The Residential Zones Standing Advisory Committee (RZSAC) mostly supported the approval of Amendment C179 as drafted by the City of Melbourne. The main differences between their recommendations and the amendment as approved by the Minister in November 2014 are:

• The parts of Kensington, Parkville, Carlton, North Melbourne, East Melbourne and Jolimont proposed for the Neighbourhood Residential Zone (NRZ) with mandatory maximum building heights and mandatory maximum of two dwellings per lot (except where more than two lots already existed) were instead included in the General Residential Zone (GRZ) with mandatory maximum building heights but no mandatory limitation on the number of dwellings per lot (a permit is still required to subdivide a lot).
• The parts of South Yarra that were proposed for the NRZ were rezoned accordingly. The proposed mandatory maximum building heights for these areas however, were reduced from 9 metres and 12 metres to 8 metres, despite the RZSAC being satisfied with the proposed mandatory maximum height controls and stating that further analysis would be required to justify an 8 metre maximum building height.
• The RZSAC recommended changes be made to the Victorian Planning Provisions to allow the ability for councils to include exemptions to the mandatory maximum building height and mandatory maximum number of dwellings, where these are justified, as was the case for draft Amendment C179. However, these changes were not made and therefore the approved did not include the exemptions proposed by the City of Melbourne and supported by the RZSAC.

The State Government has committed to an independent review of the implementation of the residential zone changes which will consider protocols for best practice consultation and the role of key stakeholders in the planning process.

View the report on the State government’s website.