title: Amendment VC282 Townhouse and Low-Rise Code Statewide Residential Controls council: macedon-ranges state: vic category: amendment classification: MAJOR status: approved last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:
- 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf
Amendment VC282 Townhouse and Low-Rise Code Statewide Residential Controls
Amendment VC282 matters in Macedon Ranges because it changed the rulebook that sits underneath everyday residential siting decisions, including setbacks, permeability, site coverage and private open space controls in Clause 54 and Clause 55 assessments (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). In simple terms, the State took some locally adjustable residential design dials away from councils and replaced them with a more standard statewide code, so some older local controls and agreements now behave like leftover locks on a door whose main key has changed (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-243).
Background
Amendment VC282 was gazetted on 8 September 2025 and applied across Victorian planning schemes, including the Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-242). The Council agenda explains that the amendment formed part of statewide changes following the Victorian Government’s commitment to deliver Victoria’s Housing Statement, with the mechanism being the extension of deemed-to-comply residential development assessment provisions known as the Townhouse and low-rise code (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241).
The source document says the explanatory report for VC282 links the amendment to the National Housing Accord and Victoria’s Housing Statement: The Decade Ahead 2024-2034, and identifies faster, clearer and more efficient residential decision-making as the policy purpose (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). The same Council report records three stated outcomes: quicker and more efficient decision-making, greater transparency and certainty for applicants, decision-makers and the community, and residential development that is sustainable and provides reasonable amenity for existing and new residents (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241).
The local significance emerges through a Woodend permit and Section 173 Agreement example rather than through a standalone VC282 implementation report (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). That example concerns Lot 13 at 9 Trenchard Street, Woodend, a 1,265 square metre lot created through a previous 22-lot re-subdivision at Rhonda Park, 36 Sullivans Road (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-235). The lot contains a partially constructed two-storey dwelling, with slab, frame and roofing completed, and the dwelling had been built partly outside the registered building envelope (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230, 237, 239).
Analysis
Statutory Mechanism and Local Control Removal
The core mechanism of VC282 is not a site-specific rezoning; it is a statewide change to how low-rise residential design standards are applied and varied in planning schemes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). Before VC282, the Council report says it was common for planning schemes to include local variations to statewide residential development provisions in Clauses 54 and 55, including variations intended to reflect local neighbourhood character outcomes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.240). After VC282, the Council report states that the amendment removed the ability to specify local variations in Clause 54 standards for permeability, side and rear setbacks, and walls on boundaries (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). It also restricted local variations for street setback, private open space and site coverage so that they only apply where they are more permissive than the proposed new state standards (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241).
For Macedon Ranges, the worked example is Neighbourhood Residential Zone Schedule 6 in Woodend (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.238-242). That schedule had previously contained setback requirements which were then reflected in a Section 173 Agreement and endorsed building envelopes for the subdivision (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.234-235, 240). The Council report states that since VC282, the relevant considerations in Schedule 6 to the NRZ are no longer applicable and are considered redundant planning controls (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.242).
The effect is easy to understand through the Woodend example. The planning scheme changed, but the private title instrument and endorsed permit plans still carried the older local setback logic (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-243). This creates a mismatch: the current planning scheme is less onerous than the historic building envelope restriction, but the title restriction still operates until it is amended through the proper statutory pathway (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.242-245).
Section 173 Agreements as Residual Controls
The Trenchard Street matter shows that VC282 does not automatically unwind every older planning obligation created before gazettal (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.239-245). Agreement AW964559C required any dwelling or other building on a lot to comply with the front, side and rear setbacks specified by NRZ Schedule 6, or the setback requirements of any successive zone or overlay applying to the land (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.234, 240). The same agreement also required no buildings or works to be located outside the building envelopes shown on the endorsed plans for Planning Permit PLN/2020/225 (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.234-235).
The Council report identifies the original purpose of the agreement as ensuring that future development of the lots complied with Schedule 6 to the NRZ (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.240). It also records that the earlier subdivision increased the lot yield from 16 lots to 22 lots, and that VCAT retained the NRZ6 front, side and rear setback variations as preferred building envelope restrictions to deliver Council’s siting aspirations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.243-244). In mechanism terms, the agreement acted as a bridge between a higher lot yield and locally preferred siting outcomes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240, 243-244).
VC282 weakened the planning-scheme basis for that bridge, but it did not erase the bridge from title (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.242-245). Council officers therefore treated the appropriate legal pathway as an application under section 178A(1)(a) of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 to amend the existing Section 173 Agreement, rather than relying only on an amendment to spent permit conditions (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.245). This distinction matters because a statewide planning scheme amendment can make a local control redundant in policy terms while the registered agreement still continues to bind affected land until formally varied (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.242-245).
Built Form Consequences in the Woodend Example
The practical built form issue was a partially constructed dwelling on Lot 13 at 9 Trenchard Street, Woodend (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-237). The lot is 1,265 square metres, with a 21.7 metre frontage and a depth of about 58.25 metres (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.230). The proposed completed dwelling would have setbacks of 2.48 metres to the southern side boundary, 8.91 metres to the northern side boundary, 14.19 metres to the western front boundary and 21.448 metres to the eastern rear boundary, while the garage would encroach toward the southern side boundary with a 200 millimetre setback (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.230).
The applicant’s account, reproduced in the Council report, states that the two-storey wall should have had a 5 metre setback plus upper-level setbacks but was instead set back 2.48 metres (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.237). The same account states that the affected wall represented 22 per cent of the site’s southern boundary length and that the dwelling retained larger setbacks to the front, northern side and rear boundaries (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.237). Council officers described the main change as a reduction in the southern side setback, with no changes proposed to the front or rear setbacks of the building envelope (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.243).
The effect of VC282 in this example is not that any building envelope breach becomes acceptable (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.239-245). Rather, VC282 changes the policy test against which the older envelope is understood, because the envelope enforced a local setback variation that the current planning scheme no longer applies (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.241-243). Council officers still considered neighbourhood character, the NRZ6 objectives, Clause 54, the Building Regulations and whether any person would be disadvantaged by the amendment (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.238-245).
Neighbourhood Character and Remaining Assessment Controls
The source does not support a conclusion that VC282 removes neighbourhood character as a planning consideration in Macedon Ranges (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.238-245). The relevant policy table for the Woodend application still lists Clause 15.01-1S Urban design, Clause 15.01-1L Urban design - Macedon Ranges, Clause 15.01-5S Neighbourhood character, Clause 15.01-5L Neighbourhood character - Woodend, Clause 32.09 NRZ Schedule 6, Clause 42.01 Environmental Significance Overlay Schedule 4, Clause 54 and Clause 65 decision guidelines (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.238). The agenda also records that Council, as a Responsible Public Entity, must not act inconsistently with the Statement of Planning Policy when exercising decision-making powers (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.237).
The specific NRZ6 objectives identified in the agenda remain relevant context for local character: varied architectural styles and landscaped gardens, retention of views to Mount Macedon where applicable, spacious housing patterns through generous front and side setbacks, and low or absent rural-style front fences that allow views of front gardens (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.242). However, the tool available to secure those outcomes changed once VC282 removed or limited local variations to the Clause 54 standards (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.241-242).
This leaves Council with a more layered task. Officers can still assess character outcomes, amenity, building regulation compliance and relevant overlays, but cannot simply rely on the former local Clause 54 variations where VC282 has removed their operation (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.238-245). In the Woodend case, officers concluded that the amended envelope would still comply with Clause 54, reflect current policy and produce an acceptable neighbourhood character and planning outcome (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.245).
Administrative and Equity Effects
VC282 also creates administrative consequences for legacy subdivisions with agreements, envelopes or permit conditions drafted around older local variations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.239-245). The Woodend report records one withdrawn application, PLN/2020/225/A, where the applicant sought to amend building envelopes and restrictive work on endorsed plans, then withdrew after the State announced VC282 and waited for the changes to be implemented into the planning scheme (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.233-234). That sequence shows how a statewide amendment can pause local permit activity even before gazettal, because affected parties may wait to see whether the legal context changes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.233-234).
The equity issue is visible in Council’s section 178B assessment (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.239-244). Officers acknowledged that amending the agreement could potentially disadvantage other lot owners subject to the same envelope and setback requirements, because some dwellings had already been built in accordance with the agreement while other lots were not yet developed (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.243). Notice was given to owners of affected lots and surrounding or adjoining land, no objections were received, and the owners of Lots 16, 21 and 22 provided written consent (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.239, 243). Officers therefore concluded that disadvantage was unlikely, while noting that Building Regulations would still apply (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.243).
The wider implication for Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme administration is that Council may need to separate three questions that previously sat closer together: what the current planning scheme requires, what older title instruments still require, and what built form outcome remains acceptable under present policy (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245). That is a more forensic assessment than simply applying a schedule table, because officers must identify whether a legacy agreement is still performing a useful planning function or only preserving a superseded local variation (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.242-245).
Source-Limited Strategic Assessment
The available source does not provide municipality-wide counts of affected schedules, agreements, permits, lots or live applications (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). It gives one detailed case study, not a complete audit of all Macedon Ranges land affected by VC282 (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). The analytical gap is therefore material: the source proves the mechanism and one local consequence, but does not quantify how many other subdivisions, NRZ schedules, Section 173 Agreements or building envelope plans may contain controls made redundant by VC282 (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245).
The strongest conclusion supported by the corpus is that VC282 has operational significance for Macedon Ranges wherever older local residential controls were embedded in permits, plans or agreements (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245). The source does not establish the total land supply effect, the number of additional dwellings enabled, or any infrastructure demand change resulting from VC282 in this municipality (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). Those questions require the VC282 amendment documents, the current and pre-VC282 Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme schedules, and an audit of residential permits and registered agreements that refer to former Clause 54 or Clause 55 variations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245).
Current Status
VC282 had been gazetted and was in effect by the time of the 17 December 2025 scheduled Council meeting agenda (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-242). The Council report states that the State Government had removed the relevant variations from NRZ Schedule 6, and that the former Schedule 6 setback controls were no longer applicable to the subject land (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.241-242).
At the local implementation level, the agenda recommended amending Section 173 Agreement AW964559C and endorsing an amended building envelope for Lot 13 at 9 Trenchard Street, Woodend, while treating amendments to spent permit conditions as unnecessary because the correct pathway was variation of the existing agreement (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.244-245). The source is an agenda rather than confirmed minutes, so it records the officer recommendation and assessment, not the final Council resolution on the item (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245).
Dependencies
- Blocks: VC282 can block reliance on former local Clause 54 variations where those variations were removed or limited by the statewide code, but it does not automatically remove registered Section 173 obligations or endorsed building envelope plans (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.241-245).
- Blocked by: Site-level implementation can be blocked by legacy title instruments, because an agreement such as AW964559C continues to require formal amendment even where its planning-scheme basis has become redundant (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.242-245).
- Informed by: The local analysis is informed by the December 2025 Council agenda item for AGR/2025/11 and PLN/2020/225/B, including the officer assessment of section 178B matters, Clause 54, NRZ6, neighbourhood character policy and Building Regulations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.238-245).
- Implements: The source states that VC282 implements commitments under the National Housing Accord and Victoria’s Housing Statement: The Decade Ahead 2024-2034 by standardising residential development rules and streamlining decision-making (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241).
- Conflicts with: The local tension is between former character-based local setback variations preserved in older agreements and the post-VC282 planning scheme settings that remove or constrain those variations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245).
Cross-Jurisdictional Links
VC282 is a statewide Victorian planning scheme amendment, so its mechanism applies beyond Macedon Ranges to all Victorian planning schemes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). The source does not provide adjacent-council examples, regional infrastructure effects or cross-boundary housing yield analysis (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). The cross-jurisdictional issue that can be stated from the source is legal consistency: councils across Victoria that previously used local Clause 54 or Clause 55 variations may face comparable residual-control questions where those variations were embedded in permits, endorsed plans or Section 173 Agreements (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245).
Gaps in This Analysis
The source set is thin for a major statewide amendment because the manifest contains only one Council agenda PDF and no primary VC282 amendment package (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). Missing Tier 1 material includes the VC282 explanatory report, instruction sheet, gazettal notice, amendment clauses and marked-up planning scheme changes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241). Without those documents, this page relies on Council’s description of the amendment rather than the primary statutory amendment text (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, p.241).
The corpus also lacks a Macedon Ranges-wide audit of affected residential schedules, agreements, permits and building envelopes (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.230-245). That prevents quantification of how many lots, dwellings or permit applications may be affected by the removal or limitation of local variations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245). A complete analysis should add a gap entry for the primary VC282 amendment package and a separate municipal implementation audit covering legacy Section 173 Agreements and endorsed building envelope plans linked to former Clause 54 and Clause 55 variations (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.240-245).