title: Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 council: macedon-ranges state: vic category: strategy classification: MINOR status: adopted last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:
- final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf
Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025
The Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 is confirmed as an adopted Council policy, but the available source only records its adoption and completion rather than the framework’s spatial recommendations, design controls, study area, implementation program or consultation findings. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.662) Its planning significance is therefore procedural rather than fully analysable from this corpus: it shows that Council completed an urban design framework for Kyneton during 2024-25, but the source does not expose the mechanisms by which the framework will influence planning permits, capital works, township character management or future planning scheme changes. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642)
Background
Council’s Annual Report records the Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 as one of the policies, strategies or plans adopted in the 2024-25 year, with an adoption date of 26 March 2025. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.662) The same Annual Report states that Council’s Strategic Planning team develops and progresses policies, strategies and plans that support sustainable growth and development across the shire, provides heritage advice, and progresses strategic planning scheme amendments. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642) In that service context, the Kyneton Urban Design Framework sits with Council’s strategic planning work rather than as a routine asset maintenance or operations document. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642)
The available attachment bundle is the 22 October 2025 Council meeting attachments package, and its table of contents identifies several bundled attachments, including the Annual Report 2024-25, Shaping the Ranges 2025-2035, the Financial Plan 2025-2035, the Asset Plan 2025-2035, and the Year One Action Plan and Indicators. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.3) The Kyneton Urban Design Framework itself is not included as a standalone attachment in the available source bundle, so this page cannot directly analyse maps, precinct boundaries, preferred built form, public realm projects, movement changes, heritage interfaces or implementation priorities. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.3)
Analysis
Status and Statutory Effect
The strongest available fact is that the Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 had moved beyond preparation by the end of the 2024-25 reporting year, because Council lists it among policies, strategies and plans adopted during that year and gives 26 March 2025 as the adoption date. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.662) The Annual Report also separately lists the Kyneton Urban Design Framework as a completed Strategic Planning project in 2024-25, which confirms the adoption record was not merely a forward work-program reference. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642)
The available source does not state that the framework has been translated into the Macedon Ranges Planning Scheme, adopted as an incorporated document, implemented through a planning scheme amendment, or connected to a Design and Development Overlay. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662) That distinction matters because an adopted Council framework can guide decision-making and capital planning, while statutory implementation would normally determine whether its design expectations bind planning permit decisions through scheme controls. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662)
The only planning scheme amendment expressly named beside the Strategic Planning team’s completed 2024-25 projects is Amendment C154, which rezoned land at 1 Wills Street, Malmsbury. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642) The source does not name a Kyneton-specific amendment associated with the UDF, so there is no evidence in the available corpus that the UDF was implemented through a contemporaneous amendment in 2024-25. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.642)
Policy Mechanism
The UDF appears to operate within Council’s broader place-planning agenda for township character, movement, accessibility and public realm outcomes. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.937, 941) The Year One Action Plan under Shaping the Ranges states that Council’s annual actions are linked to strategic priorities, allocated resources each year, and measured at year end through Council’s accountability framework. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.937) This gives a practical implementation pathway for adopted planning strategies: they need to appear in annual actions, capital budgets, amendments, or operational programs before they materially change built-environment outcomes. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.937)
The clearest related strategic objective in the available forward plan is to plan new and future built environments that protect the character of the shire by incorporating and prioritising heritage management, rural character, visual amenity and the natural environment. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.941) The same row names progression of the Gisborne Urban Design Framework as the 2025-26 action, not implementation of the Kyneton Urban Design Framework. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.941) This suggests Kyneton’s UDF had reached adoption by 2024-25, while Council’s next stated UDF work-program focus in the available action plan is Gisborne. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.662, 941)
The available source does not identify whether Kyneton’s framework recommends built form controls, streetscape works, heritage-area guidance, active transport changes, parking management, landscape palettes, gateway treatments, signage controls, public space upgrades or development assessment criteria. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662) Those are the usual mechanisms through which an urban design framework changes township outcomes, but this source only confirms the framework’s existence, adoption date and completion status. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662)
Relationship to Shire-Wide Place and Infrastructure Priorities
The Year One Action Plan identifies several place-based actions that may intersect with Kyneton if later budgets or project lists allocate works there, including missing footpath links, township connectivity, seasonal planting and landscaping improvements in township centres, DDA access audit actions, open space strategy delivery, and capital-design use of universal design principles. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.939-940) The source does not connect those actions specifically to Kyneton UDF implementation, so they should be treated as potential implementation channels rather than confirmed UDF projects. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.939-941)
The same action plan commits Council to deliver road and footpath projects included in the Council Budget, advocate for external funding to accelerate priority transport projects, deliver missing footpath links from the shire-wide footpath plan, and deliver active transport infrastructure upgrades included in the Council budget. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.939) If the Kyneton UDF contains movement or streetscape recommendations, those recommendations would need to intersect with these annual transport and capital programs to move from design policy into built works, but the available source does not provide the UDF project list or capital-cost schedule. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.939, 662)
The action plan also commits Council to deliver a new Open Space Strategy and to undertake analysis identifying priority community infrastructure needs for the next five years. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.940) If the Kyneton UDF identifies public-space gaps, town-centre civic spaces, river connections or community-infrastructure interfaces, those recommendations would need to be reconciled with the Open Space Strategy and the five-year community infrastructure analysis. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.940) The available source does not say whether that reconciliation has occurred. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.940)
Heritage, Character and Environmental Interface
Council’s strategic planning service includes heritage advice, and the forward plan’s built-environment objective explicitly links future built environments with heritage management, rural character, visual amenity and the natural environment. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 941) That alignment is important for Kyneton because the adopted UDF is likely to sit in the policy space where heritage character, development pressure, public realm expectations and township growth are balanced, but the available source does not disclose the actual Kyneton heritage places, streets, precincts or design responses addressed by the UDF. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 941)
The Year One Action Plan separately states that Council will commence a planning scheme amendment process to implement flood studies for Kyneton, Lauriston, Tylden and Malmsbury prepared by the North Central Catchment Management Authority. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.942) This is a material adjacent dependency for Kyneton township planning because flood controls can affect land-use decisions, building siting, public realm design, movement links and infrastructure priorities. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.942) The available source does not explain whether the Kyneton UDF considered those flood studies, whether the UDF area overlaps land affected by the forthcoming flood amendment, or whether any UDF recommendations are conditional on flood-control implementation. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.942)
Implementation Risks
The main implementation risk is not opposition or technical failure on the available evidence; it is document opacity. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.3, 642, 662) The source confirms adoption and completion, but it does not provide the adopted UDF text, implementation table, project sequencing, budget allocations, planning-scheme pathway, consultation record, or monitoring measures. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.3, 642, 662) Without those materials, the practical effect of the UDF cannot be quantified in terms of streetscape length, affected parcels, public-realm cost, road-space reallocation, heritage-control changes, footpath delivery, parking changes or open-space uplift. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.3, 642, 662)
A second risk is separation between adopted policy and funded delivery. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.937, 941) Shaping the Ranges explains that annual actions are linked to priorities and resources, and the 2025-26 place-planning action specifically progresses the Gisborne Urban Design Framework rather than naming a Kyneton UDF implementation action. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.937, 941) On the available evidence, Kyneton’s UDF has status as an adopted strategy, but there is no visible 2025-26 action line confirming the next tranche of Kyneton-specific design implementation. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.662, 941)
Current Status
Current status is adopted. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.662) Council adopted the Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 on 26 March 2025 and recorded it as a completed 2024-25 Strategic Planning project. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662) The available 2025-26 Year One Action Plan does not name a Kyneton UDF implementation action, while it does name progression of the Gisborne Urban Design Framework under the built-environment character objective. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.941)
Dependencies
- Blocks: No blocked downstream approval, amendment or capital project is identified in the available source. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662)
- Blocked by: Full analysis is blocked by absence of the adopted UDF document, including its maps, design directions, implementation schedule and statutory pathway. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.3)
- Informed by: The available source does not name technical studies, consultation reports, heritage assessments, traffic analysis, public realm audits or flood studies that informed the Kyneton UDF. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662)
- Implements: The UDF aligns with Council’s strategic planning role in sustainable growth, heritage advice and township planning, and with the Shaping the Ranges objective to protect shire character through heritage management, rural character, visual amenity and the natural environment. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 941)
- Conflicts with: No conflict is identified in the available source. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662)
Cross-Jurisdictional Links
The available source does not identify cross-jurisdictional agencies or neighbouring-council dependencies for the Kyneton UDF. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.642, 662) The only adjacent agency link visible for Kyneton township planning is the North Central Catchment Management Authority’s flood studies for Kyneton, Lauriston, Tylden and Malmsbury, which Council intends to implement through a planning scheme amendment process. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.942) That flood-amendment pathway should be checked against the adopted UDF because flood controls may affect public realm design, development siting, movement links and township renewal locations. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.942)
Gaps in This Analysis
The core gap is the adopted Kyneton Urban Design Framework 2025 itself. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.3) The available source package records that the UDF was adopted and completed, but it does not include the UDF document, maps, precinct analysis, design guidelines, implementation actions, consultation outcomes, costings or statutory implementation pathway. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.3, 642, 662)
The second gap is the absence of any visible Kyneton-specific implementation line in the available 2025-26 action plan. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.941) The action plan names the Gisborne Urban Design Framework under the relevant built-environment objective, but it does not name delivery of Kyneton UDF actions. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, p.941) A complete analysis should therefore locate Council’s adopted UDF, the 26 March 2025 Council report and minutes, any consultation summary, and any budget or capital works line items that translate the framework into works or planning controls. (Source: final-agenda-attachments-council-meeting-22-october-2025-reduced.pdf, pp.662, 937)