17 September, 2013

New Residential Zones Approved for Boroondara

For years BRAG has been lobbying both the Minister for Planning and our council to "protect what we love about our neighbourhood". The Minister agreed to consider a new zoning system that would rely on neighbourhood character as a means of restricting what could be built and what could not.

Boroondara Council quickly conducted a survey of the municipality to identify precinct characteristics and this has now been used to map out new residential zones. 

At a meeting of the council's Urban Planning Special Committee on 16th September, the committee approved implementation of the Neighbourhood Character Study and the new Residential Zones as set out in the attachment (see above - a map of the new zones is on page 17)

When approved by the Minister, the new zones will offer the protection we have wanted for so long against unacceptable, opportunistic, infill development and it will be much more difficult for
VCAT to over-rule proper council planning decisions.

BRAG thanks the Minister for Planning, Matthew Guy, for introducing these changes for they will return planning power back to our council which is what we have been advocating for the last 10 years.The Coalition election policies promised this and now it has been delivered.

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