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Introduction >
The basis for Melbourne 2030
Why do we need to look ahead?
Victorians face important choices about how metropolitan Melbourne
and the surrounding region should develop in the next 30 years.
Population and development pressures are changing the environment
in which decisions have to be made, and are affecting the shape
and the flavour of our city. Melbourne 2030 articulates
a detailed plan that takes the long-term view and is based on consultation
with the community.
Metropolitan Melbourne’s current shape reflects more than
a century of work by those who developed the rail network from 1880
onwards, and by the generations of planners who crafted plans for
the city since 1929 (see ‘Melbourne’s
planning history’).
Melbourne 2030 builds on the earlier plans and the infrastructure
we have inherited while responding to the new issues confronting
us. It uses current views of the future and an understanding of
the past as the basis for a long-term plan to mould the city.
It tackles these key questions – to which there are no simple
or permanent answers:
- how best can we provide for a growing population and ensure
that we live within available resources of water, land and energy?
- how should development be focused and what pattern of land use
and transport should we invest in for a better future?
- in which areas should we discourage or prevent development in
order to retain the quality of natural environments across the
Port Phillip and Westernport catchments and beyond?
- what changes should we make to our lifestyles, the technologies
we use and the way we organise the city to reduce resource usage
and our impact on our living environment?
- what additional social infrastructure will be needed to support
a growing city, and how will we ensure this is available for all
when it is needed?
| Melbourne’s planning
history |
1922 –
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Metropolitan Town Planning Commission is established
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1929 –
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report of the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission proposes
a planning scheme to prevent ‘misuse’ of land and
protect property values, highlighting traffic congestion, the
distribution of recreational open space and haphazard intermingling
of land uses
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| 1954 – |
first comprehensive planning scheme for the metropolitan area,
prepared by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW),
introduces the concept of district business centres and focuses
major retail activity on designated centres on the public transport
system that also provide central locations for housing, transport,
employment and community activity
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| 1971 – |
the MMBW report, Planning Policies for the Melbourne Metropolitan
Region, introduces long-term conservation and development
policies through growth corridor and green wedge principles,
and contains outward growth to a limited number of areas on
the edge of the city
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| 1980 – |
the MMBW’s Metropolitan Strategy reinforces the
1954 policy on district centres, encourages development in existing
areas, and concentrates housing, transport, employment and community
facilities at highly accessible points
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| 1983 – |
new district centre zones encourage office development in
14 centres and restrict it elsewhere |
| 1987 – |
Shaping Melbourne’s Future reinforces the thrust
of the 1980 Strategy |
| 1995 – |
Living Suburbs relaxes metropolitan-wide planning direction
and controls, for example, on green wedge boundaries and the
hierarchy of activity centres, and devolves much decision-making
to local level or on a case-by-case basis |
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