Report endorses city’s plan for growth areas

THE City of Greater Geelong council has released an independent planning report that supports the council’s vision to direct growth away from the Bellarine Peninsula and towards Armstrong Creek and future growth areas in Geelong’s north and west.

Amendment C395 seeks to implement the Geelong-wide Settlement Strategy and the Northern and Western Geelong Growth Areas Framework Plan into the city’s planning scheme.

Initially released two years ago, the Settlement Strategy envisages that most of the city’s urban housing needs for the next few decades will come from Armstrong Creek as well as the Western and Northern Geelong Growth Areas.

The Western Geelong Growth Area, which stretches west from Highton, Hamlyn Heights and Bell Post Hill towards Batesford, will have a population of 62,000 spread over 3,245 hectares, while the Northern Geelong Growth Area, located around Lovely Banks, will have a population of 48,000 people over 2,089 hectares.

The council considered a report on the submissions to Amendment C395 in September 2019 and resolved to refer them to an independent planning panel.

Planning Panels Victoria held 28 days of hearings and considered 102 public submissions.

In its May 14 report, the panel, chaired by Nick Wimbush, found:

• The amendment is a well-considered and visionary response to logically cater for this predicted growth
• There was a high level of support for the overall direction of the Amendment, and particularly the Framework Plan, and
• The refocusing of long-term growth away from the Bellarine Peninsula requires further consideration of long-term or permanent settlement boundaries.

The report states a significant number of submissions on the Settlement Strategy were about the “pivot” in policy of some Bellarine settlements (such as Ocean Grove and Leopold) from growth centres to more limited development opportunities and the setting of “permanent” town boundaries.

“The big area of contention behind the council policy ‘pivot’… is not so much the question in principle of whether there should be eventual township boundaries to limit growth on the Bellarine, but rather where those boundaries should be.

“One school of thought in submissions suggests township boundaries should be closely tied to existing residential zoned land or land already identified in the planning scheme as suitable for rezoning.

“The other school of thought in submissions, unsurprisingly often advanced by landholders with existing development interests on the edge of Bellarine towns, is that if an eventual town boundary is proposed, the identification of such boundaries should provide the opportunity to bring in additional land on the edges of existing towns for inclusion in the ‘final’ town boundary.”

The council anticipates it will consider the panel’s recommendations and decide if it adopts the amendment at its August meeting.

The panel report is now available at geelongaustralia.com.au and the city says all submitters will be notified.