The City of Whittlesea is preparing Planning Scheme Amendment C249wsea to the Whittlesea Planning Scheme. The Amendment aims to ensure the Planning Scheme is consistent with current practice and community expectations, and improve the Planning Scheme’s usability. It addresses a range of recommendations made by the Planning Scheme Review (PSR) 2018, an informal review undertaken in 2022, and the Council Plan 2021.

The Amendment makes changes to the Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS), local policies, zone maps, schedules to zones and overlays. It also includes eleven new documents to be referred to in the Scheme. For more details, refer to Attachment 3 of the Explanatory Report.

This Amendment applies to all lands within the municipality with changes to certain zones and overlays affecting specific sites. For more details, refer to Attachment 1 of the Explanatory Report.

Section 12B (1)(a) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 requires Council to review the provisions of its planning scheme within a year of adopting a Council Plan. This requirement was the impetus for undertaking the Planning Scheme Review (PSR) 2018 and the informal PSR 2022, to ensure Planning Schemes remain current, and to provide effective and efficient guidance in the application of discretion in land use planning and development decisions. The review found that the Scheme is generally performing well, and changes should generally follow a ‘maintenance approach’.

Recommendation 28 of the PSR 2018 requires the review and update of the Scheme’s Municipal Planning Strategy (MPS) and the Planning Policy Framework (PPF) to address any identified gaps or issues following the PPF translation in 2019. This recommendation underpinned the 2022 “informal” review of Council approved documents. Consequently, the previous PSR requires the Scheme to be updated and to address relevant sections of Council’s approved plans that were not completed as part of the PSR 2018. The proposed changes will ensure the Scheme continues to perform well, whilst also reflecting current Council priorities.