The Waverley golf course site in Rowville could take 500 to 700 homes, but the plan has stalled almost a decade inside the edge of the Urban Growth Boundary, last extended in 2012. Intrapac's Max Shifman said the suburb, under 25 kilometres from the city, was not unsustainable sprawl.
As I told The Age: “Most people assume the urban growth boundary is around the very outskirts of Melbourne. That's actually not the case,”
I also said: “In the case of Waverley [golf course] in Rowville, you're less than 25 kilometres from the city. You've got all the infrastructure, you've got all the amenities, you've got an existing population. That is a very different prospect to rezoning land that's much further out.”
And I added: “If they were serious about unlocking more affordable housing supply for people, this would be exactly the sort of thing that they'd be looking at,”
I went on to say: “But instead, they're too focused on unlocking activity centres in areas where the housing will be far too expensive for young people to buy.”
The Age, 23 September 2025 — Read the full article