“Protecting” Melbourne’s Green Wedges and Agricultural Land Action Plan

Edward Mahony
9 August 2024

The Victorian Government recently released Melbourne’s Green Wedges and Agricultural Land Action Plan (Action Plan). This followed a consultation paper which reviewed several proposed amendments to Planning Schemes across the State aimed at delivering protection of agricultural land with a particular focus on land within Melbourne’s green wedge and peri-urban areas.

Under the Action Plan, the Victorian Government announced that it will take 20 Actions to “better protect our green wedges and agricultural land.” The 20 Actions fall under the below six identified categories and have been allocated a short (one year) or medium term (three year) implementation period. The land affected by each Action item has been earmarked to apply to land across the State; land within Melbourne’s Green wedge; or land within 100km of Melbourne.

We provide the below summary of the categories and outline of the identified Action items:

1. Protection Melbourne’s food bowl.The land around Bacchus Marsh and Werribee have rich soils which are proposed to be further protected through the below Action items to facilitate expanded agricultural production:
   1. Introduce a new planning scheme overlay to protect key irrigated agricultural areas in Werribee and Bacchus Marsh (Medium term 100km of Melbourne)
   2. Develop criteria to guide the application of a new planning scheme overlay (Short term 100km of Melbourne)
   3. Explore opportunities for water authorities’ views to be considered in the assessment of planning permits for Melbourne’s peri-urban areas where there is current or planned recycled water supply (Medium term 100km of Melbourne)
   4. Develop a new regional policy to preserve opportunities for irrigated agriculture around Melbourne (Short term 100km of Melbourne)
2. Planning for future farming.The agricultural land around Melbourne has the added benefit of being close to consumer markets. To protect sustainable paddock and plate short distance the following Action items are proposed:
   1. Update agricultural planning policy to better protect agricultural land and make the best use of our fertile soils (Short term 100km of Melbourne)
   2. Contribute to better decisions by providing more guidance for local government planners in assessing planning permit applications within agricultural areas through the development of a Planning Practice Note (Medium term Statewide)
3. Securing the right to farm.It has been identified in the Action Plan that Farming and urban living are not always compatible and that conflicts can occur when land close to farms is developed for residential use thereby constraining protection of food fibre and raw materials. The following Action items have been identified to minimise such conflicts:
   1. Strengthen the ‘right to farm’ by expanding the ‘agent of change’ principle and assign responsibility for mitigating the impacts of sensitive uses on lawful agricultural operations to the permit applicant to achieve better land use management (Medium term 100km of Melbourne)
   2. Update the Planning Policy Framework to encourage appropriate siting design and scale of sensitive uses and development in rural areas– thereby avoiding conflicts with agricultural uses (Short term 100km of Melbourne)
4. Stronger protections.The following provisions are proposed to be made to ‘further strengthen’ the strategic planning for and management of green wedge land and assist Councils in protecting rural uses:
   1. Update planning policy to emphasise the non-urban values purpose and character of the green wedges (Short term Green wedges)
   2. Update Planning Practice Note 31 ‘Preparing a Green Wedge Management Plan’ to better direct green wedge planning at the local level (Medium term Green wedges)
   3. Develop a new Planning Practice Note for urban-rural interface areas that manages land use pressures and supports a permanent edge to growth (Medium term Green wedges)
5. Smarter land use.The Action Plan protects Melbourne’s green wedge landscapes, character, and values whilst also providing an opportunity to sell produce at the farm gate:
   1. Review and update decision guidelines and application requirements for planning applications in green wedge zones (Medium term Green wedges)
   2. Introduce mandatory site coverage setbacks and building heights for discretionary uses in the Green Wedge Zone and Green Wedge A Zone as a pilot project (Medium term Green wedges)
   3. Increase flexibility for primary produce/farm gate sales (Medium term Statement)
6. Setting tighter controls.In order to protect agricultural land uses it is proposed to further strengthen planning controls in green wedges by prohibiting some subdivisions and restricting discretionary uses currently allowed:
   1. Prohibit new data centres in the Green Wedge Zone Green Wedge A Zone and the Rural Conservation Zone (Short term Statewide)
   2. Prohibit subdivision of small lots below the minimum lot size in some zones (Short term 100km)
   3. Insert new conditions for exhibition centres, group accommodation, and hotels (Short term Green Wedges)
   4. Strengthen the link between host farm accommodation and operating agricultural properties (Medium Statewide)
   5. Introduce a new permit trigger for soil dumping (clean fill) (Medium term Statewide)
   6. Introduce land use term for ‘community hall’ (Medium term Statewide)

The above proposed amendments are critical to all those considering applying for either a use or development permit or subdivision permit across the state that is either within the Farming Zone or Green Wedge Areas and the implementation of the Action items may be done without any transitional provisions meaning that the updated controls and policies will apply with immediate effect to any planning permit applications which has not yet been determined.

We expect further detail to emerge in the coming months on the exact nature of how the Action items will be given effect to, be it through an amendment by the Minister of Planning to planning scheme across Victoria or otherwise. As that information comes to light we will continue to provide updates to our clients and referral network.