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Developer contributions on the agenda

Developer contributions on the agenda

The City of Melbourne wants to extract maximum developer contribution from a Haig St project.

The council is asking the Minister for Planning to apply the provisions of the new Amendment C208, the Development Contributions Plan Overlay, which allows for more transparency around developer contribution.

The development, at 57-59 Haig St, is 122 metres high, with 39 levels, will include 249 new apartments and has been designed by Bruce Henderson Architects.

Council supports the tower but, as well as wanting Amendment C208 applied, it also wants the Minister to look carefully at setbacks as defined in the Capital City Zone planning guidelines.

The council’s chair of planning, Cr Ken Ong, said it was a pretty simply conclusion to come to, now that Amendment C208 was in place.

“It’s pretty straight forward. The officers have looked at it and worked with the developer and also the Department of Planning to come to a conclusion and we’ve added in there the additional item of the development contribution, in line with planning scheme amendment C208, which has been out there for a while,” Cr Ong explained.

Cr Stephen Mayne said the amendment was important, given the historical discrepancy between Melbourne’s developer contributions and those of other major cities.

“I was up in Brisbane two weeks ago and the State Government up there gets $20,000 levy on every apartment. Massive. City of Sydney, $2 million a week coming through the door at the moment for the last 15 months in developer contributions,” Cr Mayne pointed out.

“Our arrangement, historically, has been a fraction of what has applied in Sydney and Brisbane and I think it is appropriate as we have that policy out there that we start applying it, or requesting that the Minister apply it, as these Ministerial applications come through,” he added.

Cr Mayne also noted that the Haig St application was 30,000 sqm and only just inside the Planning Minister Matthew Guy’s threshold for planning approvals.

“It’s only just over the threshold for the Minister of 25,000 sqm. The conditions are important, as is the amendment there with the developer contribution.”

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