Selected Excerpts:

Earlier this year, the Victorian government amended planning legislation in Victoria with the approval of the Planning and Environment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Act 2026.

The new Act has been designed to speed up housing delivery and development by “cutting red tape”. The legislation changes mean that many types of new urban development applications now go directly to the Minister of Planning for approval instead of local councils and are separated into 3 different types of applications. The first two types of low and moderate impact proposals for new single dwellings, townhouses and low-rise apartment developments typically preclude the need for local notification, and VCAT appeal rights no longer apply.

If a large high density or commercial development was proposed, most people would assume that local residents surrounding the area would be informed. However, postal notice is now restricted to adjoining landowners. This means that potentially, a new twelve storey development or data centre can be built a street away and the only notification required is an online notice or physical sign on the land. Appealing a new large-scale development that has a huge impact on local amenity and wellbeing has also been restricted.

The new legislation also means that planning appeals are restricted to residents who received direct notice of the new planning application. This means that if you live just streets away from a new high-rise development that is likely to take your daylight, you won’t even have the right to appeal. The changes raise serious implications for democratic decision-making in urban planning and city design, ignoring broader community input on decisions that will affect the ongoing liveability of an area for decades to come.