title: Amendment C72 - New Residential Zones council: moorabool state: vic category: amendment classification: MAJOR status: approved last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:
- 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf
- 2015-02-18-180215-smc-minutes.pdf
Amendment C72 - New Residential Zones
Amendment C72 was the mechanism that translated Moorabool’s former Residential 1 and Residential 2 land into Victoria’s new residential zone framework, with the most clearly documented effects in Bacchus Marsh, Ballan and Gordon (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). Its planning significance is not only that it changed zone names, but that it set different built-form rules for central and inner Bacchus Marsh and then forced related changes to Amendment C51 - Bacchus Marsh Activity Centre Structure Plan so that zone schedules and overlay controls did not duplicate or conflict with each other (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.9, 25-26).
Background
Victoria introduced a reformed suite of residential zones on 1 July 2013, and those reforms replaced the former Residential 1, Residential 2 and Residential 3 zones with the General Residential Zone, Neighbourhood Residential Zone and Residential Growth Zone (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9). The reform framework was intended to make the planning scheme clearer about where residential growth should be directed, where neighbourhood character should be given greater weight, and what built-form outcomes should be expected in residential areas (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9).
The Minister for Planning required councils to implement the new residential zones by 30 June 2014, and where an amendment was not finalised by 1 July 2014 the General Residential Zone would be applied as the default replacement for former Residential 1, 2 and 3 land (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9). A Residential Zones Standing Advisory Committee was appointed on 5 February 2014 to advise the Minister on proposals to translate land from the former residential zones into the new zone suite (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9). Moorabool was one of 14 councils that accepted the opportunity to have draft residential zone amendments considered through that advisory process (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.9-10).
Council prepared draft Amendment C72 for Bacchus Marsh, Ballan and Gordon using recently completed and current strategic work, and the draft amendment sought to connect zone translation with the draft Bacchus Marsh Housing Strategy so future housing could be guided by location, form and housing need rather than by a simple default conversion (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). Draft Amendment C72 was publicly notified in March and April 2014, and Council and submitters presented views to the Standing Advisory Committee at a Bacchus Marsh hearing in May 2014 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). The Committee considered the relationship between the proposed new zones, projected population growth capacity, and existing overlay controls including Heritage Overlays, Design and Development Overlays and Development Plan Overlays (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10).
Because the Standing Advisory Committee report and the Minister’s decision were not available before 30 June 2014, the State Government implemented Amendment VC116 on 1 July 2014, applying the General Residential Zone to land in Bacchus Marsh that had been in the former Residential 1 and Residential 2 zones (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). The Standing Advisory Committee report was released on 25 September 2014, and Amendment C72 was gazetted on 9 October 2014 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-11).
Analysis
Statutory Effect and Zone Translation
The core statutory effect of Amendment C72 was to move Moorabool’s residential land into the new residential zone system, with the available source material identifying Bacchus Marsh, Ballan and Gordon as the towns covered by Council’s draft amendment process (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). The available documents provide detailed schedule outcomes for Bacchus Marsh, but they do not provide equivalent street-level or schedule-level detail for Ballan and Gordon, so the analysis can confirm their inclusion in the amendment process but cannot map the exact statutory settings applied in those towns from the two manifest sources alone (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10).
For Bacchus Marsh, the approved amendment retained the General Residential Zone and applied scheduled controls to the Central and Inner Residential Areas as proposed in Council’s submission to the Standing Advisory Committee (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). Those central and inner areas represented approximately 10 per cent of residential land in Bacchus Marsh, meaning the amendment did not create a town-wide special built-form regime but instead targeted a defined minority of residential land close to activity, transport, community or retail facilities (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11).
The General Residential Zone Schedule 2 was applied to designated areas within the Bacchus Marsh Activity Centre and to designated areas near Maddingley Park and Bacchus Marsh Railway Station (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). The General Residential Zone Schedule 3 was applied to designated areas near community and retail facilities, including areas near Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). This creates a two-layer planning mechanism: GRZ2 supports a more compact activity-centre and station-adjacent form, while GRZ3 uses additional landscaping requirements to manage residential change in other accessible inner locations (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11).
Built Form Controls and Practical Development Consequences
GRZ2 varied ResCode by setting a 5 metre minimum street setback, allowing maximum site coverage of 70 per cent rather than 60 per cent, and setting a 1.2 metre maximum front fence height (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). The practical effect is that GRZ2 permits a larger building footprint than the ordinary 60 per cent site coverage baseline while keeping a consistent front setback and low front fence condition in designated central and station-adjacent areas (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). Mechanically, the 10 percentage point increase in site coverage is the most material quantitative change because it affects the share of each lot that may be occupied by buildings, whereas the 5 metre setback and 1.2 metre fence height shape the street interface and public realm character (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11).
GRZ3 varied ResCode by setting a 6 metre minimum street setback, requiring one tree per 600 square metres of lot size with at least one tree in the front setback, requiring those trees to reach more than 4 metres in height and more than 3 metres canopy at maturity, and setting a 1.2 metre maximum front fence height (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). The mechanism in GRZ3 is different from GRZ2: instead of increasing site coverage, it pairs a deeper front setback with a quantified canopy requirement, so the planning effect is to allow residential change while retaining a stronger landscape contribution on larger lots (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11).
The difference between GRZ2 and GRZ3 matters because the amendment used schedule settings to distinguish between residential places that could absorb more compact built form and residential places where landscape character remained a more explicit design requirement (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). GRZ2’s 70 per cent site coverage can support a greater building envelope on affected lots than GRZ3, while GRZ3’s tree-per-600-square-metre rule converts landscape character into a measurable permit assessment requirement (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11).
Advisory Committee Findings and Council’s Shift Away From NRZ
The Standing Advisory Committee found that Council had over-used the Neighbourhood Residential Zone in circumstances where the General Residential Zone was more likely to be appropriate (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). It also found that the Neighbourhood Residential Zone was inappropriate for newly developing greenfield sites such as Stonehill and Underbank (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). This finding is important because it redirected the amendment away from using the NRZ as a broad growth-management device and toward using the GRZ as the default framework for broad-hectare residential land (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10, 26).
The Committee also found that some standards proposed by Council could not be strategically justified, including a 20 per cent site coverage standard in an NRZ3 schedule and a 400 square metre lot size standard in an NRZ1 zone (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). This indicates that the State-level review was not only checking zone labels but also testing whether local schedule variations had a sufficient strategic basis (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). The final amendment therefore appears to have narrowed local variation to schedule controls that the Committee considered supportable around activity centres and inner residential locations, including GRZ1 and GRZ2 settings that were described as well accepted and strategically sound (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-11).
Relationship With Amendment C51 and Overlay Duplication
Amendment C72 had a direct downstream effect on Amendment C51 - Bacchus Marsh Activity Centre Structure Plan because the C51 Design and Development Overlays had been prepared before the C72 residential zone schedules were finalised (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9). Council officers waited for the Standing Advisory Committee recommendations and the Minister’s decision on C72 before finalising the C51 response, because they needed to avoid duplication or inconsistency between the residential zone schedules and the C51 overlay controls (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9).
The conflict was specific rather than abstract: C72 introduced GRZ2 and GRZ3 schedule requirements for central and inner residential areas around Bacchus Marsh activity centres, including minimum street setbacks, site coverage, front fence height and landscaping controls (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.25-26). C51 also proposed Design and Development Overlay provisions for parts of Bacchus Marsh, so Council recommended deleting street setback requirements from DDO Schedules 6, 8 and 9 where those overlays applied to GRZ2 and GRZ3 land (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). This is a clear example of statutory housekeeping with practical importance: if the same built-form matter is regulated in both a zone schedule and an overlay schedule, applicants, responsible authority officers and referral parties can face inconsistent or duplicated decision rules (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26).
C72 also changed the legally available zoning pathway for the Taverner Street land considered through C51 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). C51 had originally contemplated rezoning the Taverner Street land from Farming Zone to Residential 1 Zone, but after implementation of the new residential zones Council could no longer use Residential 1 Zone and instead needed to choose one of the new residential zones (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). Council’s February 2015 resolution adopted C51 with the additional change that the Taverner Street land be rezoned to General Residential Zone Schedule 1, while retaining associated Development Plan Overlay and Design and Development Overlay guidance for subdivision and dwelling design (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-minutes.pdf, pp.41-42; Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26).
Growth Area and Housing Capacity Implications
The available source material records that the Advisory Committee considered how the proposed use of the new residential zone suite would affect capacity to accommodate projected population growth in the municipality (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10). It also records that the Committee preferred GRZ rather than NRZ for broad-hectare land identified for residential development and in the process of subdivision and development (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). In practical planning terms, that means C72 protected growth-area implementation from controls that may have constrained housing delivery without adequate strategic justification, particularly on greenfield land such as Stonehill and Underbank (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10, 26).
The West Maddingley growth area was assigned General Residential Zone Schedule 1 through C72, and GRZ1 did not specify variations to zone or ResCode provisions (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). Council also noted that it had recently resolved to adopt Amendment C62, which would rezone the Underbank land to GRZ1 with a Development Plan Overlay (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26). The pattern is therefore that broad-hectare development areas were to be managed through GRZ1 and development-plan mechanisms, while the more fine-grained schedule variations were focused on central and inner areas where site context, access to facilities and neighbourhood form required more tailored provisions (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.11, 26).
The documents do not provide dwelling yield, net developable area, lot supply, infrastructure cost or staging numbers for the land affected by C72 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-12, 25-26). Because of that source limit, this page cannot quantify how many dwellings were enabled or constrained by the GRZ, GRZ2 and GRZ3 distribution, and it cannot compare the final C72 outcome with Council’s originally notified NRZ, GRZ or RGZ mapping (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-12, 25-26).
Current Status
Amendment C72 was gazetted on 9 October 2014, so its status is approved rather than pending in the amendment lifecycle (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). By February 2015, its controls were treated as part of the Moorabool Planning Scheme and were used to modify C51 before Council adopted C51 and submitted it to the Minister for approval (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.25-26; Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-minutes.pdf, pp.41-42).
Dependencies
- Blocks: Amendment C72 blocked final settlement of overlapping C51 built-form controls until Council could reconcile GRZ schedule requirements with proposed Design and Development Overlay schedules (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.9, 25-26).
- Blocked by: The C72 decision was delayed by the timing of the Residential Zones Standing Advisory Committee report and Ministerial decision, which were not available before the 30 June 2014 implementation deadline (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10).
- Informed by: C72 was informed by recently completed and current strategic work, including the draft Bacchus Marsh Housing Strategy, and by the Standing Advisory Committee process (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.10).
- Implements: C72 implemented Victoria’s 2013 residential zone reform within Moorabool and translated former residential zones into the new GRZ, NRZ and RGZ framework (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9).
- Conflicts with: The main documented conflict was not with a strategic objective but with possible duplication between GRZ schedule controls and C51 Design and Development Overlay controls, especially street setback requirements in DDO Schedules 6, 8 and 9 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.26).
Cross-Jurisdictional Links
The sources identify Amendment C72 as part of a statewide residential zone reform led by the Minister for Planning, with a Standing Advisory Committee appointed to advise on local translations across councils (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.9). No adjacent-council infrastructure, water authority, transport authority or regional servicing dependency is documented in the manifest sources for C72 (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.9-12, 25-26).
Gaps in This Analysis
The manifest sources do not include the C72 amendment documentation, the gazettal notice, the final ordinance schedules, zone maps, Council’s C72 submission, public submissions to the Standing Advisory Committee, the Standing Advisory Committee report itself, or the draft Bacchus Marsh Housing Strategy (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-11). Those are material gaps because the available documents identify the amendment’s timing and selected Bacchus Marsh outcomes but do not provide full spatial mapping, Ballan and Gordon schedule outcomes, submitter positions, or the evidence base for the final schedule choices (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-12).
The available evidence is strong enough to explain the C72 mechanism, gazettal status, GRZ2 and GRZ3 controls, and its effect on C51, but it is too thin to quantify total affected land area beyond the statement that central and inner Bacchus Marsh areas accounted for approximately 10 per cent of residential land in Bacchus Marsh (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, p.11). A fuller page should be revisited when the C72 explanatory report, instruction sheet, maps, schedules, advisory committee report and Housing Strategy are available for citation (Source: 2015-02-18-180215-smc-agenda.pdf, pp.10-11).