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Presentation – Development Engineering Stream
PWC25 – Public Works Conference 14-16 May 2025, Melbourne
Summary (100-word max)
Councils are “under the pump” more than ever to fast-track housing development in response to the housing shortage crisis in Victoria. The Victorian Government’s Housing Statement for the decade ahead sets out a number of challenging initiatives aimed to accelerate the planning and approvals process and provide cheaper housing closer to the workplace. This is going to place significant pressure on Council’s planning and engineering development processes, not to mention the need for developers and their consultants to play an important part in facilitating these initiatives. The approach to solving the housing crisis will involve collaboration by all stakeholders, good planning and sound engineering processes.
Outline (400 words max)
The Victorian Government has released a Housing Strategy that will drive housing development in Victoria over the next decade. Initiatives include planning regulation reform, fast-tracking the housing development process, making it easier to build small second homes, and setting housing targets for every Victorian council so that 70% of new homes go in established areas that are well supported by transport, services and jobs. This will place unprecedented pressure on Council’s planning and engineering processes to accelerate the redevelopment of inner urban areas of towns and cities. In-fill development will require wise choices of location (impact on existing properties), services, compliance with planning scheme requirements and community acceptance.
This the challenges to be faced, and the planning and engineering processes that Councils will need to adopt and promote to ensure that the new housing (and associated developments such as commerce, schools and recreation) is provided to the community in a timely manner. Council staff will need to be well informed (and trained) to handle these challenges, as will the developers and their consultants to ensure that effective and realistic proposals are presented. Strategic management plans to support these developments will have to focus on the ability to retrofit housing and other developments into the inner urban areas – these management plans include environmental, traffic impact, cultural heritage and stormwater management amongst others.
The session will focus on the Council (client) side of the process – preliminary concept acceptance, the town planning framework, and the challenges that will be presented by developers, their consultants, government authorities, service authorities and community action groups. A case study will be provided that summarises the key steps that sees a challenging and controversial development proposal move through the community acceptance process and ultimate Council approval – including the initial objections, mediation, VCAT and finally Council and community acceptance.