By Adam Carey
Construction of thousands of new homes in Melbourne’s fastest-growing suburbs is being held up for months and in some cases years due to Melbourne Water’s failure to approve stormwater drainage plans, putting the state’s housing targets at risk.
Developers and local councillors are pleading with the Allan government to intervene, warning that the backlog in planning approvals is jeopardising projects that are essential to unlocking affordable housing on Melbourne’s fringe.
Property developer AJ Batra has a number of estates in the City of Melton delayed.Credit: Simon Schluter
Correspondence between developers, councils and Melbourne Water, seen by this masthead, shows that several large residential projects in the outer suburbs have been delayed by between nine months and two years over drainage issues. The correspondence reveals Melbourne Water has a nine- to 12-month backlog of plans awaiting approval, and lacks the resources to promptly tackle the queue of housing projects.
Drainage plans are critical to dealing with stormwater and sewage, and to avoid flooding, and must be approved by water authorities before construction of new housing estates can begin.
The delays have held up thousands of new homes in growth areas in the cities of Wyndham and Melton in Melbourne’s outer west. Those two council areas were recently given draft targets by the state government of 120,000 and 132,000 new homes respectively by 2050.
In large parts of Melton set aside for future housing, Melbourne Water is reviewing all drainage plans after finding that the initial plans, now 12 years old, are “insufficient” for the volumes of sewage and stormwater outflow expected.
This is why it is important to get town planning of stormwater removal right.Credit: Denise Jury
Developers with housing projects covered by the review have told the City of Melton their housing plans have been delayed by one to two years while the water authority resolves the issue.
The council has acknowledged “that there is a problem in finding locations for stormwater to outfall in this part of the [municipality],” according to documents tabled in July.
Property developer LandxWise is waiting on drainage approvals for multiple housing estates in the City of Melton. At a recent planning forum, the company’s managing director AJ Batra urged Victorian Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny to find a way through the backlog.
“As much as the City of Melton is accepting of the housing targets set in the new Plan for Victoria, there’s a lot of obstacles in the way, and drainage approvals is one of the most important ones,” Batra said.
Housing developments in Melton in Melbourne’s outer west are being held up waiting for drainage approvals.Credit: Jason South
He estimated more than 1000 homes in the estates he is developing are affected, as well as community infrastructure, including a new school that is also snared in the impasse.
“Drainage infrastructure has to be delivered so flooding doesn’t happen like it did in Kensington in 2022,” he said. “But to deliver that you need an authority that is able to work hand in hand [with developers] and work proactively through an approval and design phase for timely delivery of assets.”
Batra said Melbourne Water has conceded to developers that it does not have the capacity to process approvals in a timely way, but had become more responsive in recent months.
In April, a senior engineer with Melbourne Water emailed property developer Intaj Khan, chairman of Countryland, who is waiting for approval on two estates in Rockbank and Thornhill Park.
“Your design review application is 1 of 13 in my list with 12 of them being older than yours,” the Melbourne Water engineer wrote after Khan sought an update.
Rockbank awaits development.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
“You have to understand that I have to balance the needs and priorities of all of these applications as many have been waiting for 6 to 12 months or more.”
Khan said Rockbank – Australia’s fastest-growing suburb over the past two years – had become a “graveyard” for property developments.
“If you go out there, there is no machine on the ground,” he said. “Land developers are not putting in the money because they can’t get approvals.
“The western region was meant to be a very good growth corridor, but Rockbank South, Rockbank North, Melton East and Toolern PSPs [precinct structure plans] have become a disaster. They cannot develop these areas without Melbourne Water’s support and Melbourne Water’s support is not coming.”
A Melbourne Water spokesperson said the authority had committed additional resources where it had identified delays.
“Stormwater needs somewhere to go, which is why developers are required to ensure that drainage and permanent outfalls are included in their plans to prevent adverse impacts like flooding,” the spokesperson said.
“Melbourne Water is committed to achieving good water planning and strengthening our city’s resilience to flood events, while also meeting the challenge of increased housing supply, and we’ll continue to work closely with industry to set a road map of improvement areas to help unlock housing.”
City of Wyndham councillor Josh Gilligan said water authorities should have caps imposed on the time taken to approve drainage plans, arguing homebuyers were also paying the price amid a citywide housing shortage.
“If Wyndham City said to the state we’d take six months to turn traffic lights on, or we’d build estates with no sewerage connection and take up to 200 working days to get works done, we’d be put into administration,” Gilligan said.
“Because these are state areas of responsibility, the silence is deafening,signups and it is time the Auditor-General has a look into the catastrophe playing out for families in the outer suburbs.”
Disquiet among developers about the cost of delays led the Urban Development Institute of Australia to write to Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas last year, urging the state government to impose performance standards on water authorities, like it did on electricity distributors in 2018. The institute listed several examples of housing projects bogged down by delays, including cases where the authority took more than a year to respond to plans.
Institute chief executive Linda Allison said Melbourne Water had boosted its resources in the past 12 months and begun refining their processes.
“It’s not perfect and it will take time, but we’ve seen a concerted effort by Melbourne Water to improve those things,” Allison said.
The Allan government was contacted for comment.
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