_Action Plan: Green Wedges and Farming

The Department of Transport and Planning (DTP), Victoria has released recently its ‘action plan’ for the protection of agricultural lands in the green wedges of Melbourne and especially within 100 kilometres of its existing urban growth boundary. 

The area is quoted as providing 41 per cent of the Melbourne food needs and 80 per cent of its vegetables. 

The action plan stems from the need to address the growing urbanisation pressures on these food-production areas, which are in such close proximity to markets and consumers.  The spinoff benefit of protecting these farming areas is that they provide the ‘lungs of Melbourne’. 

The action plan follows workshops and other consultation with stakeholders, from about 2020. 

Housing supply and affordability is noted in the plan as another important need but the action plan states that meeting housing demand does not come at the expense of losing farming / green wedge lands. 

There are twenty published actions under the plan, grouped under six themes summarised as protecting the food bowl; planning for future farming; securing the right to farm; stronger protections; smarter land use; and tighter controls. 

Some of the twenty actions include, for example:

  • action 1 – introducing a new planning schemes overlay to protect key irrigated food production areas of Werribee and Bacchus Marsh;
  • action 7 – strengthening the ‘right to farm’;
  • action 10 – updating the ‘Preparing a Green Wedge Management Plan’ Practice Note 31;
  • action 11 – preparing a new practice note on treatment of urban-rural interface areas;
  • action 13 – introduce new controls for discretionary uses in green wedge zones;
  • action 18 – strengthen the link between host farm host farm accommodation and operating agricultural properties. 

The twenty actions are given implementation timelines of ‘short’ and ‘medium’, noted as within twelve months and three years respectively, of the action plan publication (undated but updated (from an earlier version released in March 2023) and released on 16 March 2024 as “Action Plan 2024”). 

Collie will watch out with interest for more details as planning scheme amendments are proposed.