City of Melbourne new urban design requirements

(Picture: Jorge Lascar Flickr)

The City of Melbourne’s new Central Melbourne Design Guide is set to overhaul the city’s urban design requirements for the first time in 25 years.

Victoria Minister for Planning, Richard Wynne, has approved the Council’s Guide and associated planning scheme policy.

The Guide aims to raise the bar for design and architectural considerations for buildings, including how buildings relate to streets and public spaces.

The Guide rethinks outdated urban design requirements in the Melbourne Planning Scheme which apply to the central city and Southbank.

The Central Melbourne Design Guide supports new rules with design outcomes focusing on:

Car parking in buildings being underground
Minimising the impact of building services at ground level, such as fire control rooms, air conditioning vents, electrical substations and rubbish areas
Less than 40 per cent of the ground floor of a building being occupied by building services to reduce facades which turn their backs to streets
Expanding the Retail Core requirement for 80 per cent active frontages to streets
New requirements to integrate good design from the first step of the planning process and especially encouraging well considered and resolved design detail for the lower levels of new buildings

Melbourne Deputy Lord Mayor, Nicholas Reece, said the Design Guide is the biggest rewrite of the city’s urban design requirements since the 1990s and would set a new higher standard for Melbourne.