Broadmeadows in Melbourne’s north-west has most things a person could need within a short distance — a shopping centre, a gym, schools, a library and a train station.
It’s what Len, who requires a mobility scooter, loves about this area.
But he can’t get a house here.
He’s been living in a caravan in nearby Campbellfield for the past 18 months as he waits for a home to free up in a built-up area like Broadmeadows.
“They’re saying to move out into the outer suburbs, but I need transport,” he said.
“So the more people who live here, the more infrastructure will come.”
The state government has labelled Broadmeadows as one of 10 areas across Melbourne where it wants to collectively build 60,000 new homes.
The government has called these areas “Activity Centres”.
They are Epping, Niddrie, North Essendon, and High Street in Preston in Melbourne’s north, and Frankston, Camberwell Junction, Ringwood, Chadstone and Moorabbin in the city’s east.
Experts say these areas need more housing, because other council areas — like Wyndham in the west and Casey in the east — have been growing too much.
To address this, the government hopes to build 70 per cent of new homes in parts of Melbourne where there’s already housing and infrastructure. The current rate is about 56 per cent.
The government wants to do this by taking planning controls away from local councils in a bid to streamline approvals.
And in the future, it plans to transform another 120 suburbs into “Activity Centres”, as part of a broader aim to add 800,000 dwellings across Victoria over the next decade.
It’s an ambitious plan which experts say will significantly change — and challenge — Australia’s largest city.
Growth corridors have the most development
To see how Melbourne has grown in recent years, the ABC analysed the number of homes — both houses and apartments — each council has approved since 2016.
To do this, we divided Melbourne’s councils into growth areas, where there’s lots of land that could be suitable for development, and established areas, where there’s existing houses and infrastructure.
The growth councils are Wyndham and Melton in the west, Whittlesea, Hume and Mitchell in the north, and Casey and Cardinia in the east — and the rest of Melbourne can be considered established.
The data shows the growth corridors and the CBD has had the highest number of house and apartment approvals, with Wyndham City Council leading the pack, followed by Casey, Melton, Melbourne and Hume.
The council area with the lowest is the predominantly green-wedge zone of Nillumbik, with only 1,310 approvals.
The Macedon Ranges, Frankston, Yarra Ranges and Brimbank rounded out the bottom five.
Council areas where the Activity Centres are located occupy the middle — for example, Moonee Valley has the 12th highest, Boroondara is 15th, and Maroondah is 28th.
When you group Melbourne into its 26 established councils and seven growth councils, we can compare development between the two.
About 56 per cent of Melbourne’s home approvals from July 2016 to January 2024 happened in established council areas, but the yearly rate has declined from about 60 per cent to about 50 per cent.
This is well below the 70 per cent target the state government has set to grow in established suburbs.
Outer suburbs can’t continue to grow
Infrastructure Victoria CEO Jonathan Spear said the current trend — where growth councils are taking on more than 40 per cent of housing approvals in Melbourne — could not continue.
He said it was because Victoria was growing too quickly, and it was too expensive to keep expanding outwards.
According to the state government’s official population projection, Victoria will grow from 6.9 million to more than 8.4 million by 2036.
That means more than 840,000 new homes would need to be built in Victoria in that period.
Dr Spear said growing the established areas of Melbourne with medium-density housing — which includes low-rise apartments and townhouses — would save billions of dollars in infrastructure costs and would give people more choice.
“The only housing choice we have been making is for Melbourne to continue to sprawl, and it’s not fair for future people who are coming to live in Victoria,” he said.
“Our work shows clear evidence that we’re all better off if we have more compact cities and people have greater housing choice.”
But Dr Spear admitted there were challenges associated with growing established suburbs.
“They include high land prices and construction costs, planning system risks, some community opposition, and uncertainty around the timing and outcome of development assessment decisions,” he said.
While we don’t know exactly how the 60,000 houses will be added to the 10 established areas across Melbourne, we do know some of the ways the state government will work with councils to mitigate these risks and incentivise growth.
It will include streamlining processes so approvals move through councils faster, hiring more planners, rezoning land to allow denser housing developments, and establishing local government targets for where the new homes will be built.
The government has also released maps showing the areas where the growth will be concentrated.
The Broadmeadows Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Camberwell Junction Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Chadstone Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Epping Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Frankston Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Moorabbin Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Niddrie and North Essendon Activity Centres. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Preston Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
The Ringwood Activity Centre. (Source: Victorian Government)
Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny said the government would consult with communities to ensure they were on board with the amount of growth.
“We want to hear from communities on how best we can accommodate more housing choice, while ensuring their suburbs maintain their livability,” she said.
Councils have mixed thoughts on plan
But even in these early stages, some councils have been openly critical of the plan, including Boroondara City Council in the state’s east.
The council includes Camberwell Junction, one of the state’s 10 “Activity Centres”.
Scott Walker, the council’s director of urban living, said the council had its own growth plan, and did not want planning to be taken away from local government.
“The changes reduce community and local government input on local planning decisions for housing and, in some cases, take decision-making powers away from council with very little justification or evidence that there will be improvements to supply or outcomes.”
Hume City Council Mayor Naim Kurt, which contains Broadmeadows, was less critical of the plan.
He said he was happy to grow the more established parts of his municipality, but the area also needed urgent upgrades to existing infrastructure, such as the Broadmeadows train station.
“We want to make sure that when that growth comes in, there’s going to be the infrastructure for the community as well,” he said.
Municipal Association of Victoria president David Clark said councils were generally in favour of growth, but rezoning parts of established Melbourne was the best way to drive it.
“We only control part of the system in terms of building a house,” he said.
“Council doesn’t drive the development — a developer does and they exist to make a profit.
“Mostly it’s about where they can find the right land and build to the right density to actually make the money.”
He said the organisation was working with the state government to look into how the housing plan would be implemented.
Melbourne will ‘change immensely’, say planning experts
Other planning experts agree established areas should take on more of Melbourne’s housing growth.
But Patrick Fensham, the president of the Victorian division of the Planning Institute of Australia, said Victoria had not figured out how to do this type of development.
“It’s a big challenge,” he said.
“We’ve spent the best part of 70 years facilitating the outward growth of our cities, particularly car-based suburbs, and now all of a sudden, we’ve got to turn it back in.
“I don’t think we’ve quite realised the scale of that challenge and the new institutions, arrangements and skills we need to develop to be able to achieve that 70 per cent infill target.”
David Nichols, an urban planning professor from the University of Melbourne, said the state government’s target wasn’t impossible, unless a shortage in resources prevented it from happening.
But he said there were better ways to address population and housing growth, such as establishing a metropolitan-specific planning body, and encouraging development in regional centres.
Regardless, Professor Nichols said Australia’s largest city would start to look different.
“The established suburbs are almost certain to change immensely in the process, and it’s in the eye of the beholder whether that’s a good or a bad thing.”