By Belinda Nolan
BRIMBANK’S city centres are set to be transformed into boom towns if a proposed council plan goes ahead.
Brimbank Council is hoping to push future housing into the municipality’s activity centres, including Sunshine, St Albans and Deer Park.
The council has announced plans to develop a new housing strategy in a bid to cope with the city’s population boom.
The strategy would give the council greater control over residential development and allow it to place restrictions on the location and design of future homes.
Council figures estimate that the city will need to make way for additional 12,000 households over the next two decades.
But as the municipality runs out of virgin land, the majority of new homes will need to be accommodated in existing urban areas.
The council hopes to guide future housing to be built around the city’s town centres, with the strategy outlining preferred areas of development.
The strategy will also encourage developers to steer clear of other areas of the municipality, such as those with a lack of public transport, or heritage value.
Stephen Sully, the council’s general manager of City Development said areas such as Sunshine were ripe for residential development.
“Instead of spreading new housing across the municipality, what the strategy aims to do is focus it on the activity centres, where good infrastructure already exists and Sunshine, in particular, has a lot of potential,” Mr Sully said.
“Sunshine has large pockets of under-utilised land, or former industrial or vacant land which would be appropriate for residential development.”
Mr Sully said the council could also place restrictions on the height of developments, but envisaged that city centres could accommodate multi-storey dwellings.
“We’re not talking about high rise buildings of the kind seen in Southbank, but we would likely see more townhouses and extra storeys built on existing shops.”
Mr Sully said the housing strategy would work in conjunction with the council’s existing open space policy, where developers are asked to make contributions towards more parks and playgrounds.
The council also hopes to encourage new housing to be set at prices residents can afford.
But Mr Sully said the strategy would not impose restrictions on the number of social housing developments in the municipality, saying it was a State Government responsibility.
