Infrastructure Victoria’s 30 year strategy
Infrastructure Victoria has released its draft 30-year strategy for consultation. The report incorporates community feedback from its earlier Options Paper, and contains 134 recommendations to be considered over the short, medium and long term.
We are currently preparing our response to the Draft Strategy paper, with assistance from the Infrastructure, Industrial and Logistics committee. We welcome input from the wider membership, as this will be the last formal submission before the release of the final strategy early next year.
We are pleased to see many of our positions in our previous submission have been incorporated into this report. Importantly, there is wider recognition in the Draft Strategy of the need to integrate land use planning and infrastructure delivery. There is also an acknowledgement by IV that current major Government policy reviews such as Plan Melbourne Refresh must be considered in developing the 30 year strategy.
We were also pleased that our recommendation to include the Western Interstate Freight Terminal (WIFT) has been upgraded from a project that “needs further investigation”, to a recommendation in the strategy. We consider this project integral to Melbourne’s freight and logistics’ future success.
Another win from our previous submission is IV has stepped away from its earlier recommendation of Infrastructure Sequencing in the growth areas. The Property Council believes the current PSP system (while not perfect), is the best way to deliver infrastructure into growth areas.
The Draft 30 Year Strategy is wide-ranging, and will affect the industry on a number of fronts. The top three recommendations are:
-
Increasing densities in established areas to make better use of existing infrastructure. Density in Melbourne is a long-standing challenge. The Property Council commissioned ground-breaking research into community sentiment towards increased density, and strategies to achieve successful development outcomes. We welcome another voice in this debate.
-
Introducing a comprehensive transport pricing regime to manage demands on the network. It is widely accepted that for Victoria to increase economic growth, efficiencies must be found. Transport pricing provides an opportunity to deliver efficiencies to the State. The current congestion levy serves only as a revenue raiser, and should be abandoned.
-
Investing in social and affordable housing for vulnerable Victorians to significantly increase supply. The Property Council is working collaboratively with a number of agencies in this important part of the housing industry.
If you would like to provide input to the submission, contact Linda Allison on 96 8300 or [email protected].
The deadline for submissions is October 31 2016. For more information go to http://yoursay.infrastructurevictoria.com.au