Building Melbourne’s Missing Middle charts a course out of the housing crisis—and toward a better city

YIMBY Melbourne today released our first flagship report—Melbourne’s Missing Middle—on necessary changes to Victoria’s planning and tax systems to build a more liveable, sustainable and affordable city for all.

Melbourne’s density drops precipitously from high-rises to single-family homes, with very little medium density between. The Missing Middle is the most desirable, walkable urban form, typified by inner Paris, and it should be legal to build in our most desirable, economically productive areas.

Melbourne’s Missing Middle’s signature recommendation—a new Missing Middle Zone—would enable six-storey, mixed-use development on all residential land within 1 kilometre of a train station and 500 metres of a tram stop—building an interconnected network of 1,992 high-amenity, walkable neighbourhoods.

Melbourne’s Missing Middle envisions Parisian streetscapes across all of inner urban Melbourne, along our train and tram lines and near our town centres. Gentle, walk-up apartments, abundant shopfronts, sidewalk cafes and sprawling parks replacing unaffordable and unsustainable cottages.

The report also recommends

• upzoning all Melbourne land currently zoned for low-density Neighbourhood Residential Zone to higher-density zones like General Residential Zone, Residential Growth Zone, or Missing Middle Zone
• making development within the Missing Middle Zone by-right in exchange for one in ten homes being transferred to a public or community housing provider
• abolishing demand-side subsidies like the First Home Owner Grant
• replacing stamp duty with a broad-based land tax
• increasing the Growth Areas Infrastructure Contribution to more accurately represent the costs of this development
• empowering the Government to take a proactive role in consolidating residential lots and creating new pathways and incentives to consolidate small land parcels to enable neighbourhood-scale planning and development
• abolishing heritage overlays where an on-balance assessment indicates that negative social impacts of the overlay is greater than its benefit
• using newly consolidated lots to create larger inner urban parks surrounded by larger development blocks
• introducing a reduced Residential Windfall Gains Tax rate for value uplift below the current threshold and hypothecating increased tax receipts for public and community housing builds

The final report is available on the YIMBY Melbourne website here.

Quotes attributable to Jonathan O’Brien, Lead Organiser

Melbourne’s Missing Middle is about seizing this once-in-a-lifetime moment to say yes to building our city up, not out.

It’s about believing in the city. We can empower more people to live close to each other, to share in the energy of the city, and to live securely in the places they want to live.

We’ve put this together out of our love for this city.

We want to see a bigger city, a city for everyone, a city where homes are abundant. Our ideas are the first step toward making that a reality.

The most desirable parts of the city are the densest. We want this style of living to be accessible to everyone. We know what it looks like—we just have to allow it to be built in more places, for more people.

Melburnians want to move beyond clusters of skyscrapers surrounded by multi-million-dollar cottages.

Everyone who wants to live in a city that’s serious about confronting both the housing crisis and climate crisis should embrace the Missing Middle. Right now, our city has the rare opportunity to take meaningful action on two crises at once.

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Endorsements of building Melbourne’s Missing Middle

Quotes attributable to Dr Max Holleran, Lecturer, University of Melbourne

Melbourne is desperately in need of a Missing Middle policy. The city can no longer be a vertical and cramped CBD immediately flanked by single family homes.

Diversity in dwellings will bring greater economic diversity of who can live in the city centre.

If Melbourne wants to maintain its status as a world class city, it is high time to embrace smart growth through upzoning. This report supplies sensible and clear policies in that direction.

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Quotes attributable to Colleen Peterson, CEO, Ratio

The housing challenge facing Melbourne is daunting and requires radical changes in thinking if we are to solve it. Building Melbourne’s Missing Middle is a logical part of the solution by providing meaningful amounts of housing where people want to live and work.

Some of these suggestions are challenging, but it’s time we had a conversation about significant changes to our city rather than tinkering around the edges.

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Quotes attributable to Dan McKenna, CEO, Nightingale Housing

Our city is crying out for good quality, medium density housing in areas well serviced by public transport, schools, shops.

We have the opportunity right now to build up Melbourne’s Missing Middle, reducing people’s emissions, lowering the cost of living and contributing to more vibrant and healthy communities

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About YIMBY Melbourne

YIMBY Melbourne is a grassroots team of individuals who care about real, workable solutions to the housing crisis.

From planners and lawyers to students and social workers—the YIMBY movement is a diverse group of people working toward a bigger, better Melbourne.

Our members come from across the political spectrum, and represent major and minor parties alike—all united under a central goal of building more homes where people want to live.

YIMBY Melbourne is a founding member of the Abundant Housing Network Australia.

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Media contact: Travis Jordan | 0448 484 684

Spokesperson: Jonathan O’Brien | lead@yimbymelbourne.org.au | 0402 992 345

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