New apartments in Victoria will have to allow more room for green space, have better façades, minimise wind impacts, have safer and more attractive street interfaces and better manage construction impacts if proposed new rules are adopted.

Released on Friday by Acting Planning Minister Lily D’Ambrosio, the Better Apartments in Neighbourhoods Discussion Paper 2019 proposes amendments to the Better Apartments Design Standards and the Apartment Design Guidelines for Victoria across several areas.

Under the proposed changes:

• Current standards would be changed to:
  • Clarify landscaping objectives to prioritise tree canopy, require landscaped communal open space and encourage landscaping in street frontages
  • Integrate apartment developments with the street through active street fronts.
• New standards would be introduced to:
  • Require all new apartments to have high-quality external walls which feature attractive and durable materials and which are accessible for maintenance
  • Require all apartment buildings of more than four storeys to ensure that wind effects on open spaces and streets are considered and to define comfortable and unsafe wind conditions
  • Require consideration of how construction impacts will be managed.
• The Apartment Design Guidelines would be amended to:
  • Improve guidance about landscaping
  • Ensure that building materials and built form achieve the aforementioned standard in regard to external walls.
  • Clarify when a desktop wind study or wind analysis is likely to be required
  • Include principles for utilities and services
  • Include a suggested permit condition for a construction management plan.

According to the paper, deficiencies in current rules exist across several areas.

Despite current planning rules, landscaping is often an afterthought in planning and building design processes, it said.

Meanwhile, there are few planning provisions outside of central Melbourne to ensure the quality of building facades, many parts of Victoria lack specific planning requirements to manage wind effects, the street interface of some existing apartments can be ugly or unsafe and current standards fail to address construction issues.

The changes follow the introduction of the Apartment Design Guidelines in 2017, which introduced new standards in the internal design of new apartments to make these more liveable and sustainable.

D’Ambrosio says there is there is a need to ensure that street and neighbourhoods are well built as apartment living spreads beyond inner Melbourne.

“As more and more people choose apartment living, we need to ensure these buildings are high-quality and ready for twenty-first century challenges such as climate change and our growing population growth,” D’Ambrosio said.

“Melbourne leads the world in liveability and that should be reflected in our apartments – by increasing green space and wind protection and creating safer, more attractive neighbourhoods.

“Our buildings and public spaces are a defining feature of our city – it’s vital that we get the planning right now to make sure it stays that way.”

Consultation is open until Friday September 27.