Melbourne Moves Sustainable Building Scheme Along

The push to add sustainable building design guidelines to the Melbourne planning scheme has moved ahead.

Amendment C376 will now be referred on to the Victorian planning minister after the City of Melbourne’s Future Melbourne Committee voted unanimously to ask the minister to convene an independent planning panel.

That panel will consider the 73 submissions made to the guidelines as well as the amendment itself.

The Future Melbourne Committee resolved to ask the Victorian planning minister to authorise the amendment in September 2020 with authorisation granted in October 2022.

Councillor Rohan Leppert said although it was unusual to have a municipality-wide design and development overlay, it was necessary as the Victorian Government had not acted to create the proper planning controls.

“What I’d love to see is the State come up with a strong suite of controls that would allow councils where there is the capacity in the industry to be more ambitious ... to go even further above and beyond what those controls are, but we don’t even have those base controls,” Leppert said.

“All we and other councils have got is policy that may or may not come into force when other claims materialise. 

“The state is unfortunately not meeting its rhetoric about the need to create energy efficient buildings.

“That’s not just about meeting the needs of the climate emergency—it’s about creating buildings that are efficient and affordable to operate over the long term so that we’re not creating cheap, inefficient buildings that are an absolute nightmare for the tenants or the owners to deal with over the decades to come.” 

▲ Cr Rohan Leppert said municipality-wide planning guidelines and controls were needed as the State had not kept promises to do so.

Amendment C376 was exhibited between March 2, 2023 and April 17, 2023 and the councillors were presented with copies of all submissions in September, 2023.

Of the 73 submissions, 37 supported the amendment, 7 submissions were not supportive and a 29 did not indicate if they were supportive or not.

The Green Factor tool developed by the council to encourage urban greening of developments was the subject of 20 submissions with 14 supporting its inclusion in the planning scheme and three uncertain about how it works.

There were 11 submissions about sustainable transport requirements with five that requested a reduction in bicycle parking rates.

Ten submissions supporting mandatory requirements with three objections and nine submissions raised concerns about impacts on economic feasibility.

There were seven submissions that asked for changes in the technical drafting of the amendment.

One submission stated that needing a technical and economic justification to change a preferred environmentally sustainable design tool or energy efficiency standard would be “onerous” while two submissions noted that assessing such justifications might be difficult.

The NABERS Energy rating requirement was identified as not appropriate for all non-residential buildings by five submissions and four submissions objected to car parking spaces being retained as common property.

There were also four submissions that stated some requirements exceeded the National Construction Code standards will four other submissions asked for transitional provisions to be introduced.

Changes to the amendment were then recommended by planning officers which included removing the requirement for an expert report for each change to a preferred tool or energy efficiency standard on the basis of technical achievement or economic feasibility.

Other recommended changes were comprised of the following: the inclusion of guidelines for different classes of development, the option to enter a NABERS Energy Commitment Agreement, a reduction in the employee and visitor bicycle parking rates, and the addition of transitional provisions.

Once the independent planning panel assesses the submissions and the amendment, the Victorian planning minister will make the final determination.