The historical development of the provision of certainty in Melbourne metropolitan planning

The city of Melbourne, Victoria, consistently ranks amongst the world's most liveable. For nearly a century, the city has embraced metropolitan planning strategic planning conducted at the metropolitan-scale as one of the main processes by which improvements to its prized liveability can be made. However, in so doing, metropolitan planning may also serve another purpose. It may be used to provide assurances with respect to the development of property. While this notion has been termed certainty, it remains ill-explored in academic planning literature. Importantly, certainty has today become a significant preoccupation within Melbourne metropolitan planning. For the past two decades, the city's guiding metropolitan planning documents have increasingly stressed the importance of their actions in providing certainty. Unfortunately, no one has been able to explain how or why Melbourne metropolitan planning currently finds itself in such a situation. Applying an innovative historiographical approach informed by genealogical concepts, this thesis aims to address this gap by exploring the notion of certainty and tracing the historical development of its provision in Melbourne metropolitan planning. With respect to the former, it finds that certainty is provided through the use of statutory planning controls, which in Victoria are located predominantly within planning schemes. With respect to the latter, the thesis identifies, across three discontinuous phases, two different ways of thinking with respect to the provision of certainty in Melbourne metropolitan planning. It was only in the second phase, the 1950s to the mid-1980s, that Melbourne's metropolitan plans - distinct from strategies - actually provided certainty, as during this phase the plans were implemented directly through a metropolitan planning scheme. The first and third phases, the 1900s to the 1940s and the late-1980s to the 2000s, respectively, did not provide certainty, as during these phases the metropolitan strategies - distinct from plans - relied on their transposition into local planning schemes to be implemented. Interestingly, despite rhetoric to the contrary, the more recent Melbourne metropolitan planning documents do not actually provide certainty. The thesis contends that a variety of planning, economic and political factors are responsible for these shifts. It concludes with critical reflections and insights into the metropolitan planning process

Metropolitan Planning Organizations as a Vehicle for Regional Housing Planning

There are myriad factors contributing to the national housing shortage. However, localities and their approaches to housing development have played a significant role in the current crisis. This is partially because of the nature and structure of local control but localities’ decisions related to fiscal policy, land use planning, and zoning have in many cases, limited housing development in places where it is most needed. Expanding regional planning authority offers an avenue to ameliorate many of these issues. Importantly, there is already a regional planning authority well positioned to perform this work – Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs). Though MPOs have been historically siloed in transportation planning, some MPOs have recognized the need for broader regional planning and have begun to perform housing planning as well. The MPOs for the Twin Cities metro area and the Portland, Oregon metro area are often cited as examples of MPOs that have successfully evolved into multipurpose governments with regional housing planning (and have been exhaustively studied). However, a second wave of MPOs has begun interventions in regional housing planning. This case study analysis uses interviews to evaluate the second generation of MPOs with expanded powers in regional housing planning – with an analysis of their varied approaches.Master of City and Regional Plannin

Metropolitan planning in the Calgary region: A case study of farmland protection in the Municipal District of Foothills

Following a protracted attempt at voluntary metropolitan planning in the Calgary region, that was characterized by ongoing rural-urban tensions, in 2017, the Government of Alberta mandated seven urban and three rural municipalities to participate on the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) to develop a regional growth strategy. The purpose of this research was to inform metropolitan planning that protects farmland within the context of the CMRB mandate. Using the Municipal District of Foothills, a rural municipality with membership on the CMRB, to focus the research, the local legislative framework for farmland protection was evaluated and land use priorities were identified. Farmland was found to be at risk of conversion and fragmentation to support commercial, industrial, and residential development, and urban growth as a result of deficiencies in the legislative framework that allowed conversion. Based on these findings, it was recommended that Calgary metropolitan planning include policies that enable farmland protection.metropolitan planningcalgaryrural-urban tensionGovernment of AlbertaCMRBMunicipal District Foothill

Inventing Grand Paris : metropolitan planning history and its valorization

International audienc