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.