Housing targets falling short in nearly all Victorian council areas
Three-quarters of Melbourne’s councils are on track to fall short of their housing targets by hundreds of thousands of homes, but the councils say the targets are unrealistic and that the construction sector is not keeping up.
One year after the Allan government set individual quotas for councils, new census data analysed by The Age estimates that 24 of 31 local government areas are failing to meet their 2051 targets.
Melbourne is on course to fall 500,000 short of the 2051 target of 1.7 million homes – a trend that could worsen Victoria’s housing crisis and prompt the state government to intervene against struggling councils.
But councils contacted by The Age say they approve the vast majority of building applications, that the construction sector is ultimately responsible for building more homes and that the government’s goals are unrealistic.
Premier Jacinta Allan first announced the goal to bolster Melbourne housing stock by more than 2 million dwellings in June 2024, with individualised quotas for every council area in Victoria. In February, the government scaled back the scheme by nearly 250,000 homes after consulting councils and residents, setting the approval target in metropolitan councils at about 1.7 million.
The state government and housing advocates say it is too early to judge the program, while critics say red tape and taxes on developers are stifling construction.
Whitehorse and Darebin council areas are projected to fall short by more than 50,000 homes by 2051 based on their current building approval rate – the worst of any areas in Greater Melbourne.
Whitehorse is forecast to approve a little more than 20,000 new dwellings by 2051 after approving just 796 new dwellings in the 12 months since the targets were set, meaning it would fall about 55,000 homes short of the government’s target of 76,500 new homes in the shire.
Whitehorse Mayor Andrew Davenport said the council was starting a review of its housing strategy to reach the target – which would double the current housing stock in the area – and that the “increase in dwellings will impact our communities in different ways and may change the needs of the people who live ... in Whitehorse”.
Darebin council is forecast to fall short by 50,644 homes. Chief executive Anne Howard said the council was committed to vastly increasing the number of homes in the area but was limited by the construction sector.
Based on their current building approval rate, Glen Eira, Monash, Brimbank, Greater Dandenong, Kingston, Boroondara and Maroondah councils are all on track to miss their targets by between 30,000 and 50,000 new homes.
Glen Eira’s director of planning and place Rosa Zouzoulas said the government’s goal to reach 63,500 new dwellings was unachievable, but the council was also approving the vast majority of dwelling applications.
Similarly, representatives from Monash, Boroondara and Greater Dandenong councils said they approved most applications for new homes but were hamstrung by the number of applications submitted to them.
Maroondah Mayor Kylie Spears said she was confident the council would achieve the target.
Planning Minister Sonia Kilkenny said the government would crack down on councils not committed to approving more dwellings.
“We have set out clear housing targets in every local government area to deliver over the next 30 years, and we will hold councils accountable with explicit directions to change planning schemes if they are not serious about delivering more homes for Victorians,” Kilkenny said.
In 2024, the state government warned it would consider stripping councils of their planning powers if they failed to achieve the finalised targets.
The Property Council, the lobby group for developers, said that while councils played a large role in housing supply, all levels of government needed to take responsibility.
“It’s clear that the pace of housing approvals is far too slow across many parts of Victoria … solving the housing crisis will take a whole-of-system effort,” said the group’s Victorian executive director Cath Evans.
“Delays in local planning approvals, resistance to density, and excessive red tape are slowing down delivery at a time when we should be accelerating. We can’t solve the housing crisis if shovel-ready projects are stuck in limbo.”
‘I think ambitious targets are really good. I think, like, no one was expecting the targets to be hit this year.’
YIMBY’s Johnathan O’Brien
Opposition housing spokesperson Richard Riordan was not surprised by the low rate of approvals, and “while we continue down this path, we will continue not to build the homes that we need”, he said.
But Jonathan O’Brien, lead of pro-housing lobby group YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) Melbourne, said it was not time for alarm over the sluggish figures yet. More time and data were needed to determine whether the goals would be met, he said.
“I think ambitious targets are really good. I think ... no one was expecting the targets to be hit this year,” O’Brien said.
Regulatory changes to speed up the delivery of new homes were still coming into effect, he said, meaning approvals and housing stock were likely to increase.“So I wouldn’t look at this year as tea leaves.”
Of the seven councils on track to exceed their targets, six of them – Melton, Wyndham, Hume, Whittlesea, Casey and Cardinia – sit on Melbourne’s urban fringe and have large tracts of vacant land available for development. These councils mainly approved new, stand-alone homes.
Melton approved 4545 new homes in the 12 months since the government’s announcement, meaning it is well on track to reach its target of 109,000 new dwellings by 2051, the second-largest goal behind the City of Melbourne.
Bayside is the only council not on Melbourne’s fringe that is on track to hit its goal of 30,000 new homes, after approving 1474 new dwellings, 1300 of which were apartments and units. Last year residents of Bayside suburb Brighton protested after it was zoned for fast-track development by the state government.
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