Grange Planning Brain

title: Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 council: macedon-ranges state: vic category: amendment classification: MAJOR status: in-progress last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:

  • 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf
  • 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf

Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025

The Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 is significant for Macedon Ranges because Council identifies it as a statewide planning-system reform that would alter permit pathways, public notice, appeal rights, amendment processes, Distinctive Areas and Landscapes protections, enforcement, compensation and infrastructure contributions. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.66) Council’s central local concern is that a reform designed to accelerate housing approvals may shift risk onto a rural municipality with protected landscapes, bushfire and flooding exposure, settlement-boundary controls, and limited statutory planning resources. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66-69)

Background

The Bill was introduced into the Victorian Parliament in October 2025, and Council’s November 2025 officer report states that it had reached second reading late on 29 October 2025. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.66) The Victorian Government media release attached to the agenda states that the Bill updates the Planning and Environment Act 1987 and creates three separate pathways for planning approvals. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.71) The same media release states that the Government’s purpose is to reduce planning approval times for simpler housing projects, with stand-alone homes and duplexes targeted at 10 days, townhouses and low-rise developments targeted at 30 days, and larger apartment buildings targeted at 60 days. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.71)

Macedon Ranges Shire Council reported that neither it nor the local government sector had been consulted on the Bill before its introduction, despite councils being principal administrators of the Planning and Environment Act 1987 as responsible authorities and planning authorities. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73) Council’s Deputy Mayor and Chief Executive Officer sent letters dated 17 November 2025 to the Minister for Planning, the State Member for Macedon and the Shadow Minister for Planning and Housing expressing strong opposition to the Bill in its current form. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.73, 77, 81)

Analysis

Housing Supply Mechanism: Speed Versus Released Land

The State Government frames the Bill as a housing-delivery reform because it says current planning permits average 140 days and exceed 300 days where there is an objection. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.71) Council accepts the statewide need for more housing but disputes the diagnosis that statutory planning process is the binding constraint on housing supply in Macedon Ranges. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73)

Council’s counter-mechanism is settlement-boundary approval rather than permit-time reduction. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73) Council states that adopted structure plans for Gisborne Structure Plan and Romsey Structure Plan had been with the State Government for more than 12 months, and that State approval of the adopted settlement boundaries would allow rezoning for approximately 2,200 houses in Romsey and 4,500 houses in Gisborne. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73) That means Council identifies a potential 6,700-dwelling local supply pathway that depends on State decisions about settlement boundaries rather than on faster assessment of individual permit applications. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73)

The practical planning implication is that the Bill may increase the speed of applications inside existing planning controls while leaving Council’s largest identified housing-release mechanism dependent on unresolved State approval of growth boundaries. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73) In simple terms, Council is saying that faster processing at the front counter does not open the locked gate to the larger growth areas if the settlement-boundary decision remains unresolved. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73)

Permit Pathways, Notice and Appeal Rights

The Bill creates three streams of planning applications and reduces or removes public notification and appeal rights for some streams. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66-68) The Government media release states that homes, duplexes, townhouses and low-rise apartments would have no notice and no third-party appeals, while higher-density apartment proposals would give notice and appeal rights only to directly affected neighbours. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.71)

Council’s concern is not only procedural participation but information quality. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.67-68, 74) Council says public notice is the mechanism through which local communities learn about proposals and local knowledge can inform decision-making. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.74) Council also says type 2 applications would not undergo public notice unless new Ministerial guidelines allow it, and Council understands type 2 applications to include codified residential development for two or more dwellings on a lot across residential zones in metropolitan areas, regional cities and rural townships. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.74)

The mechanism is straightforward: when notice is removed, fewer neighbours and local groups can identify site-specific issues before a decision is made. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.67-68, 74) Council links that loss of notice to potential poorer long-term outcomes for neighbourhood character, heritage protection, environmental protection and sustainable development. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.67-68, 74) For Macedon Ranges, Council gives particular weight to environmental and hazard risk because it states that parts of the Shire are high-risk areas for bushfire and flooding. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.67-68, 74)

Administrative Load and Deemed Outcomes

Council identifies a major operational risk in the interaction between applicant-nominated streams, short correction windows and automatic outcomes. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 74-75) Council states that clause 78 would make the applicant responsible for nominating the type 1, 2 or 3 assessment pathway when lodging an application. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 74) Council states that type 1 applications would be automatically approved after 10 days and that clause 83 would give Council only one opportunity, within five days of lodgement, to move a wrongly nominated type 1 application into the correct pathway. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 74)

This creates a front-loaded triage problem. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 74-75) Council would need to detect incomplete information, wrong pathway nominations and higher-risk planning issues inside a five-day window, and failure to do so could leave a higher-risk application in a lower-risk stream. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 74-75) Council states that this is difficult in a context of ongoing statutory planning staff turnover and known shortages in skilled planning labour. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 75)

Council also identifies pressure from changed clock mechanics and post-permit satisfaction matters. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68-69, 75) Council states that further information requests under section 54 would pause rather than reset the statutory clock, increasing pressure to avoid failure review risk. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68-69, 75) Council states that satisfaction matters, including condition plans, would need to be assessed within 30 days, with failure resulting in a deemed-to-satisfy outcome. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68-69, 75)

The downstream effect is that planning risk moves from deliberation after lodgement to system capacity before and immediately after lodgement. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68-69, 74-75) Council says the Bill would require new IT and database systems to manage new application streams, assessment timeframes and submitted information, and that these costs were not anticipated in Council’s Long Term Financial Plan. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.69, 75) Council’s financial assessment is qualitative rather than quantified: it states the expected financial requirement for IT, databases and additional planning staff is considerable but not costed. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.69)

Distinctive Areas and Landscapes

Macedon Ranges is especially exposed to changes in Distinctive Areas and Landscapes provisions because the Shire has been declared a Distinctive Area and Landscape and has a Macedon Ranges Statement of Planning Policy. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66-67) Council states that the Statement of Planning Policy protects outstanding landscapes, layers of settlement history, landforms and natural environment values of special significance to Victoria. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) Council also states that several towns have protected settlement boundaries and that Council adopted two further protected settlement boundaries for Romsey and Gisborne in 2024. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67)

Council identifies three local risk points in the Bill’s treatment of this framework. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) First, the framework for preparing a Statement of Planning Policy would become a high-impact amendment under the proposed low, medium and high amendment categories. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) Second, a planning scheme amendment could amend a Statement of Planning Policy, and the Minister would determine the amendment’s impact category. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) Third, where an amendment changes both a Statement of Planning Policy and another matter such as residential rezoning, Council states that the impact category would follow the other amendment and be dealt with through the same Planning Panel. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67)

Council’s concern is that this could weaken the Statement of Planning Policy as a guiding framework for land use and development. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) Council also states that the Bill would remove the current provision preventing a responsible public entity from amending a planning scheme in a way that is inconsistent with a Statement of Planning Policy. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) If that reading is correct, the practical effect would be that the Statement of Planning Policy could become less of a hard constraint on public-entity planning action and more of a policy factor managed through the amendment process. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67)

Council also raises uncertainty about protected settlement boundary corrections. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) Council states that parliamentary ratification would remain except for a correction to a protected settlement boundary, but that the Bill gives no definition of correction. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67) The risk is definitional: a narrow correction power would address technical mapping errors, while a broad correction power could alter growth boundaries without the same parliamentary scrutiny. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.67)

Amendment Oversight and Trust

Council states that the Bill removes parliamentary oversight of planning scheme amendments. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 75) Council links this to public trust and explicitly references concern following approval of the Amess Road Riddells Creek Precinct Structure Plan through amendment C161macr. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.75, 79-80, 83-84)

The mechanism here is institutional rather than technical. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68, 75) If amendment categories and Ministerial determinations replace some parliamentary oversight, contested changes may move further into executive and administrative processes. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.67-68, 75) Council’s requested remedy is to maintain parliamentary oversight of planning scheme amendments. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-66, 68-69, 76)

Affordable and Social Housing

Council says the Bill misses an opportunity to require more affordable housing despite affordable housing being an objective of planning in Victoria. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.68) Council asks that affordable and social housing be addressed in the Bill and says the Bill fails to provide mechanisms to require affordable homes or support social housing. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.76, 80, 84) Council’s requested design principle is that the reform safeguard affordable and social housing through planning mechanisms. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-66, 69, 76)

The December 2025 agenda shows this issue remained part of Council’s broader advocacy settings: the Advocacy Projects Prospectus 2026 includes State Government Accountability matters, including the Bill, the Statement of Planning Policy and delivery of a $30 million investment guarantee for social and affordable housing in Macedon Ranges Shire. (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.251-255)

Current Status

As at the 26 November 2025 agenda, Council reported that the Bill was being debated in the Victorian Parliament and, if passed, would commence operation in October 2027. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 69) Council’s officer recommendation was to raise concerns about regulatory burden, loss of community input, regulatory and financial impacts, and to request that the State Government pause the Bill in its current form and work with local government on a revised process. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-66) By the 17 December 2025 agenda, the Bill had been incorporated into the proposed Macedon Ranges Shire Council Advocacy Projects Prospectus 2026 under the State Government Accountability section for advocacy leading into the November 2026 Victorian election. (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.251-255)

Dependencies

  • Blocks: Council’s documents do not state that the Bill currently blocks a local planning process, but Council argues that unresolved State approval of Gisborne and Romsey settlement boundaries is a more immediate blocker to approximately 6,700 potential dwellings than ordinary permit-assessment speed. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 73)
  • Blocked by: Council’s preferred resolution is blocked by State Government and Parliamentary decisions about whether to pause, amend, pass or implement the Bill. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-66, 69)
  • Informed by: Council’s position is informed by the officer report, the Premier’s media release, correspondence to the Minister for Planning, correspondence to the Member for Macedon, correspondence to the Shadow Minister for Planning and Housing, and engagement with the Municipal Association of Victoria. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65, 69, 71-84)
  • Implements: The Bill is presented by the Victorian Government as part of its housing-supply reform program, including housing targets for every local government area and measures to increase homes near trains and trams and make townhouse delivery easier. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, p.72)
  • Conflicts with: Council identifies potential conflict with community participation, parliamentary oversight, Distinctive Areas and Landscapes protections, protected settlement boundary integrity, hazard review, neighbourhood character, heritage protection, environmental protection, affordable housing mechanisms and local government administrative capacity. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-69, 74-76)

This is a statewide Bill affecting the Planning and Environment Act 1987, so its operational effects would not be confined to Macedon Ranges Shire. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66, 71) Council expects many local councils to raise similar concerns and states that the Municipal Association of Victoria is taking action. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.68-69) The direct State actors named in Council’s correspondence are the Minister for Planning, the State Member for Macedon and the Shadow Minister for Planning and Housing. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.73, 77, 81)

The local cross-policy link is between this Bill, the Macedon Ranges Statement of Planning Policy, protected settlement boundaries, Gisborne Structure Plan, Romsey Structure Plan and Amess Road Riddells Creek Precinct Structure Plan. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66-67, 73, 75) The December 2025 advocacy report also links the Bill to Council’s State Government Accountability advocacy program, which includes the Statement of Planning Policy and social and affordable housing investment. (Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.251-255)

Gaps in This Analysis

The available source base is thin for a major statewide planning amendment because it consists of two council agenda documents rather than the Bill text, explanatory memorandum, parliamentary debate, regulations, draft Victoria Planning Provisions, Ministerial guidelines, Municipal Association of Victoria submissions, or state-agency implementation material. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-84; Source: 17-december-2025-scheduled-council-meeting-agenda.pdf, pp.251-255) This means the analysis can explain Council’s stated concerns and local implications, but it cannot independently verify each clause, quantify statewide administrative cost, test the legal effect of Distinctive Areas and Landscapes changes, or model the number and type of Macedon Ranges applications that would move into each stream. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-84)

Priority gaps for _gaps.md are: the Planning Amendment (Better Decisions Made Faster) Bill 2025 as introduced; the explanatory memorandum; Hansard for second reading and subsequent debate; draft or final regulations defining type 1, type 2 and type 3 pathways; Ministerial guidelines for type 2 notice; any Municipal Association of Victoria submission; any Council follow-up submission on Distinctive Areas and Landscapes; and datasets showing Macedon Ranges permit volumes by application type. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.65-84) Without those documents, the most important unresolved question is whether Council’s identified risks are legal certainties, likely implementation outcomes, or concerns that could be modified through regulations and guidelines before commencement in October 2027. (Source: 26-november-2025-agenda-scheduled-council-meeting.pdf, pp.66-69)

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