Bayside backlash: Brighton grumbles about fast-tracked housing plans

Brighton residents are maintaining their opposition against a plan to fast-track housing development in their suburb, with more than 100 gathering on Sunday to register their anger at the government’s planning strategy.

The vocal crowd gathered at Brighton Bowling Club, jeering as local MP James Newbury, the opposition’s planning spokesman, criticised Labor’s plans for 20-storey developments in new activity centres.

Opposition leader John Pesutto meets people at Sunday’s forum to discuss the government’s high-density housing plans.Credit: Wayne Taylor

“I can tell you when it comes to what the government’s proposing in Brighton, if we are fortunate enough to be elected, that ain’t going to happen,” Newbury told the crowd.

In October, the Allan government revealed plans for 50 activity centres. So far, it has named 25 of them, including Brighton, Malvern and Toorak.

When Premier Jacinta Allan announced Brighton’s inclusion at the upmarket Half Moon Hotel on October 20, about 100 locals gathered outside, chanting “Shame, premier, shame!” The pub was closed to the public that day as Allan and Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny used another entrance to avoid the crowd.

On Sunday, town planner and Hampton resident Nikki Taylor said she had become quite vocal since the government unveiled its policy. The Liberal Party member asked questions of the Liberal MPs at Sunday’s event.

“They’re removing appeal rights, consultation is pretty much non-existent, and everything has been decided in Spring Street, not by local communities,” Taylor said of the government.

As part of Labor’s strategy to tackle the housing crisis, it intends to take over planning controls to encourage taller apartments around transport hubs such as train and tram stations. Low-rise apartments and townhouses have also been encouraged in streets within an 800-metre radius of transport hubs.

Allan is yet to stipulate how tall residential construction could go, saying it would be determined by further consultation. But housing developments in the first 10 activity centres are expected to be capped at between three and 20 storeys.

The government has repeatedly rejected suggestions that 20-storey towers will be built in Brighton.

Hampton resident Nikki Taylor asks a question of Liberal MPs about housing plans in Brighton.Credit: Wayne Taylor

“We have been very clear that we need to do the street by street, metre-by-metre analysis within communities to develop draft plans including what kind of heights could be accommodated - for many communities, we know the maximum 20 storeys won’t be suitable,” a government spokesman said.

The activity centre plans across Melbourne include a commercial core, with higher limits currently averaging 12 storeys, and a second walkable area of 800 metres where buildings will be capped at six storeys. Those limits will progressively drop the further away a property is from the activity centre, the government says.

Opposition Leader John Pesutto and Newbury on Sunday said people couldn’t trust the government on its planning promises, and that Melburnians didn’t want skyscrapers built in the city’s suburbs.

Taylor supported the opposition’s position, and said there needed to be a greater focus on Victoria’s regional centres to accommodate the state’s population growth. “They want to live near good schools. They want to live near good medical services, good public transport,” she said.

“To do that, you need to develop these regional cities to make them attractive. You need to create tax incentives for big businesses to move into these regional centres to provide employment.”

Residents at Brighton Bowling Club on Sunday for the opposition’s forum on residential developments.Credit: Wayne Taylor

Radka Shaw, a Bentleigh resident at Sunday’s forum, said the government had effectively removed residents’ voices by taking planning authority from councils.

“I just don’t understand how we’ve got a council, and we pay councillors – why the hell can’t they say how the community feels to the government?” Shaw said.

She said there was a need for more housing in the area, but it had to be suitable, and no higher than five storeys. “We have to cope with that, but at least the sun will still shine on some backyards,” Shaw said.

Pesutto promised the forum the Liberal Party would oppose the changes. He said height levels should be appropriate, but would not say what those limits should be, and reiterated that planning decisions should consider local amenity, neighbourhood character and be “low density”.

“What’s being missed in [the government’s] approach is there are no real height limits because whatever the government can squeeze out of every investment proposal, it will offer developers of these proposals whatever heights they can negotiate, without regard for better apartment design guidelines,” he said.

Pesutto said most Victorians wanted to buy a free-standing home, rather than an apartment, and that Labor was denying them that choice.

“It’s apartments or nothing, and it’s apartments in a small number of suburbs that will be too expensive for those younger families,” he said.

Pesutto said Victoria needed to become a state of cities, with more appropriate growth in the regions.

“Make that choice attractive by investing in our regions with a state of cities, not the city state or the megacity state the premier has in mind.”