City of Boroondara is calling for an immediate pause to the State Government's Development Facilitation Program (DFP), following a unanimous decision by councillors at the 17 August Council Meeting. The DFP is a fast track pathway bypassing Council in planning decisions and is not leading to good planning outcomes.
Council supports housing supply and enabling well-designed development in appropriate locations. However, we have significant concerns about the how the DFP is operating.
The program, which commenced in 2020 and was significantly expanded in September 2023, creates additional pathways for planning applications to be approved by the Minister for Planning, rather than councils.
While the program intends to speed up housing approvals, it enables important local planning controls to be bypassed and reduces the opportunity for meaningful input from both community and councils.
The list of concerns that we have with the DFP process include:
- Approving building heights that exceed recently introduced built form planning controls and ignoring other planning requirements
- Making limited or no changes to proposals when concerns are raised by Council or the community
- Removing Council and resident appeal rights at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal
- Deferring key issues to later approval processes
- Reducing transparency through confidentiality requirements and closed door decision making
- Shifting significant costs to councils.
These concerns are shared by many other councils.
We believe that we remain best placed to act as the responsible authority for significant development applications in Boroondara. This ensures applications are assessed with local knowledge, balanced consideration of planning issues, transparent decision-making and genuine community involvement.
To date, 11 applications have been lodged in the municipality through the DFP. These applications are referred to Council for formal advice, but the timeframes for assessment are often too short to allow for thorough review or timely community awareness before matters are considered by Council's Urban Planning Delegated Committee.
Council officers invest considerable time and expertise in assessing these applications, yet concerns and recommended changes raised by Council and community members are, in most cases, not reflected in the final outcomes. In fact, all 269 applications lodged with the DFP across the State have been approved. This risks decisions being made without sufficient regard to local context, site-specific constraints and the standards expected by the Boroondara community.
Cost shifting is also a major concern. The State Government receives the application fee, while Council carries the significant cost of reviewing material, responding to information requests and preparing formal advice.
Across eight applications referred to and assessed by Council in the 2025/26 financial year, the estimated cost-shift impact was $783,856. Council expects this burden to increase as use of the program grows.
Council is seeking an immediate pause to the DFP so these issues can be reviewed. Any pathway for faster housing approvals must still uphold robust planning assessment, transparent decision-making, fair cost recovery and meaningful involvement from local communities.
