A south-west Victorian shire plans to help its regional towns grow by opening up agricultural land for as many as 1,000 new house blocks over the next decade or so.
Moyne Shire has a wide-ranging proposal which would create at least 150 new residential blocks out of farmland surrounding about a dozen of its smaller townships.
Another controversial plan, for Port Fairy — the shire's largest population base and a housing market hotspot — could add another 700 blocks, while major subdivisions in the shire's second and third largest towns of Koroit and Mortlake are already adding more.
Growing more than grass
The shire's population grew by 1.2 per cent between 2020 and 2021, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, making it the fifth-fastest-growing Victorian LGA with a population under 20,000.
But continued growth in the shire is hamstrung by zoning restrictions on farmland.
The council voted this week to ask the state planning minister to appoint an independent panel to examine a planning scheme amendment that has the potential to open up significant numbers of housing blocks on agricultural land around some of the shire's key towns.
Moyne Shire's interim CEO, Brett Davis, said agriculture was "still the number one industry" in the LGA.
The proposal seeks to rezone farmland to "rural living" around the towns of Grassmere, Hawkesdale, Koroit, Crossley, Illowa, Killarney, Southern Cross, Tower Hill and Woolsthorpe.
It also proposes to expand the township zones of Garvoc, Nullawarre and Purnim, while shrinking the minimum block sizes in other areas.
This could add approximately 150 residences across the shire, but that's only the tip of the iceberg, with further expansions for some rural towns already on the cards, Mr Davis said.
"There are things that have arisen through [this process] that the council officers have taken on board, and while they can't include it as a part of this work, there'll be a secondary piece of work coming straight after this to capture those other opportunities that have emerged," he said.
The rest of the iceberg
Another planning amendment still being finalised by council aims to create a further 700 blocks over the next 15 years in Port Fairy, where land and rentals are in short supply and the median house price is close to $1 million.
The council has also developed "structure plans" for Koroit and Port Fairy, and subdivisions are already underway in Mortlake, where the population has grown by more than 400 people in the past two decades.
The various plans and amendments push the number of new housing blocks over the next 10 to 15 years in the shire closer to 1,000, which is a lot for a predominantly rural LGA that about 17,000 people call home.
Not all in favour
But there is opposition to the plans, with farmers and others in the agriculture sector warning that once farming land is lost to housing, there is no getting it back.
Mr Davis said Moyne Shire Council was very aware of that.
He also noted that making the land available did not necessarily mean people would build houses on it.
"It's all market dependent — we can open up the land, whether or not it's then developable [is another matter]," Mr Davis said.
