes exactly to the answers that Mr Davis is seeking to find in the documents motion here today.

The activity centres program has a detailed page on the Engage Victoria website which goes through all of the steps and factors that have been taken into account in determining why the program is needed, how long the planning process is going to take, the way that the planning authority undertakes planning in each of these activity centres, the architectural testing that they do, the site context analysis that is done, the built form testing that is available, the way that the new overlays in the Victorian planning provisions have been developed, the plan sets that have been developed for each of these activity centres and how this process is going to be implemented – how the activity centre plans are going to be implemented.

With things like maps, matrices, analysis, they are not just for the overall context, but they are documents already available in the public domain on the Engage Victoria website which actually step through for each of the 10 metropolitan activity centres exactly how those decisions have been made. Things like the site context analysis, which pieces of infrastructure or what types of dwelling and land usage apply in these existing centres already, what is the local infrastructure, how that has gone and how all of that is factored into the plans for consultation are all there in the public domain on the Engage Victoria website – an overarching site with a page for each of the metropolitan activity centres. There is a lot of information in the public domain.

Obviously the government is not going to be opposed to this documents motion. It is not our practice to do so. But if people want to know more about the metropolitan activity centres, the process it has gone through, the methodology and the rationale, engage.vic.gov.au/activitycentres is the place you should go to find out more.

Michael GALEA (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (10:17): I also rise to speak on the motion 617, which has been put forward by Mr Davis and his NIMBY colleagues in the Liberal Party this morning, and in doing so note that whilst I do not intend to foreshadow potential remarks which we may come to later in the day when we do have a chance to debate that in the general business slot, I do at the outset wish to say that it is an important subject indeed for the reasons that Mr Batchelor was going through. I know housing is an extremely important issue for all Victorians, having partaken in the recent Legal and Social Issues Committee inquiry into the issue of housing and rental affordability. We saw lots of evidence around issues affecting that side of the equation, and when it comes to density it is an important conversation to be having, and that is exactly why we are having that conversation. That is exactly why, as Mr Batchelor said, we have started that engagement process, that consultation, and are actually talking to these communities so that each community can help to form what will become those plans for their future growth.

Some in the Liberal Party – it seems to be the current policy of the Liberal Party – wish to advocate for further and further urban sprawl, urban development, but this is a government that recognises that whilst there will always be a place for that sort of greenfield development, we cannot continue that at the pace that we are currently doing. I will again come to some of these issues later in the day, but we know that the Liberals have no plan for the outer suburbs. They just would rather see them continue to grow and grow and grow without actually looking at some of those structural issues when it comes to density.

Evan Mulholland interjected.

Michael GALEA: I would be happy to take up your interjection, Mr Mulholland, and I can talk about all the ways in which we are funding those growing suburbs. I can talk to you about the three new schools that we are building right now in the Berwick electorate, in Clyde North. I can talk to you about Mirniyan Primary School, which will be opening next year, and the two other primary schools as well. I can also talk to you about the two onsite school kinders that will also be built over the next two years at some of these new schools as well. That of course comes on top of Topirum Primary School, which opened this year, and on top of the multiple primary schools that opened in recent years and indeed the onsite kinder, which will be opening at Topirum next year as well. There are many, many things, and that is just in one space. That is just in early childhood and in education that we are making those investments in those outer suburbs. We have also of course announced the growth areas infrastructure contribution funded four bus route extensions in the south-east, which will particularly benefit Clyde North, and they will help Berwick and help Beaconsfield, Officer and Pakenham as well. Whether it is road upgrades, major and minor, or whether it is the new hospital upgrades or the new community hospital in Cranbourne, whichever way you look at it – to take up Mr Mulholland’s interjection there – we absolutely are investing in those outer suburbs. But we also know that we cannot continue to grow these suburbs at the rate that they are currently growing. We must think better and we must think smarter.

We know that those opposite have no new ideas and that they do not want to see any changes. They do not want to see any density in those areas, such as Camberwell, such as Moorabbin, which have the transport networks in place to accommodate it. This is a government that is prepared to have those conversations with these communities, with these councils. I note some very positive feedback we have received from a number of those councils. Just a couple of weeks ago, along with Mr Davis and Mr Mulholland, I was in Frankston for the Economy and Infrastructure Committee’s hearings into local government, and we heard in very good terms and good praise from Frankston City Council their vision for the Frankston Metropolitan Activity Centre Structure Plan, otherwise known as FMAC. Frankston City Council sees the issue, but it also sees the opportunities and the future that we can build in a place such as central Frankston. So too does Kingston council when it comes to Moorabbin. Kingston are very excited and very proactive indeed in facing the housing challenge head-on.

Mr Davis may wish to align himself with those forces that want to keep leafy inner suburban Hawthorn the way it was a hundred years ago, but this is a government that is delivering housing for all Victorians, not just those who have the privilege of owning multimillion-dollar mansions in the inner city. I will leave my remarks there. I am sure I will have some further things to elaborate on later on this day.

Sheena WATT (Northern Metropolitan) (10:22): I rise and follow my colleagues Mr Galea and Mr Batchelor in making some remarks on the short-form documents motion that is before us, moved by Mr Davis, that draws our attention to the housing statement. I could not be more delighted to stand here and talk about the incredible work of the housing statement, but I also know that the communities that will be highlighted in the motion include some in the Northern Metropolitan Region that I know are especially excited about more housing for more Victorians right here in Melbourne’s inner-city suburbs. The truth is we know that Melbourne’s population is set to match London by the 2050s, and we need to make sure that we ensure that as our populations grow, our communities grow with it.

The housing statement was delivered in September last year, and we knew that some of the biggest blockages were coming from local council, and that is why I was delighted to see that there was a commitment to 10 activity centres across Melbourne. These are in places that can support more communities with more homes, because these are already really enriched communities in terms of the social and cultural aspects and elements of the communities. People need and deserve quality homes in areas close to jobs, close to transport, close to families but also close to medical centres, close to high-quality schools and others. Areas that have heaps of these options – areas like Camberwell, areas like those around Boroondara City Council – well, folks deserve to live there too. That is why I am entirely supportive of the housing statement and all that comes with that, because we are trying so much to deliver more homes for more Victorians. That is what we are absolutely committed to, because people want to live here. This is a thriving city attracting people from all over the country and indeed, now we know, all over the world.

We have sought feedback from councils, and I am very happy to say that many have contributed to that through Engage Victoria and through direct engagement. I know that prior to the public launch of the draft activity centre plans, specific meetings were indeed held with relevant councils to outline the contents of these activity centre plans, including areas relating to their catchments. I was really happy to see that the Allan Labor government has in fact met with every single council this year about the draft housing targets for local government areas and asked councils to report back on the draft target and the local changes that they propose. The housing statement, as I said, contains so much that will be good for Victorians, including some elements that I know will go to the following short-form documents motion, which is around more social housing and greater rental rights. So I am delighted to make a short contribution, and I appreciate the additional time afforded to me today to speak to that.

Motion agreed to.