title: Elmore Structure Plan council: greater-bendigo state: vic category: growth-area classification: MAJOR status: in-progress last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:
- City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf
- city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf
Elmore Structure Plan
The Elmore Structure Plan is an active council-led township planning process for Elmore, with the draft plan having completed consultation by February 2026 and submissions and potential changes under consideration (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Its practical planning role is to set guidelines for how Elmore should develop over the next 30 years, but the available source set does not include the draft plan, consultation report, submissions, land-use maps, servicing assessments, or implementation amendment documents (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73; Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Background
The structure plan sits within Greater Bendigo’s Council Plan implementation program under action CP 3.2.3, which groups Elmore with the Goornong and Huntly structure plans under the broader goal that the city’s towns be vibrant and liveable (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, pp.206-207). The February 2026 Council Plan progress report records CP 3.2.3 as 50% complete, in progress, assigned to the Manager Strategic Planning, and due by 30 June 2026 (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
The December 2025 planning report for 27 Hervey Street records that the Strategic Planning Unit was developing a structure plan for Elmore and that the study area included the Hervey Street site (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73). By the 16 February 2026 agenda, the draft Elmore Structure Plan had finished consultation and Council officers were considering submissions and potential changes (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Analysis
Governance, Timing and Statutory Weight
The most important mechanism is that the Elmore Structure Plan appears, from the available documents, to be a strategic planning project rather than a completed statutory control in the Greater Bendigo Planning Scheme (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). The February 2026 progress report describes the work as a draft plan after consultation, with submissions and possible changes still being considered, which means the evidence does not support treating the plan as adopted policy or as a planning scheme control (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
The December 2025 Hervey Street report shows the plan already operating as a strategic reference point inside Council decision-making: Strategic Planning advised that the structure plan would set 30-year development guidelines for Elmore, that the subject site sat within the study area, and that the proposal was supported from a strategic planning perspective (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73). The mechanism is therefore indirect at this stage: the plan informs officer advice and future policy direction, but the available material does not show that it has yet been translated into zone schedules, overlays, local policy, or a planning scheme amendment (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73; Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
This distinction matters because the December 2025 Hervey Street assessment was controlled by the post-Housing Statement Townhouse and Low-Rise Code framework rather than by a discretionary character assessment alone (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.75-77). The report states that Amendment VC267 changed Clause 55 in March 2025 by introducing a deemed-to-comply pathway for townhouses and apartment buildings up to three storeys, with objective standards replacing parts of the older discretionary assessment framework (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.76). It also states that if a relevant deemed-to-comply metric is met, the decision-maker cannot refuse the application on that element and objector appeal rights are curtailed for those standards (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.76-77).
The planning implication is that the Elmore Structure Plan may guide preferred township character, housing diversity, infrastructure priorities and future implementation controls, but it cannot be assumed to override the operative statewide Clause 55 pathway for eligible multi-dwelling applications unless its recommendations are implemented through legally effective planning scheme controls or decision guidelines (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.76-77). This creates a cause-and-effect chain: if Council wants the final structure plan to materially affect future development outcomes, the plan will need a clear implementation pathway; otherwise, its influence may remain strongest in strategic advice, capital planning and future amendment preparation rather than in the assessment of applications that satisfy mandatory or deemed-to-comply standards (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73, 76-77).
Housing Diversity and Township Character
The clearest substantive issue in the source set is the tension between Elmore’s existing housing form and the need for smaller dwellings. Strategic Planning advised in December 2025 that more than 99% of houses in Elmore are detached dwellings, generally on large lots with three to four bedrooms, while the average household size is 2.1 people per dwelling (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73). That combination points to a structural mismatch: a town dominated by larger detached houses may not provide enough smaller dwelling options for smaller households, older residents, single-person households, or residents seeking lower-maintenance housing (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73).
The Hervey Street proposal provides a concrete example of the type of change the structure plan will need to manage. The application proposed five dwellings on a 1,012 square metre vacant Township Zone lot, consisting of one 90 square metre two-bedroom dwelling, three 57 square metre one-bedroom dwellings, and one 73 square metre two-bedroom dwelling (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.68-70). On a simple gross-site calculation, five dwellings on 0.1012 hectares equates to approximately 49 dwellings per hectare, which is substantially more compact than the detached-lot pattern described by Strategic Planning, although the document does not provide a town-wide density benchmark for comparison (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.68-70, 73).
Strategic Planning’s advice indicates that community engagement for the structure plan found support and need for unit housing in Elmore, provided that design quality is maintained and the development respects township character (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73). The same advice found the Hervey Street proposal generally consistent with identified character because it retained a low one-to-two-storey scale, used front and side setbacks, provided front setback landscaping, and allowed for canopy tree planting (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73).
The contested issue is not whether Elmore can accommodate any smaller dwellings, but how compact housing is designed, located and serviced. Five objections to the Hervey Street application raised concerns that the development was too dense for a small rural town, that it was not in keeping with Elmore’s rural character, and that one or two family homes would be preferable to five units (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.68, 74-75). The structure plan’s policy task is therefore to convert a broad principle into a spatial framework: where smaller dwellings are encouraged, what design responses are expected, which streets or precincts can absorb compact forms, and which infrastructure constraints must be resolved before higher dwelling yields are supported (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73-75).
Township Boundary, Land Supply and Settlement Form
The available documents identify a sharp edge between township land and rural land near the Hervey Street example. The Hervey Street site is in the Township Zone, the Township Zone ends approximately 250 metres south of the site, and land south and east of the site comprises larger agricultural allotments in the Farming Zone (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69). The Campaspe River runs north-south approximately 250 metres east of the site and forms the municipal boundary between Greater Bendigo and Campaspe (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69).
This means the structure plan has at least three settlement-form questions that cannot be answered from the manifest documents alone. First, it must decide how much growth should be directed to infill sites inside the existing Township Zone rather than to outward expansion into Farming Zone land (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69). Second, it must decide whether compact housing should be concentrated around services such as supermarkets, schools, parks and Elmore Railway Station, which the Hervey Street report identifies as accessible from the subject site (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.77). Third, it must consider whether the Campaspe River edge requires cross-boundary coordination with Campaspe Shire for land use, access, flooding, open space or environmental management, although the manifest documents do not provide evidence of such coordination (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69).
The analytical gap is significant because no structure plan map, land supply estimate, preferred growth boundary, housing-capacity calculation, infrastructure staging plan, or implementation amendment is included in the source set (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Without those documents, the evidence supports identifying the planning questions but not quantifying the land budget, dwelling yield, preferred township edge, or infrastructure-triggered staging sequence (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Servicing, Drainage and Movement Constraints
The Hervey Street objections reveal infrastructure issues that the structure plan should test at township scale, but the objections are not the same thing as confirmed servicing capacity findings. Objectors raised concerns about existing low water pressure, aged water infrastructure, fire safety standards, previous booster-pump requirements, partial sewer coverage, possible need for septic tanks or treatment plants for each dwelling, stormwater detention, surface-water flooding, lack of a Hervey Street footpath, and pedestrian safety near the Northern Highway (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75). These concerns point to the right diagnostic questions for a structure plan, but the source set does not include a water, sewer, drainage, flood, traffic or pedestrian-access assessment for Elmore (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75).
The only confirmed technical response in the Hervey Street report is narrower. Council Engineering raised no drainage objection subject to standard conditions for underground drainage, stormwater quality, stormwater detention, and a Section 173 Agreement for maintenance of the stormwater detention system (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.72). The recommended permit conditions required detailed drainage plans, set an allowable Q10% discharge of 7.6 litres per second, required civil works including underground drainage, and required the owner to maintain on-site detention or water-quality systems under a Section 173 Agreement (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.88-89).
The cause-and-effect issue for the structure plan is that individual-lot mitigation can make one development acceptable without proving township-wide capacity. A permit condition can manage on-site detention for a five-dwelling development, but it does not answer whether Elmore’s water pressure, sewer availability, pedestrian network, drainage network or road safety conditions can support the cumulative growth pattern that the structure plan may encourage (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.72, 74-75, 88-89). If the final structure plan encourages more compact infill housing without a servicing and movement implementation program, future applications may continue to be assessed case by case while residents raise recurring concerns about infrastructure adequacy (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75).
Relationship to Goornong and Huntly Structure Planning
Council is progressing Elmore, Goornong and Huntly structure plans through the same Council Plan action, but each township appears to be at a different project stage (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Elmore was the most advanced of the three in the February 2026 progress note because its draft plan had finished consultation and submissions and potential changes were being considered (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Huntly was starting in early 2026 after CoFutures was engaged, while Goornong depended on flood and wastewater servicing work before the draft Goornong Flood Study could be completed (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
The planning implication is that Greater Bendigo is not treating township structure planning as a single uniform exercise. Elmore’s immediate issue, based on the available evidence, is post-consultation refinement of a draft plan; Goornong’s immediate issue is technical dependency around flood and wastewater work; and Huntly’s immediate issue is commencement of a consultant-led structure plan project (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). This matters because the final Elmore plan may become an early template for how Council handles smaller-town housing diversity, character and servicing questions across other townships, but the manifest documents do not show whether Council intends to apply a common methodology across the three plans (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Current Status
As at the 16 February 2026 Council meeting agenda, the draft Elmore Structure Plan had completed consultation, submissions and potential changes were being considered, the grouped structure-plan action was 50% complete, and the due date for the action was 30 June 2026 (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). The available source set does not identify an adoption date, a final Council decision, a planning scheme amendment number, or any gazettal pathway for implementing the Elmore Structure Plan (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Dependencies
- Blocks: The available documents do not prove that the Elmore Structure Plan currently blocks permit decisions, because the Hervey Street application was assessed under the operative Township Zone and Clause 55 framework while the structure plan was still being prepared (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73, 76-77). The plan may, however, block or sequence future strategic implementation decisions if Council waits for the final plan before preparing township-specific planning scheme changes, infrastructure priorities or capital works responses (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
- Blocked by: The immediate process is blocked by completion of post-consultation review, because the February 2026 progress report states that submissions and potential changes are still being considered (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Deeper implementation may also depend on servicing, drainage, movement and township-boundary evidence, but those technical documents are not included in the manifest (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75).
- Informed by: The available evidence shows the plan is informed by community engagement on the need for unit housing, local housing-stock characteristics, and officer assessment of township character in the Hervey Street example (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73).
- Implements: The project implements Council Plan action CP 3.2.3 under the goal that Greater Bendigo’s city and towns are vibrant and liveable (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, pp.206-207).
- Conflicts with: The source set does not identify a formal policy conflict, but it does show a practical tension between support for smaller unit housing and objections based on rural character, density, infrastructure capacity and amenity (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73-75).
Cross-Jurisdictional Links
The Campaspe River forms the municipal boundary between Greater Bendigo and Campaspe approximately 250 metres east of the Hervey Street site, which means parts of Elmore’s eastern edge have an immediate cross-boundary context (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69). The available documents do not show whether the Elmore Structure Plan includes coordination with Campaspe Shire, water authorities, transport agencies or catchment authorities, so any cross-jurisdictional implications remain an analytical gap rather than a confirmed dependency (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.69; Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
Gaps in This Analysis
The key corpus gap is the draft Elmore Structure Plan itself, because the available documents only identify its status, general purpose and one application-level example of how Strategic Planning is using its emerging findings (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, p.73; Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Without the draft plan, this page cannot quantify the study area, land-use budget, dwelling capacity, preferred growth boundary, activity-centre role, open-space network, implementation actions or staging sequence (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
The second gap is the consultation evidence. The February 2026 agenda states that consultation had finished and submissions and potential changes were being considered, but the manifest does not include the submissions, engagement summary or officer response table (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). As a result, this analysis can identify the Hervey Street objections and Strategic Planning’s summary of community support for unit housing, but it cannot count structure-plan submissions, classify issues, identify agency positions, or trace which changes are being considered (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73-75; Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207).
The third gap is infrastructure evidence. The Hervey Street report records resident concerns about water pressure, aged water infrastructure, fire safety, partial sewerage, stormwater, footpaths and pedestrian safety, but the manifest does not include township-scale water, sewer, flood, drainage, traffic, walking-cycling or social infrastructure assessments (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75). This means the page cannot determine whether those issues are confirmed constraints, localised concerns, or matters already resolved through planned infrastructure works (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.74-75).
The fourth gap is implementation. The available documents do not identify whether Council intends to implement the Elmore Structure Plan through a planning scheme amendment, local policy, zone or overlay changes, capital works priorities, development contributions, township design guidelines or non-statutory advocacy (Source: city-greater-bendigo-council-meeting-agenda-february-16-2026.pdf, p.207). Until that pathway is available, the structure plan’s likely effect on development assessment, infrastructure sequencing and township land supply remains only partly observable through the Hervey Street example (Source: City-Greater-Bendigo-Council-Meeting-Agenda-December-15-2025.pdf, pp.73, 76-77).