September 27, 2010 at 9:16 AM

Bayside Council is proposing to apply new planning controls to the four major activity centres of Hampton Street, Church Street, Sandringham, and Bay Street.

Accommodating population growth within Melbourne’s activity centres is a fundamental tenet of Melbourne 2030 and Melbourne at 5 Million. In achieving the objectives of these strategies, however, a more detailed, local response is required.

To provide a framework for future development within Bayside’s  Major Activity Centres, Council is proposing to apply new planning controls to the four major activity centres of Hampton Street, Church Street, Sandringham, and Bay Street.

The proposed controls would introduce a framework plan for each centre, with corresponding objectives relating to a range of land use and built form issues.  In addition, a Design and Development Overlay for each centre would provide built form parameters, including preferred building heights, and setbacks.

One aspect of the proposed controls of particular note are the provisions relating to residential precincts surrounding the commercial areas of each centre which aim to provide additional opportunities for housing. In Hampton, for example, development on land within a Residential 1 Zone covered by the new controls would not be subject to the setback, building height, site coverage and open space requirements of ResCode specified in the schedules to the Residential 1 and Mixed Use Zones, thereby facilitating more intense, apartment style development.

We therefore anticipate that such areas will experience substantial change in the years to come, representing a challenge for all involved to ensure good planning principles are applied and an appropriate planning outcome is achieved.

Council has made a request to the Minister for Planning to apply the controls to the activity centres on an interim basis, and to seek authorisation to prepare Amendments C100, C101, C102 and C103 to the Bayside Planning Scheme, which would apply the controls on a permanent basis.

You can download and view (in pdf.)  the most recent version of the amendment that was supported by Bayside City Council.