City of Melton 2023 Developer Forum Wrap Up
As the City of Melton continues to expand, collaboration between Council, developers, and prospective investors becomes increasingly vital in shaping a successful future.
Recently, Council representatives had the opportunity to engage with some of the city’s most influential stakeholders at the City of Melton 2023 Developer Forum.
This year’s Developer Forum was held at Punthill Apartment Hotels Caroline Springs, with close to 100 sector representatives, both in person and via Zoom, joining officers from Council’s City Futures teams for a morning of information sharing and exchange.
Opening the event, City of Melton CEO Roslyn Wai said our city’s growth puts us as the fastest growing Victorian municipality.
“In reality this highlights the gravity of our shared responsibility to develop the City of Melton together, in a way that the legacy of our decisions and investments stacks up for current and future generations,” she said.
• Roslyn Wai, CEO City of Melton addresses the Forum
The morning followed an agenda which covered topics such as committed and funded strategic projects, future developments and our changing needs in local transport
Melton City Council’s newly-appointed City Futures Director Sam Romazsko provided an overview of the revised structure and leadership roles in her portfolio. The new structure focuses on growth and development with all relevant teams grouped in the City Futures directorate, allowing for an end-to-end engagement framework for developers.
Sam told the Forum that with growth of 6.4% from 2021 to 2022, and projections of further population growth from 200,000 now to over 450,000 in 2051, the city has a jobs shortage.
“We are well under the growth area average of 0.6 jobs per member of the labor work force,” she said.
“A business-as-usual approach will see this trend increase with a projected jobs shortfall of 100,000 jobs by 2051. A do-nothing approach will also see daily commutes grow from 45,000 in 2021 to 110,000 by 2051 – the highest of any growth area.”
Sam shared insights into Council’s Investment Attraction Strategy which includes accelerated delivery of key infrastructure and other catalyst projects.
These projects are expected to deliver 100,000 additional jobs by 2050 with signification economic returns for the State, along with opportunities for the many global organisations setting up in the City of Melton.
• Future employment hubs and population heatmap
Luke Shannon, Executive Lead Strategic Projects, provided an overview of the Cobblebank Metropolitan Activity Centre, outlining already delivered infrastructure, along with committed investment such as Melton Hospital, a TAFE and Cobblebank Community Services Hub.
Luke said that Federal and State Government commitments to station upgrades, level-crossing removals and the Western Highway were appreciated.
But, he said, there were additional advocacy priorities which Council had submitted as budget requests, addressing education, roads and public transport, the Western Rail project (electrification of the Melton rail line), the Outer Metropolitan Ring and the Western Intermodal Freight Terminal (WIFT).
“At Melton we back up our advocacy asks with a robust evidence base,” he said.
“In October last year we launched the Moving Melton Transport Prospectus, which outlines the detailed road, rail, bus and active transport projects that better connect our community and attract commercial investment.
“This is an innovative interactive online website that provides a data driven, modelling platform and scenario planning to demonstrate improvements that can be generated by our proposed investments.”
Principal Strategic Planner Matthew Milbourne gave an overview of Precinct Structure Plans and Urban Design Frameworks that were currently in preparation, along with a summary of the key findings from the recent Melton Employment and Industrial Land Strategy (MEILS) review, undertaken by Charter Keck Kramer on behalf of the City of Melton.
He emphasised key findings from this review, which identified the southern precinct as an area where development-ready land was being consumed at a higher than anticipated rate.
“The southern precinct consists of 371 Ha of occupied land, 533 Ha of unoccupied land, and 994 Ha of unprogrammed industrial land. Most of this land is located within the Western State Significant Industrial Precinct,” he said.
“There is 10 years of land supply in this precinct based on current land consumption patterns. Land could be exhausted in 5 years if land consumption increases.
“Council is advocating to the State government to commence work on the preparation of employment PSPs in this location to ensure there is more than 10 years of land supply in the State Significant Industrial Precinct.”
• MEILS review summary slide, shown at the Forum
Bhavin Mehta, Interim Manager Infrastructure Planning Team presented on “The Growing Needs in Local Transport”, putting a focus on learnings from past infrastructure delivery and Council’s current delivery model, which is closely aligned to resident and community expectations.
Bhavin explained that as part of Council’s new strategy, “Council will help by simplifying bureaucratic processes and facilitating early delivery of critical transport infrastructure as well as providing comprehensive advocacy.”
He said developers needed to take a partnership approach, both with other developers and with Council, and think beyond a single subdivision or estate to achieve the best possible outcomes.
Overall the Forum presented a great opportunity for Council staff to engage with our key development sector stakeholders. The many interesting and productive conversations that followed the various presentations demonstrated that there is appetite within the sector for further engagement and events, and the Venture Melton Team looks forward to keeping you up to date on relevant topics.
You can watch an event recap and hear what guests had to say about the City of Melton 2023 Developer Forum at the City of Melton YouTube page.
If you have any questions about the event or would like to find out more about any of these topics please contact the Venture Melton Team.