Grange Planning Brain

title: Bacchus Marsh Town Centre Structure Plan 2024 council: moorabool state: vic category: growth-area classification: MAJOR status: in-progress last_compiled: 2026-05-31 source_docs:

  • bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf
  • bmtc_structure_plan_2024.pdf

Bacchus Marsh Town Centre Structure Plan 2024

The Bacchus Marsh Town Centre Structure Plan is a 15-year framework for managing activity-centre change rather than a wholesale redevelopment plan: it keeps the existing main-street structure, concentrates change around key civic, commercial, movement and public-realm interventions, and then relies on later planning-scheme amendments, public works and agency advocacy to give those directions effect (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.4, 51-55). Its main planning significance is that it translates population and retail growth pressure into a constrained centre-management problem: the centre needs about 21,600 sqm of additional activity floorspace by 2041, but the identified commercial land balance is only about 0.1 ha above modelled demand, so implementation depends on using existing land more efficiently, removing outdated floorspace limits, managing parking, and sequencing public-realm upgrades (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.80-83).

Background

The plan was prepared by Hansen Partnership for Moorabool Shire Council, with Tim Nott providing economic analysis and TrafficWorks contributing transport input (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.6). The final version is dated 26 August 2024 after earlier draft versions dated 15 December 2023, 27 March 2024 and 3 June 2024 (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.3). The structure plan builds on the Bacchus Marsh Town Centre Township Context Report from July 2022 and the Community Consultation Summary Report from April 2023, but those background documents are incorporated only as appendices or references within the available source rather than as separately indexed source documents in this manifest (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.6).

Bacchus Marsh is identified in the plan as Moorabool Shire’s largest township settlement and its only strategically designated Major Activity Centre, with an estimated 2022 residential population of 23,303 people for Bacchus Marsh and surrounds (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.10). The town centre core is Main Street, with Grant Street, Court House Place, Gell Street and Graham Street forming secondary activity areas, and the Village Shopping Centre operating as an internal mall connected to the main-street format (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.11). The project boundary is centred on the Commercial 1 Zone, but it also extends south to include the Bacchus Marsh train station corridor and the proposed Moorabool Aquatic and Recreation Centre linkage area, so the plan is partly an activity-centre plan and partly a connection plan between Main Street, civic land, residential transition areas, the station and recreation destinations (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.6).

Analysis

Statutory Mechanism and Practical Effect

The plan is not presented as a self-executing statutory control; it is a strategic document intended to guide planning permit assessment, rezoning requests, public works budgets, grant advocacy, partnerships and later planning-scheme controls (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.8). The mechanism is therefore two-step: first, Council adopts the structure plan as policy direction; second, Council prepares a planning scheme amendment to translate that direction into local policy and built-form controls (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.51-55). Until that translation occurs, the plan has persuasive strategic weight but the existing overlays, zones and permit controls remain the binding statutory machinery (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.34-38).

The highest-leverage statutory actions are the recommended updates to DPO5, DDO9, DDO10 and DDO11, because those controls shape whether the plan’s active-transport link, commercial height settings and heritage-sensitive built form can be applied consistently in permit decisions (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.34-38, 55). DDO11 is described as reasonably resolved but too restrictive where it requires upper storeys above 7.5 m to be invisible from the public realm, and the plan recommends removing that element while retitling and broadening DDO11 as a Bacchus Marsh Town Centre control (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.34). DDO10 currently applies a 7 m building-height setting in the hospital and medical services precinct, and the plan recommends removing DDO10 from land inside the structure plan boundary and consolidating relevant content into an updated DDO11 with a 4-storey height setting for commercial areas (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.34).

The practical effect is a controlled intensification model: commercial and mixed-use development is encouraged at 2 to 4 storeys, but the plan uses streetwall, setback, heritage interface and solar-access requirements to keep the centre in a main-street format rather than shifting it toward a high-rise activity-centre form (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.37, 39-41). This is reinforced by design guidelines requiring new commercial development to be over 2 storeys but no greater than 4 storeys, with transitions to 1 to 2 storeys or no more than one storey above adjoining buildings where sites meet residentially zoned land or heritage properties (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.39). The plan also requires commercial frontages to generally build to the street boundary, supports ground-level setbacks only where they deliver public realm, outdoor retail space or landscaping, and seeks at least 70% active commercial frontage where commercial frontages are provided (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.39-40).

Commercial Land Supply, Floorspace and the 2041 Constraint

The economic logic is clear: the centre’s current function is strong, but growth in the Bacchus Marsh catchment requires the activity centre to absorb more retail, non-retail, civic and employment functions without losing the compact main-street structure (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.18, 80-83). The existing town centre had about 27,600 sqm of retail floorspace, 40,300 sqm of non-retail floorspace and 67,900 sqm of total activity floorspace in 2022, with vacancy at about 1,500 sqm or 2% of total floorspace (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.79-80). The retail mix was reported as 11,300 sqm of food, groceries and liquor, 9,300 sqm of non-food goods, 4,700 sqm of food catering and 2,300 sqm of retail services (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.79).

The demand test is narrow but important: Council’s retail strategy modelling forecasts 21,600 sqm of additional activity floorspace from 2021 to 2041, split evenly between 10,800 sqm of retail floorspace and 10,800 sqm of non-retail floorspace (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.18, 81). For the longer 2041 to 2061 period, the model forecasts a further 25,600 sqm of activity floorspace, split between 12,800 sqm of retail and 12,800 sqm of non-retail, but the plan places less weight on that period because forecasting certainty declines with changes in population, retail formats, technology and consumer behaviour (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.81).

The 2041 land requirement is estimated at about 4.9 ha, using assumptions of single-storey development, efficient lot use, an estimated parking rate of 3 spaces per 100 sqm, 35 sqm per parking space, and an additional 10% allowance for circulation and landscaping (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.81-82). Identified supply is about 5.0 ha, made up of 0.8 ha for the Village Shopping Centre expansion area, 2.2 ha at the Commercial 1 Zone half of 16 Graham Street, 0.4 ha at 3 Graham Street, 1.0 ha on Council sites adjacent to the library and 0.6 ha at the bowls club site adjacent to the library (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.82). That leaves a nominal surplus of only 0.1 ha, so a small delay, site-specific constraint or alternative use on a key site could create a commercial land shortfall within the 2041 planning horizon (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.18, 82-83).

The plan’s response is not immediate outward expansion of the centre; it first proposes efficiency measures inside the existing commercial framework (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.82-83). These measures include taking up vacant floorspace, redeveloping underused buildings, using multi-storey forms, reducing individual parking footprints, considering collective parking structures, and removing the 240 sqm shop floorspace cap that remains on former Business 2 Zone land now within the Commercial 1 Zone north of Waddell Street between Grant and Graham Streets (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.82-83). The plan also identifies possible longer-term commercial extension land at 92-98 Main Street, 16 Graham Street’s General Residential Zone half, and 26 and 28 Pilmer Street, but any rezoning is conditional on demand timing, access, traffic, built-form interface and land-use mix (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.21, 83).

Movement, Parking and Agency Dependency

Transport is the plan’s most immediate implementation constraint because the town centre’s key road corridors are not solely controlled by Council (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 25). Main Street, Grant Street and Gisborne Road are managed by the Department of Transport and Planning, so proposed changes to crossings, bike lanes, bus stops, entry treatments and intersection capacity require state agency agreement (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 25, 53). The plan records current plans to convert the Grant Street/Gisborne Road and Main Street roundabout into a signalised intersection with capacity improvements along Gisborne Road and Grant Street, but it does not include a cost, delivery date or funded works package for that intervention (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.22).

The access strategy is to lower pressure on Main Street by improving permeability and mode choice rather than simply adding road capacity (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 27-28). Key movement projects include a new east-west road link between Waddell Street and Simpson Street through the 16 Graham Street development area, a north-south shared path from Main Street to Boyes Close under DPO5 and DDO9, a centrally located Main Street public transport stop with Young Street intersection changes for long vehicles, and a connection to the 4.5 km Aqualink Cycling and Walking Corridor linking the Lerderderg River and Werribee River corridors through Bacchus Marsh and Darley (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.25, 28, 53). This means the 16 Graham Street site is not only a land-supply site; it is also a movement-network hinge because the plan expects it to deliver both the north-south active transport connection and the east-west Simpson-Waddell link (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.25, 44-47, 53).

Parking is treated as a management problem rather than proof that the centre needs more at-grade parking land (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.22). The plan says there is a reasonable amount of parking across dedicated car parks and on-street spaces, and that community concern appears to relate more to convenient spaces near the destination than to a complete absence of parking capacity (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.22). The adopted Parking Strategy supports efficient use of existing parking and reductions in defined areas such as Bacchus Marsh Town Centre, and the structure plan recommends reviewing occupancy and controls in commercial and residential interface areas before relying on additional supply (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 52). A consolidated multi-level parking facility is mentioned as a longer-term possibility on the existing at-grade Gell Street car park, but the plan states it is not expected within the 15-year structure plan timeframe and would require a future needs assessment including whether mode shift has occurred (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.22).

Public Realm, Werribee River and Flood Risk

The public-realm strategy is structured around entry thresholds, Main Street slow-zone works, canopy and soft landscaping, wayfinding, public art, gathering spaces, and stronger connections to the Werribee River corridor (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.29-32, 48-50). Community consultation strongly shaped this direction: over 85% of respondents wanted sustainability considered in the plan, and tree-lined streets including Main Street and the Avenue of Honour were identified as favourite town-centre attributes (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.14). The plan’s mechanism is mostly public works and permit advocacy rather than immediate statutory reservation, with short-term actions to develop a public works program, prepare local policy, formalise built-form controls, and prepare a landscape plan for the Werribee River corridor with Melbourne Water and CFA involvement (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.32, 54).

Flooding is a material unresolved risk because a large portion of the structure plan area is affected by the Land Subject to Inundation Overlay, and the plan anticipates additional building footprints, hard surfaces and runoff from future development (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.34). The plan explicitly states that a Stormwater Management Strategy may be required and then makes a high-level Storm Water Management Strategy for the commercial area a short-term implementation action (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.34, 38, 55). This is a mechanism-level gap: the plan recognises flood and water-quality risk, but it does not quantify affected land area, model flood behaviour, specify drainage infrastructure, or allocate works costs (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.34, 55).

The Werribee River corridor is both an environmental asset and a permit constraint (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.29, 32). Public reserve land along the river contains remnant and revegetated habitat, and the plan states that adjoining development must be set back to Melbourne Water’s satisfaction and must positively address the waterway corridor with an active interface (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.29, 32, 54). The implementation responsibility is shared between Council and Melbourne Water for the landscape plan and between Council and Melbourne Water during permit assessment for river setbacks, so delivery depends on both design work and referral-agency expectations (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.54).

Built Form, Heritage and Housing Diversity

The built-form framework seeks moderate height, not maximum intensification (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.33-41). The plan identifies heritage fabric as a defining character element, with notable public-facing heritage buildings clustered on the south side of Main Street from 117-119 to 127 Main Street (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.33). For heritage sites, the plan supports retaining existing front setbacks where buildings have front gardens or forecourts, retaining verandas and porches, placing new development behind heritage frontages, protecting ghost signs where revealed, and using upper-level setbacks so parapets, signs, shopfronts, roof forms and chimneys remain visually prominent (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.33, 37-38, 55).

The centre-wide housing approach is to direct more intensive forms close to the activity-centre core while allowing smaller-scale diversity across the broader boundary (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.19, 35-36). The plan identifies apartments, shop-top living and townhouses near the core, and townhouses, villa units and dual occupancies across the balance of residential areas inside the boundary (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.19, 35-36). It also states that the Housing Diversity Areas map works with existing residential zones and overlays and does not itself require changes to those zones or overlays, so housing outcomes will still depend on site-by-site permit assessment and existing statutory controls (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.35).

The plan supports affordable housing, built-to-rent and retirement living where broadly aligned with the Housing Diversity Areas map, but it does not set a numeric affordable-housing target, tenure requirement, delivery mechanism, land contribution or partnership pathway (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.35). This limits the plan’s ability to convert housing-diversity language into measurable social housing or affordable housing delivery outcomes (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.35).

Current Status

The available source is the final August 2024 structure plan, but the source set does not include a Council adoption report, planning scheme amendment documentation, authorisation request, exhibition material, panel report or gazettal notice (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.3, 51-55). The plan itself describes the first critical implementation step as establishing appropriate planning controls and then facilitating a planning scheme amendment after Council has considered and formally adopted the structure plan and associated control recommendations (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.51). On the available evidence, the initiative should be treated as in-progress: the strategic plan is final, but its statutory implementation and public-works delivery pathway remain dependent on later Council, DTP, Melbourne Water and funding decisions (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.51-55).

Dependencies

  • Blocks: Consistent permit assessment for 2-4 storey mixed-use form, revised hospital-precinct height expectations, removal of former B2Z shop floorspace caps, and formal recognition of the Housing Diversity Areas map all depend on a later Moorabool Planning Scheme amendment (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.21, 34-38, 51-55).
  • Blocked by: DTP approval is required for changes to Main Street, Grant Street and Gisborne Road, including crossings, entry treatments, bike lanes, bus-stop changes and the Grant/Gisborne/Main signalisation setting (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 25, 53).
  • Blocked by: Melbourne Water expectations affect Werribee River setbacks and waterway-interface treatment, and a commercial-area Storm Water Management Strategy is needed to resolve flood-risk and water-quality guidance (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.32, 34, 54-55).
  • Informed by: The plan is informed by the Township Context Report, Community Consultation Summary Report, Active Transport Framework and Sections, Economic Activity Analysis, Council’s Retail Strategy and Council’s Parking Strategy (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.6, 9, 22, 57-83).
  • Implements: The plan implements local activity-centre policy directions that reinforce Main Street as the commercial hub, strengthen Grant Street as a secondary activity area, encourage civic and community uses near the library and public hall, and support mixed commercial and residential activity-centre land uses (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.11-13).
  • Conflicts with: The plan creates tension with existing restrictive built-form settings where DDO11 limits visibility of upper levels above 7.5 m and DDO10 applies a 7 m height setting within parts of the boundary; the plan recommends resolving this through an updated DDO11 and removing DDO10 from land inside the boundary (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, p.34).

The main cross-agency link is DTP control over Main Street, Grant Street and Gisborne Road, because the structure plan’s movement, safety, bus-stop and slow-zone ambitions rely on state road approval rather than Council action alone (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.22, 25, 53). The Werribee River corridor creates another cross-agency link with Melbourne Water, because river setbacks, corridor landscape planning and active waterway interfaces require Melbourne Water involvement or satisfaction (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.32, 54). The Aqualink route is a local and regional active-transport link because it is described as a proposed 4.5 km cycling and walking corridor connecting the Lerderderg River and Werribee River corridors through Bacchus Marsh and Darley (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.25, 53).

Gaps in This Analysis

The two manifest source documents appear to be duplicate versions of the same 85-page final structure plan under different filenames, so they do not provide independent evidence or separate technical depth (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf; Source: bmtc_structure_plan_2024.pdf). The manifest does not include the Township Context Report, Community Consultation Summary Report, full Retail Strategy, Parking Strategy, detailed TrafficWorks transport report, DTP signalisation documentation, Melbourne Water flood advice, Council adoption minutes, planning scheme amendment documents or public submissions (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.6, 22, 51-55, 79-83). Because those documents are missing, this page can identify the plan’s mechanisms and dependencies, but it cannot verify adopted status, quantify project costs, test flood or transport modelling, count consultation submissions, or assess whether implementation has moved beyond the final strategic plan stage (Source: bacchus-marsh-town-centre-structure-plan-2024.pdf, pp.51-55).

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