Media response - Planning approvals

Published on 11 August 2025

Enquiry from The Age

I'm working on a story about the new dwelling approvals for each LGA in the past 12 months.

It's been 12 months since the state government announced the 2051 housing targets for each LGA in Victoria and data released today by the ABS has given an early indication of which councils are on track to meet the goals based on their current approval rates.

The state government set Monash with the goal of making room for 69,000 new dwellings by 2051. But in the 12 months since that announcement just 869 new dwellings were approved in Monash , according to ABS data.

If the current approval rate continued, it would result in only 22,594 new homes by 2051, falling short of the target by 46,906  homes.

I'm looking for a statement on:

• If the council believes it can reach the 2051 target?
• What is it doing to reach the target?
• And why have only 571 new dwellings been approved in the past 12 months in Monash?  

Response

Our planning scheme has capacity for significantly more homes, primarily in our activity centres, but we can only consider the applications that we receive.

We issue more permits every year for new dwellings than are constructed - 941 new additional dwellings were approved in the last 12 months, compared with 571 dwellings constructed.

Achieving the Victorian Government’s target of an additional 69,500 dwellings in Monash by 2051 would require 2,673 new dwellings to be constructed every year. Over the last five years, an average of 1,167 new dwellings per year have been constructed in Monash.

We look forward to working with the Victorian Government to better understand how they plan to achieve these goals in partnership with councils and housing industry, and with genuine local community input.

Issued: 8 August

To: The Age

Quoting: Acting Mayor Brian Little