{"id":504553,"date":"2026-02-26T04:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504553\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:40:08","slug":"where-will-victorias-new-homes-be-built-competing-liberal-and-labor-visions-are-as-much-about-politics-as-planning-victorian-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/504553\/","title":{"rendered":"Where will Victoria\u2019s new homes be built? Competing Liberal and Labor visions are as much about politics as planning | Victorian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A genuine policy contest has finally broken out over housing in Victoria<\/a> \u2013 but it is as much about politics as it is about planning.<\/p>\n

The opposition leader, Jess Wilson, on Wednesday announced a plan to expand Melbourne\u2019s capital city zone \u2013 effectively expanding the CBD to take in Collingwood, Fitzroy, Fishermans Bend, North Melbourne, Parkville and parts of Southbank not already included. This will mean height limits can be lifted, density increased and development encouraged to \u201crestore vibrancy\u201d to the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cDemand for inner urban living from young professionals, downsizers, students and small households remains strong but supply has not kept pace,\u201d Wilson told the Victorian Chamber and Herald Sun\u2019s Future Victoria Summit.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will enable residential growth in inner-city areas that are already serviced by public transport and strong connectivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the same time, she committed to fast-track 27 existing precinct structure plans across Melbourne\u2019s outer growth corridors. The Labor government has earmarked about 180,000 homes across those growth areas over a decade but Wilson argues it can be done faster.<\/p>\n

She also committed to work with regional councils to \u201cidentify opportunities and infrastructure requirements to support new housing development\u201d, though offered little detail.<\/p>\n

The policy \u2013 Wilson\u2019s first on housing \u2013 is being framed as an alternative to the premier Jacinta Allan\u2019s plan to rezone 50 inner-Melbourne areas located near public transport<\/a> to deliver 300,000 homes by 2051.<\/p>\n

Yet despite all the talk of contrast, the plan offers little that is truly new.<\/p>\n

Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/a><\/p>\n

For one, the Herald Sun\u2019s map of \u201cWhere the Libs will fast-track new home builds\u201d was pulled from a government website<\/a>, with the areas unchanged from those already earmarked by Labor. The site notes the 10-year sequencing of precinct structure plans was designed to ensure \u201cinfrastructure delivery keeps pace with development and land can be adequately serviced when it is released\u201d.<\/p>\n

That makes the Coalition\u2019s promise to fast-track those areas problematic. For years it has criticised Labor for failing to deliver infrastructure in Melbourne\u2019s booming outer suburbs. Fast-tracking development in those same areas could intensify the problem.<\/p>\n

Wilson countered this by saying the Coalition would reform the growth areas infrastructure contribution<\/a>, ensuring funds collected from developers were spent earlier and within the communities they were raised.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s inner-city proposal also overlaps with Labor\u2019s.<\/p>\n

The Melbourne and Yarra local government areas (LGAs) are among Labor\u2019s 50 \u201cactivity centres\u201d \u2013 dubbed \u201ccity-wide activity centres\u201d<\/a> \u2013 with plans to rezone under-utilised land. These are the very the same LGAs Wilson wants to rezone under her plan.<\/p>\n

The main difference is her rejection of Labor\u2019s activity centre model, which proposes apartments of between 10 and 20 storeys around stations and \u201cgentle, scaled height limits and more low-rise apartments and townhouses\u201d of between three and six storeys in the \u201cwalkable catchments\u201d nearby.<\/p>\n

Wilson told the summit that planning in middle and outer suburbs should be managed locally, by \u201cthose who are closest to the local community\u201d. Such a decision means Liberal-held suburbs earmarked under Labor\u2019s activity centres are spared.<\/p>\n

Of Labor\u2019s 50 centres, 26 are located in Liberal-held seats. Nine sit in Malvern alone, where Amelia Hamer has been preselected following Michael O\u2019Brien\u2019s retirement.<\/p>\n

But in Wilson\u2019s model, greenfield expansion is focused in Labor heartland, while in the city, North Melbourne and Parkville are in the Greens-held seat of Melbourne, Fitzroy and Collingwood in the Greens seat of Richmond and Fishermans Bend and Southbank in Labor\u2019s Albert Park.<\/p>\n

Labor maintains its sites have been identified by the Department of Transport and Planning due to their proximity to public transport, infrastructure, jobs and services.<\/p>\n

But the move is clearly strategic<\/a>: Labor doesn\u2019t expect to win these seats but targeting them allows the government to appeal to millennial and gen Z voters, who now outnumber baby boomers on the electoral roll<\/a> and consistently rank housing affordability as their top concern.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday Allan appealed to these very voters when criticising Wilson\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs premier, I want to get more millennials and young people into homes \u2013 everywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe shouldn\u2019t be in a situation where a line gets drawn through the city of Melbourne, down along the Yarra River and says to everyone on the south and the eastern side of that line, we\u2019re not going to build homes for you. We\u2019re going to lock young people and millennials out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the Coalition plan was welcomed by the Property Council, even it warned Melbourne could not rely on the inner city alone to meet housing demand in established areas.<\/p>\n

Yimby Melbourne\u2019s lead organiser, Jonathan O\u2019Brien, was more blunt. He said it signalled a \u201ccontinuation of a 30-year status quo\u201d of building in the city and on Melbourne\u2019s fringes, effectively \u201clocking up wealthier suburbs from delivering the housing where people want to live most\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the same day in New South Wales, the Coalition took a different approach. There, the opposition housing spokesperson, Chris Rath, backed a Grattan Institute research note<\/a> calling for the introduction of a townhouse code modelled on Victoria\u2019s. The Victorian Liberals opposed the code when it was introduced here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Coalition is resolutely pro-housing supply and that means considering bold policy proposals like this to build more homes,\u201d Rath said.<\/p>\n

Wilson has described her announcement as \u201cthe first plank\u201d of a \u201cdetailed vision for planning and housing in Victoria\u201d. Perhaps she should take a cue from her NSW counterparts for the rest of the plan.<\/p>\n

Benita Kolovos is Guardian Australia\u2019s Victorian state correspondent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A genuine policy contest has finally broken out over housing in Victoria \u2013 but it is as much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-504553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}