Northern Exposure: Canadian City’s Density Lessons for Melbourne

As Melbourne grapples with housing a projected population of 9.6 million by 2050, Toronto’s framework for rail corridor development may offer a tested blueprint for transit-oriented growth. The Toronto Official Plan outlines a comprehensive strategy that has transformed rail corridors from urban barriers into residential hubs. It could help guide managing the challenges Melbourne now faces, Ethos Urban director Chris McNeill told developers at an industry event last month . The Canadian city is aiming to accommodate 3.65 million residents and 1.98 million jobs by 2051, focusing on creating transit-oriented mixed-use centres while protecting residential neighbourhoods and green spaces. “If you run directly north of the CBD along one of the key metro routes, 15km to 20km out from the middle of Toronto around each station, you’ll see clusters of 15, 20 and 25-level mixed-use and residential buildings,” McNeill says. “I think ultimately, that’s going to be the model we can live with.” The Canadian model emphasises directing growth to areas well-served by public transport while protecting established neighbourhoods and green spaces. Its housing strategy includes diverse typologies, from detached houses to low-rise apartments, with higher-density options in apartment neighbourhoods and mixed-use areas near rail stations. Activity centres are strategically positioned near transport infrastructure, creating what the plan terms Mobility Hubs at key network intersections. “The integration of transportation and land-use planning is critical to achieving the overall aim of increasing access to opportunities throughout the city,” the document says. ▲ Modern residential and commercial buildings line Yonge Street, a major street running north and south in Toronto. The framework also promotes mixed-use developments combining residential, commercial and institutional uses to reduce motor vehicle dependency. Victoria’s Government has begun implementing similar strategies. Premier Jacinta Allan has announced higher-density zones around 50 train and tram stations, with plans to deliver 300,000 new homes in metropolitan areas by 2051. “We absolutely need more homes near public transport—near train stations and trams,” Allan said. The Government has already released surplus land near Oakleigh and Footscray stations with potential for 240 homes. The state’s activity centre program, announced this week, would ultimately deliver 300,000 homes near 50 rail stations in Victoria. Half of these sites have been declared and divided to clusters—the remaining 25 sites are to be named this year. The Brighton-Sandringham cluster is part of the Activity Centre Pilot Program that includes areas around North Brighton Station, Middle Brighton Station, Hampton Station and Sandringham Station. Local resistance in this cluster highlights one of the many challenges faced by the state as it attempts to implement its rail corridor density plan. Recent community protests at Brighton highlight concerns about neighbourhood character, prompting planning minister Sonya Kilkenny to acknowledge that “what might be a right height and size for one centre may not be the right fit for another”. ▲ Melbourne Route 109 passes the landmark White Horse statue as it departs the Box Hill terminus. McNeill tells The Urban Developer that Box Hill is “perhaps Melbourne’s best example of a middle-ring suburb that has seen significant high-density development” and “an early model of what Melbourne could look like”. “Factors that influence Box Hill’s development include its status as a hub station on the Lilydale and Belgrave rail lines, and its location as the terminating point on the 109 tram line provides a fixed rail interchange between tram and train,” he says. “Box Hill now has significant retail, commercial centre and administrative centre, including the presence of major health and educational infrastructure, and relatively affluent surrounding suburbs with strong median house prices.” While the Toronto Official Plan may offer guidance, Melbourne faces challenges all of its own. Unlike Toronto’s established network, Victoria is simultaneously building new infrastructure while developing existing corridors. The Metro Tunnel project, scheduled to open next year, presents opportunities to implement best practices from the outset rather than retrofitting existing infrastructure. ▲ The Toronto cityscape from Bathurst Street. The Canadian city’s success in creating “high occupancy uses” near rail corridors while maintaining safety and liveability may provide a template for Suburban Rail Loop’s (SRL) six station precincts, where structure plans will guide development over coming decades. McNeill highlights Chatswood, 10km north of Sydney, as an Australian example of good high-density planning that Melbourne could emulate. “If you look around Chatswood Station, you see a significant cluster of high-density development which is also a model of what suburban Melbourne might look like in the future,” he says. Key lessons from Toronto that could benefit Melbourne include early consultation requirements with railway agencies, integrated approaches to noise and vibration mitigation, clear management agreements for maintenance responsibilities, and requirements for grade-separated pedestrian access. McNeill says current development patterns show an organic attraction for development along rail corridors in Melbourne. “You can already see obvious patterns whereby density is aligned to those older suburbs where land lots are smaller and particularly in those that gravitate along the tram routes and railways. “We’re already seeing higher density in and around the CBD area and moving up into the Inner North. ▲ Ethos Urban director Chris McNeill. “And we’re starting to see spikes down towards the south-east, certainly around St Kilda and then moving out towards the middle suburbs around the Dandenong rail line.” While housing is the focus of any urban density plan, McNeill says the scale of Melbourne’s challenge extends beyond accommodating the expanding populace. “The challenge is bigger than providing 44,000 dwellings a year. You’ve also got to provide retail floor space of about 200,000sq m per annum—or about 100 additional full line supermarkets at about 10 per year across the metropolitan area,” McNeill says. “And it means more than 400ha per annum of industrial land that needs to be released.” Success will likely come not from wholesale adoption of the Toronto model, but from careful adaptation of its proven principles to Melbourne’s unique context. As McNeill says, “We’ve got to have the planning frameworks in place to accept that the development industry will need genuine yielding in those sorts of areas. “The Government is already promoting more intensive development, both employment-based development and residential development in key activity centres dotted around the suburban part of Melbourne. “It’s government policy also that there will be no change to the urban growth boundary, no change to the growth boundary. So, we can assume that key transport projects will shape the nature of development in Melbourne today.” Property Council Victorian executive director Cath Evans describes the State Government’s initiative as “important”, but calls for additional measures like tax concessions to ensure commercial viability. McNeill suggests that while current commercial viability may be challenging, future development will follow established patterns. “It might not stack up now from a commercial viability perspective. But it will one day. Those inner to middle areas and then moving gradually out will ultimately look more like Sydney, more like Toronto, where there’ll be clusters of high-density communities around key well-connected activity centres.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

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