Development Alignment
Brief

The zone defines a large site, and the definition is the opportunity. Clause 32.10-8 defines a large site as a lot of at least 1,000 square metres with a frontage of at least 20 metres, or two or more contiguous lots with a combined area of at least 1,000 square metres and a combined frontage of at least 20 metres. Consolidation is not a workaround. The zone contemplates it on its face, and it works on contiguous lots without requiring a single title. On Zone 1 land that is a two storey uplift, from four to six.

Clause 32.10-8 carries the same fact-based exceptions as the General Residential Zone, plus one that does not exist there.

There is no garden area requirement in the Housing Choice and Transport Zone. Clause 32.10 contains no equivalent of the Clause 32.08-4 table. Land rezoned into the HCTZ by GC270 lost the mandatory garden area that applied to it as General Residential or Neighbourhood Residential land. On a constrained lot that is often worth more than the additional storey.

Clause 32.10-13 preserves the former zone for any application made before the rezoning approval date, and for a section 72 amendment to a permit granted on such an application. A live Kew application predating 31 March 2026 is still assessed under the zone the land was in before GC270.

Bars run from the minimum to the maximum building height. Area 5 reaches 53 metres, which the schedule describes as up to 16 storeys. The Activity Centre Plan summary figure of 12 storeys understates what the ordinance permits. Area 6 specifies neither a minimum nor a maximum and is not a deemed-to-comply area.

First, heritage removes deemed to comply entirely. Clause 6.2 of the schedule states that if land is in a Heritage Overlay, or is land adjoining a Heritage Overlay, all standards in the overlay and the schedule are not deemed-to-comply standards. Not reduced, not partially available. Gone. A site can be entirely free of heritage controls itself and still lose the codified pathway because the property next door carries one. Given that the schedule names a Heritage Main Street Core typology and lists fifteen individual heritage places for view line protection, this catches a large share of the core.

Second, almost every standard is discretionary. Building heights, front setbacks, street wall heights, setbacks above the street wall, side and rear setbacks, floor to floor heights, active frontages and deep soil are all marked discretionary. One standard in the entire schedule is mandatory: no additional overshadowing of high protection public open space between 10am and 3pm on 21 June. Everything else can be exceeded with justification.

Those two provisions point in opposite directions and both need pricing. On non-heritage land the schedule is a codified pathway with a generous ceiling. On heritage or heritage-adjoining land it is a discretionary framework where the numbers are a starting position rather than a gate. Establish which of the two applies before any design work begins.

The schedule sets a minimum building height as well as a maximum in Areas 1 to 5, from 10 metres in Area 1 to 21 metres in Areas 4 and 5. A stated development objective is to discourage underdevelopment. Holding a core site and building small is now a departure from the scheme rather than a conservative choice. The minimum does not apply to Large Opportunity Sites shown on Map 1, and Standard BF02 does not apply to a place on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The ceiling is soft in both directions. The Limited Sensitivities typology states that development may exceed the height standard where the site area, including as a result of lot consolidation, supports compliance with the other standards. Large Opportunity Sites may exceed it where off-site amenity impacts are managed and public benefits provided. The decision guidelines then ask whether land consolidation enables the management of amenity impacts from heights above the maximum, and whether the proposal delivers secured public benefits including affordable housing or pedestrian connections. Consolidation is the lever in the core as well as in the catchment.

Floor area ratios do not apply. The schedule switches off the Clause 43.06-7.3 outcome. The overlay standards also prevail over any inconsistent standard in Clauses 54 to 58, so ResCode does not govern built form on this land. An application made under Clause 53.22, 53.23 or 53.25 prevails over the overlay instead.

This is the finding that matters most for a Kew feasibility. Boroondara has no numerical variation anywhere in its General Residential Zone or Neighbourhood Residential Zone schedules. Every schedule leaves the maximum height, minimum street setback, site coverage, private open space and front fence height as none specified, which means the parent clause applies unmodified. The Neighbourhood Residential schedules also leave the minimum subdivision area unspecified, so there is no schedule-imposed minimum lot size on that land. The council with the strongest reputation for restrictive residential controls in metropolitan Melbourne has, in the zone schedules themselves, varied nothing.

One schedule is different, and it is the one to check. Where all five General Residential schedules record the neighbourhood character objectives as none specified, NRZ3 states them: maintaining a detached one to two storey scale and a spacious suburban character, protecting the leafy feel and garden setting of dwellings, and maintaining the fine grain rhythm of streetscapes. Objectives in a schedule are a live decision guideline hook under Clause 32.09. They are still only reached where a standard is not met, but on NRZ3 land a scheme that misses a standard faces a sharper argument than the same scheme on General Residential land.

The parent clauses then diverge. Because no schedule specifies a height, the default in each parent clause governs. Clause 32.08-11 sets 11 metres and 3 storeys for General Residential land. Clause 32.09-11 sets 9 metres and 2 storeys for Neighbourhood Residential land. Clause 32.09-7 also stops at Clause 55 and provides no four to six storey route, so the Mid-Rise Code is unavailable there.

Note also that NRZ1 and GRZ1 cover the same character precinct, general suburban 3 and 4. Identical precinct, different zone, one storey and two metres of difference. A precinct statement tells you nothing about height entitlement. Read the zone from the property report, not from the character study.

One drafting point worth raising with Council rather than relying on. Clause 32.09-1 provides that a schedule to the Neighbourhood Residential Zone must contain the character objectives to be achieved, where the equivalent General Residential provision says a schedule may. Schedule 1 records them as none specified. NRZ3 states them in full.

What the schedules do carry is an application requirement and a decision guideline, both tied to the Boroondara Neighbourhood Character Study Precinct Statements 2013. Each schedule requires a written assessment against the preferred character statement and design guidelines for the relevant precinct, and a landscape plan that responds to precinct landscape characteristics, retains significant vegetation and proposes new canopy trees.

The two now pull in opposite directions. The character assessment and landscape plan remain application requirements, so they must still be prepared and lodged. But a decision guideline is only reached where a standard is not met. On a scheme that meets every applicable standard, the 2013 character study is documentation the applicant pays for and Council cannot decide against. Budget for the reports. Do not budget for the argument.

Clause 32.08-11 is a mandatory height control, but it carries built-in exceptions that are routinely missed at feasibility stage. Each is a matter of fact rather than a matter of discretion, which means it can be established from a survey and a title search rather than argued.

The inundation rule is the one worth checking in Kew. On land near the Birrarung or Gardiners Creek a flood control is normally priced as a constraint. Under Clause 32.08-11 it moves the datum for measuring height upward by the amount of the required freeboard, which can return most or all of the storey that the flood level would otherwise cost. Establish the authority-determined minimum floor level before assuming a flood overlay reduces yield.

Plan for Victoria replaced Plan Melbourne as the operative state strategy and set a housing target of 65,500 additional dwellings in Boroondara to 2051, part of a statewide target of 2,239,700 dwellings across 79 local government areas. Kew Junction sits in Stage 1 of the expanded Train and Tram Zone Activity Centres Program. DTP has identified 60 centres statewide with capacity for more than 300,000 additional homes by 2051. The Kew Junction Activity Centre Plan is now a background document in the Boroondara Planning Scheme, which means it carries weight in assessment rather than sitting outside the scheme as advocacy material.

The Mid-Rise Code is available in the Housing Choice and Transport Zone by clause 32.10-10 and in the General Residential Zone by clause 32.08-14, but not in the Neighbourhood Residential Zone. Clause 32.09-7 sends developments of three storeys or less to Clause 55 and provides no four to six storey route. On Neighbourhood Residential land the 9 metre and 2 storey cap binds well before that would matter.

Clause 32.08-13 is precise and the shorthand in circulation is not. For two or more dwellings of three storeys or less, an application is exempt from the decision requirements of section 64(1), (2) and (3) and the review rights of section 82(1) of the Act, where all applicable standards under clauses 55.02, 55.04-1, 55.04-2, 55.04-3, 55.04-4 and 55.05-2 are met.

Clause 32.10-10 grants the same exemption on Housing Choice and Transport Zone land, and adds a second tier. A development of four to six storeys is exempt from the same provisions where all applicable standards under clauses 57.02 and 57.04 are met. The Mid-Rise Code pathway is available in the catchment. That was not obvious from the summary material and it is the provision that makes six storey development on a large Zone 1 site a viable proposition rather than a contested one.

Subdivision in the HCTZ is exempt outright. Clause 32.10-10 exempts an application to subdivide land in the zone from the notice requirements of section 52(1)(a), (b) and (d), the decision requirements of section 64 and the review rights of section 82(1). Not subdivision into lots containing existing dwellings, as in the General Residential Zone, but any subdivision of HCTZ land. Neighbours are not notified and cannot object or appeal.

For dwellings, notice is a separate question. The section 52 notice requirements are not exempted for dwellings by either clause. Neighbours may still be notified and may still object. What they lose is the right to take the decision to VCAT. Plan the community engagement accordingly rather than assuming silence. Council material describes the Built Form Overlay process as removing third-party notice and review rights in the activity centre core, and the BFO schedule should be read directly on that point.

Clause 32.08-3 sets a light assessment for a two-lot subdivision. Only clauses 56.04-2, 56.04-5, 56.06-8 and 56.07-4 must be met, plus 56.03-5 where the land is in a Neighbourhood Character Overlay. A two-lot residential subdivision creating at least one vacant lot can also run as a VicSmart application under Clause 59.11.

The VicSmart route is unavailable on land in a Neighbourhood Character Overlay, an Environmental Audit Overlay, or a designated bushfire prone area. Boroondara applies a Neighbourhood Character Overlay across a large share of its residential land, so in Kew this pathway is knocked out more often than not. Check the overlay before programming a VicSmart timeframe. Where the overlay does apply, clause 56.03-5 comes back into the assessment as well.

A four storey apartment building on an 1,100sqm HCTZ Zone 1 site with a 20 metre frontage and no Heritage Overlay is a different proposition to the same building two years ago. If it meets the Clause 57 standards, character policy does not apply and objectors have no review right. If it misses one standard, the whole scheme reverts to discretionary assessment and the older Kew dynamics return in full. The margin between those two outcomes is narrow and it is a design discipline problem, not a negotiation problem. Test compliance before committing to a scheme, not after.

The Local Government Performance Reporting Framework is mandatory annual reporting for all 79 Victorian councils on common definitions. Four statutory planning indicators are published. These are Boroondara for the year ended 30 June 2025.

Over five years the metropolitan median moved from 57.5 per cent to 71.1 per cent. Boroondara moved from 54.7 per cent to 44.4 per cent. A gap of under 3 percentage points in 2020-21 is now nearly 27. On the 2024-25 figures Boroondara ranks 21st of 22 metropolitan councils on this indicator. Only Knox sits lower. Stonnington reports 88.1 per cent, Glen Eira and Brimbank 100 per cent.

Read the indicator carefully before pricing it. SP4 measures the share of Council decisions taken to VCAT that VCAT affirmed. A low figure means Council positions are frequently overturned, and that cuts in both directions. A refused application overturned favours the applicant. An approval overturned on an objector appeal does not. Boroondara has high objector activity, so some share of the 55.6 per cent not upheld will be approvals set aside rather than refusals reversed. The indicator does not split them.

What can be said without qualification is that a Boroondara planning decision is materially less likely to survive review than a decision from almost any other metropolitan council, and that the position has deteriorated while the sector improved. Where a scheme falls outside the codified pathways and a refusal follows, the historic assumption that Council will be vindicated at VCAT is not supported by the reported data.

Two limits on this series. VCAT matter counts per council per year are small, so single-year movements are noisy and the five-year shape carries more weight than any one point. The Victorian Auditor-General has identified this indicator as one of the more error-prone measures in the framework, because councils differ in what they treat as a decision upheld. Treat it as reported rather than audited.

Boroondara determined 67.7 per cent of applications within the required time frames in 2024-25, against a metropolitan median of 76.7 per cent, with a median of 83 days against a statutory 60. Cost of the statutory planning service was $3,869 per application, against a metropolitan median of $3,633. Roughly a third of applications run past the clock. Programme on the observed rate, not the statutory one.

Application-level permit counts, refusal rates and VCAT outcome splits for the Kew precinct specifically are not reproduced here. Boroondara does not publish its planning register as open data, and the Planning Permit Activity Reporting System does not publish at suburb level in a retrievable form. Where a client needs suburb-level series, Place AU sources it by direct request to Council and labels it accordingly.

In December 2025 the Victorian Government announced a standardised Infrastructure Contribution Plan applying to all train and tram zone activity centres. The rate is $11,350 per additional new home, with contributions also payable on additional commercial and industrial floorspace depending on development size. Councils retain two thirds for local infrastructure and pass one third to the state.

Timing carries a live discrepancy. Council material states the ICP begins in January 2027. State reporting indicates the January 2027 start applies to the ten pilot centres, with the expanded 50 centres, which include Kew Junction, joining from July 2027. Treat the commencement date for a Kew Junction site as a disclosed parameter and confirm it with DTP before it goes into a feasibility model. The rate itself is published and stable.

Amendment VC277 came into operation on 18 December 2025 and rewrote Clause 52.06. Car parking rates are now tied to Public Transport Accessibility Level through statewide Car Parking Requirement Maps, with four categories. Sites with the best access carry no minimum and a maximum instead. Maximum rates applied immediately. Minimum rates run a six month transition to 18 June 2026, during which the lower of the old and new requirement applied.

The reform does not currently land in Kew. The state did not amend or remove the Parking Overlay covering most Boroondara commercial areas, including Kew. Where a Parking Overlay applies, its rates prevail over Clause 52.06 regardless of PTAL category, and the Boroondara overlay sets rates consistent with or above the former scheme rates. Council resolved on 2 February 2026 to write to the Minister on the point. Until the overlay is amended, a Kew Junction feasibility that assumes reduced parking on PTAL grounds is wrong. Check the overlay first, then the map.

• Planning Property Report confirming zone, HCTZ tier, overlays and the BFO extent for the exact address
• Surveyed lot area and street frontage against the 1,000sqm and 20 metre thresholds
• Heritage status of the site and any adjoining contributory buildings
• Parking Overlay schedule rate for the site, not the Clause 52.06 PTAL rate
• Standard-by-standard compliance test against the applicable code
• Arborist assessment of all trees on and adjacent to the site
• Melbourne Water flood mapping and drainage check
• Written confirmation from DTP of the ICP commencement date applying to Kew Junction

These are the standards named in Clause 32.08-13 as the condition of the exemption. All applicable standards under clause 55.02 must be met, together with 55.04-1 to 55.04-4 and 55.05-2. Miss one and the exemption falls away in full. Record the numerical requirement, the proposed value and the margin, because a scheme sitting on the line has no tolerance for a change during documentation.

Clause 32.08-8 allows a schedule to the zone to specify different requirements for Standards B2-1, B2-5, B2-8 and B3-5. None of the five Boroondara General Residential Zone schedules does so. All are recorded as none specified, so the clause 55 requirement applies unmodified on General Residential Zone land in Kew. Land in the Housing Choice and Transport Zone or under the Built Form Overlay is governed by those instruments instead and must be checked separately.

Numerical requirements are not reproduced here. They are amended by gazettal and a copied figure goes stale without warning. Take them from the current clause text on the day the register is built and record the version relied on.

• State on the face of the application which code is relied on and that deemed to comply is claimed
• Attach the completed standards register with the numerical demonstration for each standard
• Include the survey establishing lot area and frontage where a threshold is relied on
• Address overlay triggers separately and in full, since they are outside the code
• Record the date of the code text relied on

Where the Activity Centre Plan summary and the gazetted ordinance differ, this brief follows the ordinance and says so. Two divergences were found. The Plan describes core heights as reaching 12 storeys where Table 2 of Schedule 5 permits 53 metres, described in the schedule as 16 storeys. The Plan describes heritage precincts as generally outside the inner catchment where the schedule applies a Heritage Main Street Core typology and removes deemed to comply from heritage and heritage-adjoining land. Every figure in this brief is retrieved from a published government source before it is written. Where a value cannot be retrieved it is described as a disclosed parameter or marked as not supplied, and no estimate is substituted. Boundary geometry is fetched at page load from the ABS feature service so that the map reflects the current published geometry rather than a cached copy. If the fetch fails, the map falls back to a simplified outline and says so on the face of the figure. Planning controls change on a weekly gazettal cycle. Zone, overlay and control extent must be verified for a specific address on VicPlan prior to lodgement, and this brief is not a substitute for advice from a registered planning consultant, heritage advisor or legal practitioner.