Activity Centres the first step to unlocking Melbourne's Missing Middle

Missing Middle density across the activity centres demonstrates a strong vision

The first steps toward materialising the Missing Middle vision are being made. YIMBY Melbourne particularly notes:

• Broad upzoning to enable six storey, Missing Middle development on side-streets
• Deemed to comply within Activity Centres to create certainty for communities and builders alike
• Fast-tracked structure planning process to enable clear, concise decision making

We look forward to seeing future details of the catchment areas, which should enable mixed-use development, so that every Melburnian can have access to good coffee on their block.

To be successful, zoned capacity must be feasible and demand-driven

YIMBY Melbourne modelling indicates that three-storey development would not be viable in many of the identified catchments, and that heritage overlays would preclude most development in areas like Camberwell.

Six-storey zoning does not preclude three-storey development, but three-storey zoning does preclude six-storey development. The government should show leadership and maximise choice for present and future Melburnians to live where they want to live, in medium-density side streets that benefit everyone.

Activity Centre plans perpetuate cardinal sin of planning

These Activity Centres plans will continue Victoria’s trend of concentrating dense housing on main roads: the loudest, most polluted, and least safe areas of our cities.

This is a policy choice with serious health impacts.

And yet it is the policy choice the Victorian planning system planning repeatedly makes: in order to protect the backyards of wealthy landowners, the planning system has elected to make poorer people sick.

YIMBY Melbourne calls for broad upzoning that allows density on side streets as well as main streets, to give people the choice to live in safer, more equitable places.

The Victorian Government has an opportunity to outdo their New South Wales counterparts

The activity centres represent just a tiny portion of housing we need to deliver, and just a tiny portion of the places across Melbourne where people want to live.

The good news is this: our city has a broad network of fixed rail primed for densification.

The Victorian Government now has a real opportunity to outdo their New South Wales counterparts, and undertake the broad upzoning across our city’s 1,922 tram and train stops, to ensure Australia’s greatest and fastest-growing city will succeed for decades to come. 

Quotes attributable to Jonathan O’Brien, Lead Organiser

“Melbourne is our nation’s fastest-growing city for a reason: because it’s the best. Densifying enables more people to experience what makes this city great—not old rows of dilapidated terrace houses, but the people, the culture, the way the light sits on the horizon at the break of spring.”

“We have so much city to share, and the Activity Centres are a good start as Melbourne moves toward growing up rather than out, and ensuring that everyone is well-served by the amenities our city has to offer.”

“This is a promising sign from the government that Plan for Victoria is ready to recognise the importance of building Melbourne’s Missing Middle.”

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