This consultation is closed. Thank you to all of you who contributed feedback.
We considered more than 100 submissions and the Yarra Housing Strategy has now been adopted.
Melbourne’s population is growing, and Yarra is no different.
By 2031, we expect an extra 29,000 people to move to our city and to live in an additional 13,400 homes.
In 2018 we developed a plan to manage our population growth, and we asked for your feedback.
The plan – Yarra’s Draft Housing Strategy – identified where new housing can be located to meet the needs of our changing community, while still maintaining all the things we love about Yarra, like our heritage and neighbourhood character.
The aim of the strategy is to direct housing growth to suitable locations (including near services, shops and public transport) so we can accommodate a growing population, while still preserving our established and residential areas.
The strategy also addresses the needs of families who will live in apartment buildings, and the importance of having a variety of housing choices – including affordable housing – for people on all incomes and stages of life.
The directions in the strategy will inform new local planning policy in the Yarra Planning Scheme.
Glossary of planning terms
Yarra Planning Scheme: The Yarra Planning Scheme sets out the rules for the way land can be used and developed. It includes local and state policies and controls.
Activity Centre: An area that provides a focus for services, employment, housing, transport and social interaction. They include Yarra's retail streets.
Strategic Development Sites: Sites that have been identified for redevelopment. They are often in commercial and mixed-use areas and include large, industrial parcels of land, such as the former paper recycling mill in Alphington.
Dwelling: A house, townhouse or apartment. Some blocks have one or two dwellings or ‘homes’, where an apartment development could have hundreds of dwellings.
Urban renewal: The term for redeveloping land in cities, which often involves demolishing old structures and replacing them with new houses, facilities and infrastructure.
Zones: All land is ‘zoned’. Zones categorise how land is used, and there are specific rules relating to each zone.
Residential zone: Relates to land that is predominantly for housing. The residential zone applies to 805 hectares of land in Yarra, accounting for 41% of all land in Yarra.
Commercial zone: Relates to land that primarily has a commercial purpose, including shops, offices and restaurants.
Mixed use zone: Relates to land that has a mixture of commercial, industrial and residential uses.
