Guy to scrap C270

An elected Liberal State Government would do away with the current Labor Government’s C270 planning controls for the CBD and Southbank, according to its leader Matthew Guy.

Speaking at a Property Council event on October 19, Mr Guy said he would scrap Labor’s planning controls, which it introduced into Melbourne’s planning scheme in 2016 to curb height and plot-ratio of inner-city development.

Referred to as “Mr Skyscraper” during his time as Minister for Planning in the Baillieu and Napthine governments, Mr Guy said that the central city could grow in the “way we know it should be able to.”

“There’s a market, a strong market and Melbourne’s growing and Melbourne’s changing,” he said. “People want to live in downtown Melbourne. Why would we put in place every rule you can and constrict that or stop that.”

“[We need to] bring back in supply to the downtown market where people want to live.”

Mr Guy also hit back at claims that he had rezoned Fishermans Bend overnight as capital city, saying that he foreshadowed it before the 2010 election. “Not overnight, not out of nowhere,” he said.

Southbank Residents’ Association (SRA) president Tony Penna raised his concerns about Mr Guy’s comments at the Southbank and Montague Meet the Candidates event on October 30 (see summary on page 7).

Greens candidate for Albert Park Ogy Simic was the only candidate who commented on the Liberal Party’s proposal, labelling it as “insane”.

“Rolling back planning controls for the Southbank area where here we have Mr Skyscraper reappearing is insane,” he said.

“I think if you asked the community whether there were more skyscrapers and no control for developers you would probably find that most people wouldn’t be on board.”