The suburbs that will suffer most from Melbourne’s planning failure

Two authors of the blueprint guiding Melbourne’s future expansion say government needs to redirect population growth away from the city’s outer fringe and towards middle suburbs.

But Opposition Leader Matthew Guy, who announced on Monday that if the Coalition wins this month’s state election he would release more outer suburban land for homes, dismissed the warnings of “academics” that urban sprawl limited access to services and jobs.

Matthew Guy in Manor Lakes in Melbourne’s west on Monday.Credit: Jason South

Professor Roz Hansen, who chaired Plan Melbourne’s ministerial advisory committee, and John Stanley, a member of that committee, told The Age that they were concerned the government was not doing enough to encourage denser residential development in middle suburbs.

“We just cannot keep carving up vacant land out on the edge of metro Melbourne,” said Hansen, a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning.

“The long-term effects are that we’re going to have more people living in urban areas without access to sufficient jobs and services.”

Hansen said slowing growth in outer suburbs, and encouraging greater density where it did occur, should be the top priority when the government reviews Plan Melbourne next year.

The key opportunity, she said, was to encourage denser populations in middle suburbs, where there are already jobs and public transport but not enough housing.

At a construction site in Manor Lakes, in Melbourne’s outer west, where he tipped sand into a cement mixer and laid a brick for a new home, Guy said he would fast-track the release of 150,000 new housing lots in Melbourne and regional Victoria within two years.

“Having more land in the market means there’s more homes for sale ... and downward pressure on price. Importantly, it means more people can buy a home,” he said.

Guy, a former planning minister, dismissed Hansen and Stanley’s concerns that concentrating Melbourne’s growth in the outer suburbs would cut people off from jobs and services.

A new housing estate off Cardinia Road, next to the Pakenham bypass.Credit: Penny Stephens

“It’s fine for an academic to say that no one should live in the suburbs, those people usually live within three [kilometres] of the CBD. But unfortunately, that’s not realistic,” Guy said.

“You can’t just say we want everyone to live in one style of housing. That’s not how cities of 5 million people work.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic Melbourne was forecast to grow to 9 million people – the size of London today – by about 2050. Voters who spoke to The Age as part of its Victoria’s Agenda project said dealing with that growth was one of their top concerns in the November state election.

Containing 70 per cent of new housing to established suburbs – where residents will be close to existing services, jobs and public transport – by 2050 was a key goal set by Plan Melbourne, a government strategy first released in 2014 and updated in 2017.

But new “greenfield” housing developments in the outer cities of Casey, Cardinia, Hume, Mitchell, Melton, Whittlesea and Wyndham made up 56 per cent of the dwellings built in 2021 and 52 per cent in 2020, according to data from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.

Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning data shows close to half of the dwellings built in established suburbs were in three inner-city council areas – Melbourne, Yarra and Port Phillip – meaning all other established areas accounted for only a quarter of new dwellings in 2021 and 30 per cent in 2020.

Stanley, an adjunct professor at the University of Sydney’s Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies, said medium-density redevelopment in middle suburbs was not happening “anywhere near quickly enough”.

“There are considerable failures in execution and implementation in delivering the kind of city that we envisaged,” he said.

Planning Minister Lizzie Blandthorn said the Andrews government was committed to Plan Melbourne’s long-term goals, including limiting greenfield development.

The government was delivering Plan Melbourne’s concept of “20-minute neighbourhoods” in new precincts such as Arden (in North Melbourne) and Fishermans Bend (Port Melbourne), and as part of the governments’ flagship Suburban Rail Loop, she said.

The Suburban Rail Loop’s first $34.5 billion leg includes higher-density housing and development in six new station “precincts” between Cheltenham and Box Hill, which Labor says it will build by 2035 if it stays in office.

“We’re prioritising access to housing in suburbs with established infrastructure, services and jobs – so Victorians can work, exercise and socialise close to home,” Blandthorn said.

Stanley said money would be better spent building up these areas first, and only building the loop when they reach a population and employment density that could support such a project.

Jonathan Spear, chief executive of the independent government adviser Infrastructure Victoria, said the state risked sacrificing liveability and sustainability if it did not do more to redirect its population growth away from outer suburbs.

“That includes prioritising locations in established suburbs for more housing to better use existing infrastructure,” he said. “If we pile the pressure on our growth areas in the coming decades, it’s going to be harder to meet their infrastructure needs.”

Infrastructure Victoria has previously warned that it costs two to four times more to build transport, services and utilities for new housing in greenfield suburbs than in established areas.

The Housing Industry Association welcomed the Coalition’s announcement on Monday that it would free up 150,000 lots.

With Rachel Eddie

This article has been amended to reflect the fact that John Stanley is an adjunct professor at the University of Sydney, not the University of Melbourne as originally stated.

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